Techistan Publication

Neumind Builds Creativity and Leadership Skills Among Children

suzanne — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:48:51 +0000

Neumind’s founder EeBee Gan was raised around thousands of young international travelers where her parents ran a Singapore hostel. She learned to enjoy and embrace the best ideas from different cultures and to see the learning experience in a way not so traditional.

Having had a colourful and memorable childhood, Ms Gan Ee Bee knew authentic education involved more than rote learning. Children needed an education that was effective, multi-faceted and would prepare them for the changing world. She set out to expand on some of the best practices in early childhood and elementary education, and participated in programs under Dr Kurt W. Fischer and Howard Gardner, Bigelow Professors at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She was mentored as a Mind Brain Education researcher, with majors in educational leadership and brain science research methodology.

Neumind offers areas for unstructured play, exploration, activity and reflection. Meeting spaces abound, used for both planned and chance interactions that typify the collaborative Neumind experience. Learning spaces reflect an international educational and aesthetic standard, and are flexible to accommodate the different activities at Neumind. The environment promotes engagement and learning in small group instruction, formal lectures, large group read-alouds or multimedia presentations.

EeBee Gan and the program are looking to expand with non-profit initiatives and open source online education platforms to connect with. Please contact EeBee on Facebook for collaborations.

Listen and read our discussion with EeBee about Neumind on podcast.

Transcript follows:

Suzanne Bowen: I’m your host Suzanne Bowen, and today we have with us EeBee Gan. She’s in Singapore. I met her in 2009 at the Women’s Entrepeneur Launch, the Women’s Entrepenuer Power Conference, put on by Andrew Wong and others. We met when we were sharing a table during the lunch buffet. I had a really great time talking with her. She was very out going and excited about her entrepreneurial activities. I’m happy to share with you a new friend, EeeBee Gan. EeeBee would you tell us a little more about yourself?

EeBee Gan: Yeah, sure. Basically when I was young, much younger, my parents ran a YMCA Youth Hostel in a seaside bungalow. So I was exposed to various cultures and languages from all over the world. I keep myself busy meeting new friends, and get to know many friends and I started doing some self study myself. I learned English from tourists and built my confidence and learned about positive thinking skills. So I learned new ways by working on my strengths. So I guess these are the experiences I have been through when I was much younger.

Suzanne Bowen: So even from a young age you’re… what would you call it? … a self starter. Internally, intrinsically motivated, that’s great! So, EeBee, what happened from there? You were telling me a little bit about your career. Love to hear about it.

EeBee Gan: Ok, sure. Back in 1998 after my graduation, I started my career, an auditing and accounting job. It lasted about three years. And I start exploring the things that I would really like to do. So I found myself reflecting on how to best prepare children for changing the future. And building on the research of many educational pioneers and leading thinkers in Harvard University. I set out to spend some of the impressive and proven practices from early childhood and elementary education research.

Suzanne Bowen: That’s a big change from accounting to education but it sounds pretty exciting what you’re involved in. I would love to hear more.

Eebee Gan: I tried to build the educational vision and it emerged quickly beyond the boundaries of my own career and developed into what is now Neumind. So basically I run courses, short term courses or even enrichment classes. We would like to incorporate multiple disciplines and lessons of nurturing creativity and leadership in each child. So I try to work together with some researchers and actively engage in learning and help to motivate the younger kids in local context.

Now, the parents are very much having high expectations of the kids and are very much results-oriented. So we would like to bring new values with combined wisdom from our mentors for the families and the larger community.

Suzanne Bowen: So speaking of mentors, would you share with us some of the people in your life who have been great influence/inspiration for you, who have been your mentors.

Eebee Gan: I’ve been meeting many friends and some of them successful entrepreneurs and I think the most important values I’ve learned from them are to keep trying and never give up. This is what I’ve been doing for 27 years. So it’s like a struggle and I think entrepreneurship is a way of life. It is how I want to live my life to take the lead and to create something new and better.

Previously Neumind was known as BHR (Brain Hemisphere Research. Basically we have gone through a re-branding exercises. This is a project funded by Spring Singapore. We spent about 9 months coming up with a new corporate communication design and even for a new brand name, and it represents increased neuron activities in our brain. Something different.

I would like to say more about Neumind, how we derived this concept. I would say parents are looking forward to providing the kids with the best quality education activities for the children. We try to build a brand name that helps parents to meet their ends and of course Neumind teaching methods are formed by My Brain Education. I’ve been attending the summer institute at Harvard University developed by Dr. Kirk Fisher and Holgeiner from Harvard.

My brand education findings provide us with understanding that when it came to best performance, there is a record jump in performance at about 4 years, 7 years, 11 years, in 15 years and 20 years under the optimal learning conditions. In the market you would find many programs that emphasize a lot on age 0 to age 3. The new upcoming research findings would tell us more that we can actually achieve rapid jumps in performance at other ages.

Suzanne Bowen: Wow Eebee, something you just said made me think back to my own childhood. I told my husband the other day, when I think back on my years of formal schooling, from age 6 to about age 22, the 2 years I remember learning the most, when I loved school the most I were during ages 8 to 9 years old.

After that I feel I didn’t learn much in school. You’re making some good points. Sounds like a really exciting, revolutionary approach. I understand parents do have high expectations.

So you are definitely looking for the best research, developing the coursework from there at the same time. For example. you mentioned awhile ago multiple intelligences. Tell me a little bit about that, how you’re integrating that into the program.

Eebee Gan: Basically, it’s a learning approach or I would say it’s a teaching approach, that the parents can implement at home, and we try to communicate very frequently with the parents. And of course with good teachers, teaching, training, sessions, the teachers get to know about multiple intelligences and how to help the parents to identify the kids’ strengths. We can actually, incorporate multiple intelligences of framework into many diverse disciplines. You could be in language arts program and be better able to enhance the brain growth cycle ability.

We can integrate some interactive activities in the classroom setting so we may find the keys. They’re not solely learning a language arts, but they are exposed to many diverse disciplines. It could be implementing or even getting the parents and teachers to understand the importance of cognitive science or informational neural science into the classroom practice. So I would say it helps the parents to provide students superior learning in compliance with brain’s dominating areas.

