For some time now, our major pro bono client here at inmedia has been the Ottawa-based charity Help Lesotho. Although we originally became aware of this group because of my personal connection to Lesotho, where I spent five highly formative pre-teen years, we have stuck with the organization because we are in awe of the dedication and passion of its volunteers and supporters and, most of all, of the clear impact they are having every day on the lives and futures of the young people of Lesotho with whom they work.
Help Lesotho has just released a new video that documents this impact in the words and life experiences of a few of its young leaders and others. Lesotho’s situation is complex and often seems overwhelming and even irredeemable. But the voices you will hear in this video are testament to the human spirit, to the audacity of hope, as U.S. presidential aspirant Barrack Obama has put it, and to the tenacity of Help Lesotho and the young people who benefit from its programming. One life at a time, one group of young people at a time, one school at a time, new skills and leadership are being developed. It is in this way that a person, a group, a village and, eventually, an entire nation, will heal and grow.
Ottawa technology entrepreneurs were reminded again this morning that India is the world’s second-fastest growing market encompassing 1.1 billion consumers, 300 million of them middle class and about 500 million of them under 25, and that with a confluence of manpower, money and a can-d0 attitude, it’s a market most technology companies will want to consider.
At the same time, Peter Sommerer, a veteran of Ottawa’s telecom sector who now advises companies on how to do business on the sub-continent, warned that there are still many challenges associated with chasing that opportunity. Quoting his former boss and current investment partner Terry Matthews, Sommerer said, “If it wasn’t easy, everyone would be doing it.”
Sommerer, who heads up consulting firm Erlauf Holding, was speaking to the regular Dollars and Sense CFO’s forum along with Raj Narula, co-founder of TaraSpan Group, which also helps companies explore business opportunities in India. The two also presented what they called a platform that has been developed by TaraSpan and Matthews’s private investment company, Wesley Clover, that technology companies can use to expedite their entry into the Indian market.
There’s an ongoing debate in my household, where both adults work in technology marketing, about whether I’m a geek or not. I maintain that since I don’t build technology, I merely enthusiastically embrace it, this makes me an early adopter rather than a geek. (In fact, I recently ordered the vanity license plate RLYDOPTR to trumpet my self-proclaimed reputation.) Also, I don’t play video games, I’ve never had a Second Life and I own less than a handful of little plastic figurines, all of them Tintin characters that are more souvenir of a trip to Paris than symbol of any kind of protracted adolescence.
But even as an early adopter, I embrace only the technology that I believe constitutes a genuine advance over what I’m using now. So it was that when my wife and I were in New York last October, she nearly had to physically restrain me from buying an iPhone when we visited the Apple store in Soho. At the time, there was no way I could use the phone here in Canada, but I so badly wanted one of the sleek, multipurpose devices that were taking the market by storm.
In mid-January, I got my way. I bought a hacked iPhone on eBay and was so delighted by its performance that several weeks ago, I decided to make it the standard mobile device for all inmedianauts. We’re a cool and forward-looking technology PR agency, right? So we should have some of the coolest toys. Last week, everyone else in the agency received their iPhones.
And productivity immediately plummeted.
Actually, I’m mainly joking about that. But there is so much that can be done with an iPhone, and so much fun to be had, what with Apple’s web-apps and countless third-party applications already available notwithstanding the software development kit was released only recently, that hours could be idled away enjoying it all.
A few observations, then, from our early experience.
First, and most important, being a Canadian wireless telephony customer sucks. Big time. Not only is Canada lagging nearly every other western market in having this new device available on a domestic network and so forcing us to pay a premium for a hacked one, the cost of deploying a data-intensive device here in Canada is obscene. Danny, our Glasgow-based colleague, blithely walked into an O2 store and picked up his phone for about half what we paid for ours. More to the point, though, he signed up for a monthly plan that gives him 500 minutes of talk, 600 text messages and unlimited data for a mere £35. That’s less than C$70 at today’s exchange rate. Meanwhile, we Canadian members of the inmedia team share a monthly wireless bill that usually runs well north of $400, and often tops $600.
Perhaps the current auction of new wireless spectrum in Canada will inject some badly needed competition into this disgrace. I can’t wait.