Suzanne Bowen: Okay, again I’m going to go back to my own experience because really good speakers make that happen. You’re doing a great job. You made me think of when I was a teacher. I was really intrigued with the multiple intelligence theory. Multiple intelligences, because for example even though I know I am an auditory learner, I like to listen and then I learn a lot by listening…

But I realize that not everyone is like that. And the way school is traditionally, the student in order to succeed has to be an auditory learner. Tey have to be willing to sit there and listen and take notes, that kind of thing right? But they could learn so much more.

I remember teaching an international foriegn language class and the way I exposed them to like Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, German, different languages was we danced and sang our way through them.

I found children’s songs that they were all ready familiar with that were English songs that were translated into different languages. So we would learn to sing the songs in other languages. So it was easy for them to do and they were having fun. It felt natural, it appealed to an intelligence area they were very comfortable with.

Even now I meet those kids, they’re now adults. One kid was in the Marines. He went to Japan and he said, “Wow, I actually met a lot of, made a lot of great friends. especially the girls. Because I sang to them in Japanese and I made them laugh”.

I just love to hear this creative approach to education. It’s life changing and it’s lasting and it will get more results that the parents are looking for than the traditional… “you will listen to mel you will take notes and you will take the tests.”

It’s been so wonderful to get back in touch with you. I was wondering if we might close this interview with maybe you could share with us any particular success you’ve had, that you feel you’ve had within this Neumind or maybe a challenge that you’ve overcome during the process and then also how can the listeners get in touch with you?

EeBee Gan: Basically, you can visit our website www.neumind.org and you can actually log into Facebook and find Neumind.

I would like to share more. We try to educate the parents, getting them to understand that they can actually set long term targets for their kids. And we try to implement or incorporate leadership skills by creating individuals who significantly affect the thoughts, feelings, behaviors of others and would like to motivate the students to learn and grow in achieving peak performance, but it would be in the long term basis.

Suzanne Bowen: Ok, EeBee, one of the things that we as entrepreneurs (female entrepreneurs) are obligated to is to share a little advice to the younger ladies who are listening. So I was wondering if you have any advice for those female entrepreneurial thinkers out there.

EeBee Gan: I would say keep trying and never give up. And of course they can actually seek some guidance or even mentorship from currently successful entrepreneurs and they can actually kick start ideas or simple ideas by setting up small businesses. They need not have many experiences. They can actually gain experiences through the project they are going to create.

Suzanne Bowen: Thank you Eebee, and as Eebee mentioned you can look up NEUMIND by searching on the net. The program is available on Facebook and on their website. So I just want to thank you EeBee and until we meet again, I wish you the best in life and just keep on being that great influence on the children and the parents and like you said, you’re affecting the future in a very positive way.

EeBee Gan: Thank you, and you are welcome.

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Mind to Market Among Pakistan, India, and the World

suzanne — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:44:33 +0000

Dr. Anil Gupta of Sristi.org and Honey Bee Networks shares in interview his belief in the knowledge and talent of those who many wish to shun. He also discusses his wish for more social and entrepreneurial collaborations between Pakistan and India. He was recently named, along with six others, to the National Innovation Council of India by the Prime Minister Manmohan SINGH. The benevolence of the knowledge providers, often “common people,” becomes the source of their impoverishment. Mr. Gupta and others wanted to end this ethical and professional crisis.

Honey Bee is a metaphor indicating ethical as well as professional values, which most of us seldom practice. A honey bee does two things that we intellectuals, often don’t do. It collects pollen from the flowers and flowers don’t complain. It connects flower to flower through pollination. Similarly our innovative and ethical approach to knowledge extraction, our sincere attempt to build up people to people communication and our commitment to let reasonable benefit be shared with the knowledge holders, qualifies us to identify ourselves with the great metaphor of Honey Bee. Enter Honey Bee Networks. Readers are encouraged to start their own.

Podcast 2 of 3 …

Anil Gupta: The lesson from this exercise is that if any government, any institution would like create a similar network which we hope they would. They shouldn’t wait for innovators to come to them. Most innovators in rural don’t read newspapers. They might watch a little news.

They would rather do whatever it takes to get on with their lives. Basically, they see a problem, solve it with an “innovation,” and move on. They are not seeking out recognition and appreciation.

The universities and networks need to search for innovations. That is how we found Mr. Saidullah. He’s a 70+ year old person selling honey in a small town in India. He’s a great poet also. Go to Youtube for India Innovators. You will find his video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REx9rMDbqRgof his amphibious cyle. It works on the water and on the road.

In an extraordinary moving and motivating narration in 35 seconds, that it creates a miracle. He tells the story of his wife Noor inspired him to design the cycle. He earned a lifetime achievement award.

The tragedy, however, is his life did not change a great deal. He got a small amount of money, but that doesn’t help much unless there is a market for the cycle.

A lot of Indians are very saddened by the losses and suffering of Pakistanis during the recent flooding. This cycle could come to help. It can go where boats cannot go. This feature can be retrofitted on existing cycles. Just look at his design and fabricate it from the start right there in Pakistan. Start distributing this package. We believe this is a great solution he developed.

There is another person, Mr. Ephraim of class III in a less developed area of India. He grew up to develope a cycle with a different design. He also developed water walking shoes by which a person can walk on water. These are simple ideas. No one has developed them.

I begin with these examples because I am conscious of the pain and suffering that a lot of our friends in Pakistan are dealing with in the recent floods. The ideas we have are open access.

We do not want to charge a license fee to people who are in need of it. It does not require great genius to fabricate. Anyone can do that.

There is an innovator Birendra Kumar Sinh who developed a pollution-control device, a diesel engine silencer.

All of us know that power supply is very difficult in many countries. A generator makes a lot of noise also and is part of excessive emission of carbon particles. The device is able to capture a kilogram of carbon every month. Why did he do it? Because a local school was opposing his workshop. Children were getting disturbed. The school could not be moved away. So, he invented a solution for many reasons but especially, so the children would not get smoke from his shop in their eyes nor be bothered by the noise.

Sometimes innovators create ideas because they want to solve somebody else’s problem such as this last one.

There is another person in the same city, named ?, who is a roadside mechanic. He got an idea. A lot of people who sell tea on the shacks have a small stove, box, and water to make and sell tea. Poor people selling tea to other poor people. They try to make a few rupees per day. So he converted a pressure cooker in a coffee making machine. The steam from the pressure cooker could be used to make espresso coffee. Now, he has expanded his market. With few hundred rupees, one can turn a pressure cooker into a coffee machine. This tea shop owner is getting more income now, more customers who want tea, but also coffee… at what cost? A few hundred rupees.

We are happy to share this knowledge with tea shop owners in Karachi, in Lahore. The industrial coffee machines are very costly and use much power. With this simple innovation, anyone can become self-employed. The more employment we can create, the less crime we will have. The less conflict we will have. More peace will follow.

The model we are trying to talk about is the model of peace, democracy and higher learning. A model that makes people feel more useful. In my Tech Talk, I included a critique of Maslov’s theory. He does not know anything about the way people in South Asia … in the tropical areas … would live. There are a lot of people who do not have enough food. They still try to achieve.

It is not true that we must meet the lower order needs before we start enlightenment. People can search for enlightenment at any level.

Recently we went to Maharashtra, in the central region of India where Maoists (leftists) are waging a war against the country. Many killings. They use violence which we don’t endorse, but in other words, they are drawing attention to themselves. In the neighboring countries such as Afghanistan, you have rivalry tribes. These type of people have not profited from the recent economic developments in the area such as in Pakistan and India.

They still have aspirations for their lives. They have access to television. The infrastructure in both regions is very bad.

Next, we find a hand pump, that when you press it down, it makes the iron face the pump. In the country, they resolved the problem. No where else had we seen this. They tie a tire through the hand pump, so the handle does not go through and down below. Now, it won’t hurt the hands of the person using the pump. Simple ideas. Simple solutions.

We have walked over 4000 K in North, Central and South India. We have seen the same problem all over the country, but the solution came in one of the most violence-prone areas of India, where the people appear to backwards, they are also economically disadvantaged. They have creativity and curiosity that is second to none.

There is no part of our country that we have not found innovation. In Kashmir, a young boy of 17 or 18 developed a tree climber. They even developed a walnut-cracking machine. Normally, walnuts in Pakistan and India are cracked manually. Now, with this machine it is possible mechanically.

I must say there is no part of our country Kashmir, NorthEast, Central, etc. everywhere we have come across fantastic innovators who have solved their problems and rediscovered their lives, thanks to our Honey Bee Network volunteers.

We ask our students to look for crazy people around them during their summer vacation and during holidays.

Suzanne Bowen: Of course,

Anil Gupta: There are a lot of young people here. Teachers tell them go around your houses and look for the people who are restless. People who do not accept things the way they are. Those are the innovators we are looking for.

Podcast 3 of 3 …

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Suzanne Bowen: Welcome to the DIDX and Techistan podcast media channel, while we bring you the extra tease of interesting people around the world. I’m your host Suzanne Bowen and today we have with us Dr. Anil Gupta. He’s a professor at the Indian Institute of Management, he founded the Honey Bee Network. He was recently announced by the Prime Minister of India, two days ago, as a member of the National Innovation Council.

Dr. Anil Gupta: Council.

Suzanne Bowen: “Council” … and he’s with sristi.org and a program called GIAN, which is an incubator program. We’re really happy to have Anil with us. Thank you from Pensacola, Florida to your area in India so….

>Dr. Anil Gupta: Thank you, Suzanne.

Suzanne Bowen: We’ve been studying your website, and I noticed that you’re heavily involved in….you see the the enormous economical possibilities from the knowledge of people who are economically poor. They’re full of talent, they’re intelligent, they’re extremely entrepreneurial in attitude, but they need a little help. Tell us little bit about Honey Bee Network.

Dr. Anil Gupta: Yes, there are several reasons why Honey Bee Network is coming to be more than twenty years ago and rather major reason was that…when you are being made to feel like outsiders, who will document the knowledge of these people? The knowledge may be about plants, knowledge maybe about diseases, for which they may have herbal drugs, knowledge maybe about a machine that people may have developed. Huh.. the food processing machine or knowledge maybe about a vehicle or a cycle that they have developed. It runs on the road and also in the waters, as Mr. Saeedulla did, in Mothihari.

But often when these were recorded, the inventors were never.. generally never credited. People were anonymous, but now … the chronicles, with their words and thoughts documented, they become authors… and then each has the opportunity to earn income and get out of their current barely surviving consequences.It occurred to me that those who write about social justice, who write about fairness in society, who believe that people should get equal opportunities, sometimes may be doing an injustice themselves by not acknowledging the creativity in the innovative mass of the common people.

Second thing I noticed was that, much of the world’s knowledge through mid-80s was in the English language only. Common people of India and Pakistan do not necessarily understand English. They may understand Urdu. They may understand Hindi or Punjabi or any other language and the question then is, that if you don’t show what you’ve learned from time in the language that they understand, then it will never go back to them.

So the result is one, you don’t acknowledge them. Next, you take their knowledge and share it only among your professional colleagues, so people who don’t know have easy access to the knowledge, do not get a chance to study it, to partake of it, to improve it, to benefit from it.

Third thing was that… you were not connecting them, you were not cross polluting the ideas. People in one part of the world did not have the chance to learn from the other part. That’s the reason why I so much appreciate the initiative to teach me how they them how they taught us because you give them a chance. This is what we have learned over the past few decades in India, in terms of and in defining potential of common people.

You will find these same kind of people and maybe even more creative in Pakistan. There is no reason why the cultures … together in different parts of the world can’t get over the difficulties. This means for a part because there are difficulties we have to overcome, we wanted a platform where people can learn from each other. It is a network of platforms which that should acknowledge the knowledge of people in the local language.