My second observation has to do with the device itself. The iPhone, simply put, is a joy to use, with an incredible user interface. It is not, however, business ready. Although key applications like voice, email and web work wonderfully, the device does not allow me to manipulate documents. I can download and clearly read any type of attachment, including documents, spreadsheets and PDFs, but I can’t work on them. I loved my Treo, which I had loaded with enterprise-grade software that meant I could travel and often leave my laptop behind, confident in the knowledge that I could do any quick job on the Treo that might be required of me.
Interestingly, on the same day last week, Apple announced more robust security so the iPhone would appeal more to corporate users while RIM, makers of that ultimate corporate tool the Blackberry, announced a partnership with a hip hop site to polish its street cred.
I fully expect the release of the iPhone’s SDK will soon usher in third-party, enterprise-grade applications, like Desktop To Go that I used on my Treo, that will fulfill my business needs.
In the meantime, productivity around here has mostly recovered. But the fun continues.
A developer who hopes his new building will soon be certified as the most environmentally benign mixed-use building in North America told an Ottawa audience yesterday afternoon that achieving the most exacting green building standards in the construction industry was “actually not all that difficult.” And, he added, if similar practices were adopted across the construction industry, it would mean a reduction in the emission of climate-changing greenhouse-gas emissions equivalent to the entire output of the transportation sector.
Jonathan Westeinde, managing partner of Windmill Development Group, was speaking at the Ottawa Cleantech Initiative’s Green Building Showcase held yesterday at the Irving Greenburg Theatre Centre, part of a mixed-use complex his company built that also includes 43 condominium apartments. Built on a remediated brownfield property that used to house less-than-benign automobile-related industries, the complex has been submitted for certification under the Canada Green Building Council’s LEED Green Building Rating System that certifies higher energy and environmental performance of buildings and communities. Even if the building fails to achieve the highest platinum rating, something Westeinde said it was within a few points of hitting, it should still qualify as the highest-rated LEED mixed-use building in North America.
Getting there required “nothing bleeding edge” in terms of technology, he said. More time had to be spent planning the job, sourcing materials and allowing for such things as the longer curing time required for the high fly-ash concrete the developer chose for the lower GHG emissions it produces during its manufacture. The well-established technologies, approaches and products used in the building include a passive solar heat wall on the building’s deliberately southwest-facing facade that contributes fully five percent of the building’s heating requirement, a system that captures and recycles stormwater and required an amendment to municipal rules to implement, dual-flush toilets, compact fluorescent bulbs and natural lighting, and a range of products, many of which required Windmill to “redo our whole supply chain,” that emit no or little volatile organic compounds.
Westeinde maintained the building cost no more than a conventional approach, something confirmed by LEED Canada’s Anne Auger who earlier told the session that achieving the lowest level of LEED certification adds less than two percent to construction costs, something that can be recouped in less than two years. Achieving higher certifications may cost more, but the return on that higher investment is still measured in a time frame that makes eminent sense for developers and building owners.
The impact of Canada’s built environment on greenhouse gas emissions is massive, with our homes, buildings and infrastructure contributing more of the climate-changing gasses than any other sector of the economy. “We can achieve 1990 (emission) levels or even carbon-neutral levels,” Westeinde insisted. “If we start doing everything that this building represents … the savings (in carbon emissions) that could be realized in the construction industry are equal to the entire emissions of the transportation sector today.”
itWorld Canada leads its morning news bulletin this morning with a story about a new initiative at technology-focused University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada — a so-called “dormcubator” that will see one of the school’s residences retooled to accommodate 70 students who, it is hoped, will collaborate on new ventures in web, mobile and digital media applications.
Many of the business people quoted in the story applaud the innovative move but caution that it will fail if the proper real-world mentorship is not offered along with the physical infrastructure. It’s a key observation that too many Canadian technology ventures, while brilliant in the development department, are inadequate in the management department.
I am encouraged that the new residence, which will be completed over the summer and begin its programming with the beginning of the new school year in September, has already accepted applicants from the arts, business and other non-technical disciplines. It takes more than just a brilliant idea to create a successful new company.
We’ll keep an eye on this initiative and let our readers know how it’s working.