When we document the knowledge, when we file it for them, when we license it, the benefit will go back to the people whose knowledge made those products possible. This means that we create a new model of development, a knowledge-intensive model, a knowledge-powering model, a model which does not treat poor people as poor. That’s the reason why I don’t like the term, “bottom of the pyramid” because it assumes that poor people are at the bottom of all pyramids. They may be at the bottom of the economic pyramid. but they’re not necessarily at the bottom of the ethical pyramid.

They are more generous quite often than rich people. They tend to be more open. They are community-oriented and they also have very many times, more creativity and innovative spirit, so in innovation they may be at the top. In ethical pyramid, they will be at the top, so you must be very careful when using language because language shapes the habit of thought.

Honey Bee network at this time is a horizontal network, which connects here in India to people across the world. We have presence in seventy-five countries to varying extent. China, in fact, has taken to this network idea very aggressively. University of Finance in economics are our active partners, who have documented more than three thousand innovations of the common people.

Every six months we walk in a different part of the country (India) and I have walked more than four thousand kilometers in different, more than twenty states of India. Our next walk will be the fifth walk, maybe in Nichols, Marharashta state. People come together to do this with us at their own cost. They ive together, eat together and learn together from the common people. We celebrate the knowledge innovation of the people. This is how the network started.

We also work with children, we organize competitions called Ignite and the first award was announced October 15th which is the birthday of Abdul Kalam, our former president of India.

Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam’s award (the award being discussed here) is given by him every year. This year’s award will be given on November 8th. N Now that’s a way to celebrate innovations that come from the children. Last year the president of India gave out the awards, and in fact, she hosted an exhibition of innovations on March in this year. When the president of a nation hosts such an exhibition and gives awards to people, it creates a new signature for the innovation of common people.

It is important to recognize the solution of some persistent problems might come not from the RND institutions or the big colleges big labs, but it also comes from common people.

Suzanne Bowen: This is a pretty revolutionary thought but it’s not just a thought. You are putting into action. I’m checking out for example your top ranking projects in the technology area, and I see a black box for vehicle is creating a personalized vehicle suitable for transportation in narrow lands which is I know that is a big need in different areas of the world. Will you share some other examples, the ideas and the products that you seen come out of this kind of work?

Dr Anil Gupta: Yes I am very happy to give you a few examples and also share some other challenges that we faced so that those of your listeners or readers of the programs who are going to be looking at the sites and looking at the innovations we have at nif.org.in or sristi.org and gian.org.

SRISTI came in to being 10 years age. We gives ads in the news paper. We couldn’t afford it. Now we give once and twice a years. We received hardly a thousand entries and response through the news paper and advertisement as against that we received tens of thousand of ideas and innovations through scouting process. This is where we go out to the villages and search. This is the nature of Honey Bee network where people who go out and search on their own time. They don’t get paid, there is lots of detailed documentation required. We have some resources which we share with them, like two lacs three lacs one lacs … from different collaborators for documentation and sending that data to NIF. Now …

Listen to the podcast interview, part 3 of 3, or read the transcript.

Anil Gupta: A large number of old people have traditional knowledge. They were here when some modern medicine was not there, but they continued living somehow. The knowledge may have evolved, but it doesn’t mean the value goes down today.

Some of those traditions can be used, maybe modified even today. We are a great believer that part of knowledge can be functionally valid must be drawn upon in our day to day life.

We document traditional knowledge which sometimes result in real and practical new products. Often, they help us to take chemicals out of our lives. Improve productivity in farming and reduce costs.

For every human, men and women, has knowledge. This is a movement (sic – Honey Bee Network, from Mind to Market) that must spread through different parts of the world. It can be under different names, under different kinds of leadership. We should not keep to ourselves and share the knowledge at the cost of the owner of the knowledge we document.

Remember, they trusted us when they shared the knowledge in good faith. Now, it is our responsibility to help them grow up in their lives. This helps others around the world who could benefit from this knowledge tomorrow or today.

In Pakistan and India and elsewhere, I hope there are some friends who are listening to this program … will get motivated to make their own platform, take empty bottles, make boats out of them. These are the things possible to help the people who are marooned, who need our help.

Suzanne Bowen: I think I should walk away and get more active myself in these manners. I like the non-elitist attitude, Anil. One example is recently I was involved in a conversation on a social network called Facebook with 50 or 60 others. A question was posed by Rehan Allahwala, our company CEO… basically, maybe things could change among the economically poor if their complete schooling opportunities included Urdu and English every day.

I taught English and other subjects in a school considered to be economically poor. We used the Internet to research, write and listen; learned foreign languages through song and conversation. I remember someone saying to me, “Why are you wasting time? They should be learning to read and write.”

I laughed, “That is exactly what they are doing.”

Some in the Facebook conversation, some felt that not every child can learn more than one language at a time … especially if they are disadvantaged in any way. I disagree.

Anil Gupta: I think first of all that mother tongue is very important. I still write and read in Hindi. I write poetry in Hindi. I am proud of my language. I think sometimes that I also think in Hindi. I don’t feel diffident or shy in admitting that my training in Hindi gave me access to certain concepts and words. Let me illustrate.

There’s a word in Hindi “(barabara darda.” “barabara” means equal, and “darda” means pain. So when you feel someone else’s pain exactly as that person feels it, it becomes your pain. This is a very noble activity. You are not patrionizing the other person. You are showing your equality.

Now, Urdu is a very rich language … that we cannot say in Hindi and we cannot say in English. There is a huge richness in the languages. In fact, Munshi Premchand, a famous Hindi writer and novelist, and socialist. He was a socially-conscious, progressive writer. He also wrote in Urdu. There are many people who got their ?? with more than just a decorum. The culture and thoughtfulness are what make one behave in a very decent manner.

Children should learn English, fine, but they should also learn Hindi, Urdu, Tamil or their local language. So their local languages give them access to those in the past and culture over a long period of time. If those thoughts are not available to us, then they are diluted.

We will not know our own backyard. There is something I shared on Facebook. I want to share it here, first in Urdu and then I will translate it.

(About 07:29 to into the podcast #3, Dr. Anil Gupta speaks some Urdu including something that sounds like “hogeh.” Techistan is waiting for correct spelling. Please accept our apologies.)

He says, “The wave of the great deluge appears to me like a shore.”

In the most pessimistic, depressing condition, I’m going to find a hope even though I have lost my boat, and my arms are tired, but I am still going ahead. This is the power of a language.

I can’t say those words in Hindi. I can’t.

My premise to my friends in Pakistan, friends in Kashmir where Urdu is spoken: you have a wonderful language of the world, one of the richest languages. It has enormous capacity to communicate human feelings and thought. Please don’t let it die. It should live.

Suzanne Bowen: Shukria.

Anil Gupta: Now, “shukria” is not “thank you,” you know. It means more than that.

Suzanne Bowen: Tell me. What does it mean?

Anil Gupta: You’re not really just appreciating the gesture of someone doing something good. You’re also grateful. Both appreciation and gratefulness. You thank someone for doing something… there is no “gratefulness” in that.

That is why in the Honey Bee Network, we believe that we bring out six languages. I would love to see Honey Bee Network in Urdu also. One objective of our talk today is that new networks are built to bring the ideas from the minds of those in remote areas to the markets of the world. It doesn’t have to be Honey Bee titled.

What we have discovered in some parts of Pakistan when there was a large water shortage and this has become popular in parts of India also … what they did was put clay pitchers in the fields and plant plants around the clay pitcher. Pitchers are buried in the ground. They put the water in the pitchers. This water will slowly ooze out to the root zone of the plant. The plant will grow. This began in Pakistan, then passed on to India.

There is a great deal of learning to take place across the borders, across the continent, across countries, cultures, languages.

You can lots of content in the English language. Even in the English language you won’t find much content (online and offline) from among the common people.

The question is “Why?” With billions of dollars that huge foundations in (To be filled in ??????).

Suzanne Bowen: Exactly. The Internet is the tool that help us do what you are encouraging. For example, all you need is a digital video camera. You can share innovation and mindset, the way of thinking, the creativity of people who we often think of as poor in every way. But … actually, they are quite rich in ideas, ways of life. This should be shared however whenever possible using the Internet in different languages translated even.

Anil Gupta: What I am saying is we must ask ourselves, when it comes to content produced by common people who may not have access to computers and mobiles, that will not travel on its own. Internet doesn’t have its own ears.

Someone else has to put that content there. We would need to make it available in multiple languages.

Internet is used mainly for entertainment, spreading propaganda, but not as much of learning from each other. Not for spreading good will.

At the same time, you and I are talking because you discovered us over the Internet. There is a positive side of it. So many possibilities to make connections across borders. You are on the tip of USA, and we are on this part of the world, India. We can now suddenly bring changes together.

It promotes fellowship. But if we can all do this in different languages, then perhaps we will go a step further.

Suzanne Bowen: Listeners might have noticed throughout this talk with Dr. Anil Gupta. He has delivered several challenges. One that I love is searching for the oddballs in a group, people who are not satisfied with the way life is in every nook and cranny of where you and I live. Scout them out. Listen to them. Share. Give them credit. Find ways they can benefit from their knowledge, invention and way of thinking to improve lives anywhere.

There should be Honey Bee Networks all over the world.

Anil, how would you summarize in a nutshell?

Anil Gupta: There are four or five challenges.

One is that those of us who are privileged in our lives by accident, on purpose, or by hard work … have a duty to spread the advantages of our privileges in a way that is creative and innovative.

One way would be to encourage the young people, students and children to look for crazy people in their neighborhood. Take note of the positive effect they have made to get over their problems. Put that together in local languages and also in English… in small datahouses of people who are doing something interesting. Something creative that has solved a problem technologically, institutionally, or culturally.

Second way is to translate the information into as many different languages as possible. So more people in the world can learn and participate.

Third, Honey Bee Networks’ websites is open access, so it could translated into Urdu or any language. Copy it. You don’t need my permission.

Fourth, bring in the investors, technologists, designers who will add value to these ideas to provide low-cost, affordable solutions. A proof of concept are what the typically poor people are not able to achieve. Their idea should become a prototype and then a product. That journey requires … well, the chairman of our foundation says, “Mind to market… the journey from mind to market.”
This has to be mediated by people like Suzanne Bowen, who are able to contribute with their own specific export manners, with talents and tools such as producing this podcast. Many small links in the chain!

It is not just learning from each other but also converting that learning into services and products. Today while people affected by floods in Pakistan, India or anywhere else, tomorrow should be a better day with new opportunities for them and the world. It is possible by including solutions by the common people who have very generous spirits.

This is what Honey Bee Network is there for. We want to reach out to all of you. There is a spirit of community that we all share. A common sky, a common sun that we share.
Suzanne Bowen: Tomorrow can be and should be a better day than today. Let’s put this into action. You can find information
at http://www.sristi.org. It’s been a beautiful experience talking with you, Anil. We’re both looking forward to this podcast helping to produce new friendships and collaborations that will result.

Anil Gupta: I am also hopeful about that. Thank you so much.

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VoIP Acronyms That Spell New Careers

suzanne — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:48:08 +0000

2010 is said to be the year of the chronically unemployed, but the telecommunications arena is still putting entrepreneurs, consultants, and college graduates to work in interesting ways. But telecom is strong competition for the United States Navy’s love for acronyms, and it may involve a crash course in the industry jargon. A few friends of Techistan online magazine share with us their knowledge, Peter Radizeski, telecom specialist with Rad-Info, and also Jim Safran, CEO of GreenAppX.

Peter Radizeski shares in his TMCnet blog …

“Agent is a member of the Indirect Channel. Also called a channel partner. An agent is an independent sales person for the carrier or vendor. Agents get paid a commission for closed sales. Agents may or may not work through a Master Agent. A Master Agent gets a big contract with a carrier, so that other agents can sell off it and get paid. Today, Master Agencies need to be more like the back-office partner for independent agents, so that the indie agent can just sell and stay in front of customers, without having to jump through a thousand hoops to place a single MIS order. (Do you hear me Ma Bell?)

VAR’s are value-added resellers. Originally, this meant folks who built computer systems. Now, it means the company that you buy your computer and network hardware from, who also do maintenance, installation, and other value-added services, like back-up, hosting and more.

Managed Services are anything that you outsource like computer maintenance, router monitoring, IDS/firewall monitoring. MSP World at ITEXPO in October in LA will showcase some of the most progressive MSP’s in North America. This show is in run by MSPAlliance. (MSPMentor writes about everything MSP. The VAR Guy may say VAR, but the blog leans towards Managed Services, probably because they are both owned by the same media company).

SI’s are systems integrators. In the days when Novell was tops (and believe me nothing could stand up to Novell 3.12 server), SI’s were the guys that would take various databases and systems and tie it all together. So if you were migrating from IBM DB2 to MySQL and adding web capability, you would get an SI. I guess today, they are web dev folks or consultants or something else because I haven’t seen anyone call themselves an SI in a while.

In the CLEC world, a reseller is a company like Access2Go or PNG. These companies just rebill circuits from other carriers. PNG used to be Qwest’s biggest wholesale customer and Access2Go resells AT&T. GTT is being called an VNO – virtual network operator – but it just rebills circuits.

Tech Data, Ingram Micro, CDW, ScanSource, NETX are distributors of hardware. You want Cisco gear, you can’t get it directly from Cisco. You have to buy it through a distributor. The distributor is the one-stop shop for the build-out: phones, switches, cables, widgets, router, IAD, licenses, etc. VARs and MSP’s (and MCP’s) all buy from distributors.

Agent is a member of the Indirect Channel. Also called a channel partner. An agent is an independent sales person for the carrier or vendor. Agents get paid a commission for closed sales. Agents may or may not work through a Master Agent. A Master Agent gets a big contract with a carrier, so that other agents can sell off it and get paid. Today, Master Agencies need to be more like the back-office partner for independent agents, so that the indie agent can just sell and stay in front of customers, without having to jump through a thousand hoops to place a single MIS order. (Do you hear me Ma Bell?)

In a recent podcast interview with Jim Safran of GreenAppX, he shares what different types of distribution and reseller partners entail. Listen to the complete podcast between Suzanne Bowen of DIDX and Jim Safran of GreenAppX.

“We are focused on many channels such as value-added resellers, system integrators… these are the individuals that will take products like Cisco, Microsoft and Sun Micro and will craft together an architect and network designed to meet a customer’s needs,” Jim Safran informs.

“Given their intimate relationship with the customer, they are a natural channel for us. Why are they interested in GreenAppX? Currently their business model has been per billing or per project basis. Mostly VARs and system integrators (SIs) are looking for sustainable, recurring revenue. That is why a SAAS platform is so perfect them. They have the ability to be involved with the customer’s applications and a view inside the local area network, but for those who cannot afford to buy their own server and for those that because of budgetary restraints … this gives those partners the opportunity to still be involved with their customer’s business,” Jim Safran continues.

Further Jim Safran shares, “Another natural channel for us is telecom master agent. They are the ones who have exclusive agreements with the carriers. They take on commitments for revenue and volume. In return the carriers give them a level of commissions that it valuable for them to go out and recruit sub-agents.”

Think of a master agent as the warehouse, and sub-agents as the retail. Sub-agents have the contact with the end-users. They use the contracts and connections of the master agent to not only secure good pricing but also support and more importantly, high commission pay-outs. In return, they are able to go out and sell a product without any commitment to the upstream carrier,” Jim Safran states.

Learn more about VoIP, SIP, and telecom acronyms at The SIP School. Contact Jim Safran of GreenAppX and Peter Radizeski of Rad-Info to start your own new career in 2010! Meet with them at ITEXPO West October 4-6, 2010. Peter will be a moderator for some panel discussions and Jim’s company GreenAppX invites you to their ITEXPO exhibit.

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Learn from Sjur and Sandro on Fraud and VoIP Security Attacks

suzanne — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:30:09 +0000

Sjur Usken and Sandro Gauci have been working together doing research on VoIP security attacks. They recently presented some of their work at Hackcon, a security conference in Norway. In this podcast discussion on the VoIPUsersConference, they discussed a number of realistic VoIP attacks and what’s being exploited by fraudsters for profit. (Click on the podcast above this paragraph to listen.)

In January 2009, a Perth company where hackers made 11,000 calls via the company’s VoIP ran up a bill of AU$ 120,000. Read more: http://www.itproportal.com/security/news/article/2009/1/28/voip-toll-fraud-attack-racks-57k-bill-two-days/#ixzz0vBgVtLl8. Phone phreakers tend mask their identity, making it hard to track them down.

Sjur is a telecom consultant in Greenfield Consulting AS in Norway. He has been working with VoIP since 2002 and helping companies migrate to an all IP world.

Sandro is a security researcher and consultant based in the small island of Malta. He is the author of VoIP security tools SIPVicious, VOIPPACK and VOIPSCANNER.com. See http://enablesecurity.com/ and the relative blog at http://enablesecurity.com/blog/.

Another good conference to participate in regarding security, ID management, hacking, and privacy is Advanced Identity Management & Security 2010. Learn from other past podcasts and participate in new at VoIP Users Conference every Friday around 12 noon ET.

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GeekSpeak: 3D Phones, T-Shirts Powered by Moon Cheese

suzanne — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:18:04 +0000

Listen to the podcast.

Remember the digital fashion article on Techistan? Be entertained and informed by the GeekSpeak Guys from Santa Cruz, California as they regale listeners with t-shirts powered by moon cheese, crazy movies, living in the woods, 3D phones, and calls from California.

You can be in Damala Xagare, Somalia; Canberra, Australia; Nairobi, Kenya; Miami, USA; Paris, France; Mexico City, Mexico or in your childhood treehouse. Just download the podcast to your favorite mp3 player, smart phone, netbook, notepad, or laptop. Click start and close your eyes to the exciting world of Geekspeak, invitation by Techistan.

“We’re through being cool. We’re through being cool. Eliminate the ninnies and the twits.” That’s the GeekSpeak theme song. They are obssessed with mathematics, science, technology, English grammar, and more, and they draw into the digital fever.

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Popular Online Instant Messenger Users Receive Calls from Cell Phones

suzanne — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:08:23 +0000

Suzanne Bowen interviews Federico Szekely, posts to www.didx.net/podcast which feeds to an iTunes’ IP communications channel…

and the world that is online …

finds a new and exciting way to let those offline stay in touch!

One Ring2Skype frequently asked question is: Can I get a number in a different country (from where I reside)?

Yes, it is possible to have online numbers in more than one of the available countries regardless of where you are currently living. As a matter of fact, that is the beauty of this service: you can live in India or Buenos Aires, and have your clients in NYC call you to a NYC local number. You just answer their calls at home or anywhere that you are online, from your Skype. Free local call for them, free for you.

Andrés Bzurovski and Sergio Fogel are the founders of Ring2Skype. Skype was launched in June 2009 with the realization of a very simple idea: eliminate long-distance fees and make it possible for everyone to communicate over the phone, regardless of where in the world they are.

The company is headquartered in Miami, has a development center in Uruguay, and clients in more than one hundred countries.

Suzanne Bowen: Today we have with us Federico Szekely. He is the project leader of Ring2skype.com. I discovered Ring2skype when I was researching the net for services that hope those who are using Instant Messengers such as Skype to be able to make available incoming calls from their friends, family and business. These callers to the IM user may be in their car, at the mall and all they have is their cell phone or landline.

I found that Ring2skype makes it available where Skype users can buy phone numbers from all over the world, currently at least 25 countries with a potential of up to 70. They give them out to their friends, family and business. Now, those people can use their cell or landline phone from anywhere they are, dial the number, and it rings the Skype user (who bought the numbers for every to call them) on their Skype ID. Now, that’s cool.

So, Federico, welcome to DIDX podcasts.

Federico Szekely: Thank you, Suzanne. How are you?

Suzanne Bowen: It’s Monday, a beautiful day. How did Ring2Skype even get started, maybe some history?

Federico Szekely: We were looking to provide services that no one does. Of course, Skype offers different services like Skype IN, but they charge for it. Ours is free. We had the technology and we wanted to help people to communicate.

So, we decided about one year ago… to start the service. We have more than 100,000 users and growing every day.

Suzanne Bowen: That’s impressive. That number will grow exponentially after this podcast, Federico.

Would you share some interesting examples or stories about how Ring2Skype has helped your customers?

Federico Szekely: We receive many emails about who go to study abroad in Europe, USA, etc. They keep in touch with everyone back home through this service. Not everyone has a computer device or even Internet all the time, so those people can just go anywhere. Let us say you are studying in New York, but you are from Spain. Now, you can call locally in New York with your cell phone and have the calls ring to the important people back home in Spain.

Some small businesses are also empowered by Ring2Skype to provide phone numbers from around the world, so their clients can call them for free, or almost free, less than usual. These types thank us.

Suzanne Bowen: So when students leave their families to study abroad, they can get a new phone number that is local to where they are studying, or they can buy their parents a local phone number. One person (Daughter maybe in NYC) is using Skype usually online all the time. The other person (Mom) calls the local number in Spain which rings to Daughter;s Skype and talk as much as they want.

Same as with any kind of business. Maybe they are using Skype to provide customer service, but now they need phone numbers that are local to the areas where their customers are.

Federico Szekely: Some companies don’t want to just give their Skype ID because of reasons such as maybe the caller is not using Skype, a local phone number feels more local, and both the Skype ID and the phone number can be listed on their CONTACT web page, business card, etc.

Suzanne Bowen: How exactly does Ring2Skype work? Would you explain in English and Spanish?

Federico Szekely: Sure. First in English… go to www.ring2skype.com. Log in with your Skype user ID. Example… you are from New York. We give you a New York number with an extension. Maybe you travel to Florida. Take your NYC phone number with you in your Skype, so anyone in NYC no matter what their own calling plan can dial that number local them and it rings on your Skype ID.

You can have more than one phone number also. Go everywhere with your Skype number. Is that clear enough?

Suzanne Bowen: Would you describe this again in Spanish?

Federico Szekely: Una … se en la pagina … por ejemplo .. Espana … Italia … localmente. (Listen to the podcast.)

Suzanne Bowen: I appreciate that. My Spanish is un poquito.

Many wholesale service providers (telco, etc.) around the world use www.didx.net to buy and resell or just sell on wholesale. What do you think of this concept and what can DIDX improve on?

Federico Szekely: Yes. We love DIDX. We use it a lot for wholesale phone numbers. We get like many extensions with the numbers. Very good quality. For the moment, we have no complaints. We wish that more local companies would join DIDX like from Africa and Asia and Latin America. We more numbers from all over now.

Suzanne Bowen: I am glad that you mention that. Wireless operators, CLECs, incumbents… should join DIDX to sell phone numbers. Even though we offer DID phone numbers in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia, Middle East and Africa, we have several missing areas within them. Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, South Africa … Honduras, Colombia, Mexico, Turkey, UK, etc. we have but …

Excellent companies like Ring2Skype really need phone numbers from all over…. get requests from customers needing the missing areas in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. This is business that Ring2Skype misses, DIDX misses and the potential L.A., Asia, or Africa wireless operator or other telco misses.

We are actually helping companies see how they can make money, from wholesale to wholesale on DIDX, from there… from wholesale to individuals and organizations. DIDX provides a win-win (outdated term but works). To enable this whole idea of DID, direct inward dialing … such as on www.ring2skype.com.

How can listeners get in touch with Ring2Skype?

Federico Szeleky: Go to http://www.ring2skype.com. Email support@ring2skype.com or email me at federico@ring2skype.com. We have a support ID on Skype which is r2s.support.

Suzanne Bowen: It is good to have met with you again today to share the empowerment, features, and the exciting opportunities that Ring2Skype can bring to the listeners. We look forward to hearing from everyone to help you have a local presence all over the world, to have them call you on your Skype via incoming phone numbers. Regular phone to online device!!!

Thank you, Federico.

Federico Szeleky: Thank you.

Connect with Ring2Skype on Facebook or Twitter.

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ANDICOM Attracts Rifkin of the Empathic Civilization and Google’s Bernardo Hernández

suzanne — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 02:54:25 +0000

Suzanne Bowen: Today we have with us Carolina Gamboa, the Commercial Manager of the Conference ANDICOM and Centro de Investigacion de las Telecomunicaciones. ANDICOM is taking place October 27-29, 2010 in Cartegena de Indias, Colombia. Hello Carolina.

Listen to the podcast of Suzanne Bowen, VP of Techistan, and Carolina Gamboa, Commercial Manager of the Congress for CINTEL’s ANDICOM, at .

Carolina Gamboa: Hi Suzanne. How are you?

Suzanne Bowen: The weather and temperature is pretty hot where you are Bogota, Colombia and same here in Pensacola, Florida, one of much we have in common. Let’s talk about ANDICOM. Maybe start off with the history?

Carolina Gamboa: ANDICOMM started more than 20 years ago when there were not many telecommunications companies in Colombia. CINTEL, which is a telecommunications research center, was created in 1991. All the telephone companies here agreed that CINTEL must organize the Congress each year.

Last year, we had around 2,300 participants from the sectors of telecommunications, technology providers, ICT consumers, and government. Much of the relatively important government discussions take place at ANDICOM each year.

Suzanne Bowen: What are some of the major products and services exhibiting in 2010? What kind are you looking for?

Carolina Gamboa: 2010 will be the first year that we are an ICT international congress. We want to show in our commercial exhibit and business forum more network components, broadband converged networks, data management and storage, information security, software applications, system integrations; mobile devices, applications, and content; programming; digital TV, content and infrastructure; and ICT consultancy.

Suzanne Bowen: Speakers … tell us about the keynote speakers and what you are looking for as far as more potential speakers who can submit their papers?

Carolina Gamboa: We have arranged different tracks that people will be interested. We have a special keynote for each track. We’ll have Mr. Jeremy Rifkin, who is President of Foundation of Economic Trends. He has written 18 best selling books. The last one was titled “‘The Empathic Civilization’: Rethinking Human Nature in the Biosphere Era” of the Third Industrial Revolution and how the ICTs impact our environment and how they will be an essential factor in the future.

We will also have Bernardo Hernández, Google Global Marketing Director speaking. Google is a little bit disrupting in telecommunications work, so it is very interesting to have him there with us. We will learn Google objectives in the next decade.

In addition, look forward to some consultant companies with us such as Roberto Saracco, Director of the Future Center in Venice. Also hear Jose Maria Rodriguez, Associate Director of Frontier Economics.

Suzanne Bowen: I will look for the most recent book by Mr. Jeremy Rifkin. Thanks for sharing that with us. Each ANDICOM brings in more and more international participation than the one before. I heard that you have agreements with South Korea and France. Are there special programs and advice for those arriving from outside Colombia? Flights, hotel, transportation once they get there.

Carolina Gamboa: Our websites and our social networks, we are giving out information about the hotels and airlines who we have some agreement. Go to www.andicom.org.co n Spanish and English for the discounts. The official airline is Avianca at http://www.avianca.com/; use code GN243. We can also recommend a travel agency who can help international participants assistance.

We offer transportation from the airport to the hotel and from the hotel to the convention to conference pass holders completely free. We’re happy to help in any way possible.

Suzanne Bowen: That is excellent. Now, ANDICOM has special certifications?

Carolina Gamboa: We have the USA commercial service certification. They have analysed if this Congress complies with some special criteria. We count on the support of many entities such as World Bank, 3G Americas, OAS, Colombia’s IT and communications ministry Mintic, and telecommunications regulator CRT, the IEEE, and Inter-American Development Bank.

Suzanne Bowen: That is good news. Listeners will want to get in touch with AndiCom, so would you share the best ways to do that>

Carolina Gamboa: We are in Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin, Skype, and we will add the presentations of our keynote speakers on SlideShare. Also go to our website http://www.andicom.org.co or http://www.andicom.org.co./en. Connect with us on our social networks.

Suzanne Bowen: Would you close this interview with a message in Spanish about ANDICOM?

Carolina Gamboa: …

(Sign up to participate in ANDICOM. Visit http://www.foet.org/ and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-rifkin/the-empathic-civilization_b_416589.html for more information about Mr. Rifkin. Connect with Suzanne Bowen on Linkedin and with Carolina Gamboa on Linkedin.)

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NOLA and TEE-EM, a Good Match, Podcast Interview

suzanne — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:02:53 +0000

Everybody sing, “Aao Aao Aao suji ka halwa kaw!” Little Haven and the Linux mascot can sing it.

Suzanne Bowen: Welcome to the DIDX podcast media channel where we bring you the expertise and exciting talents and wonderful friends from around the world. I am your host Suzanne Bowen. I am in Pensacola, Florida. And today we have Tariq Mirza better known as TEE-M. He is in Los Angeles. We discovered him when we were typing in Google search the keywords: “music,” “technology” and then the name of a country. In this case, we typed in “music, technology, Pakistan.” And TEE-M came up perfect for the task so then we started clicking around, found his digital music and watched the videos. We really love the music. I let my son listen who is a high school band director, and he agrees. We found TEE-M and he is with us right now. Be sure to follow Tariq on Facebook.

Hello Tariq,TEE-M.

Mr.Tariq (TEE-M): Hello Suzanne. Thank you for finding me.

Suzanne Bowen: Yes, it’s really cool having Internet bringing people together that we never would think possible, you know.

Mr.Tariq (TEE-M): I know. This is the new world and I love it. Especially for an independent artist like me. It’s great.

Suzanne Bowen: No doubt about it. And as we have seen, you are doing an excellent job using digital methods of sharing music with people. The first song that we discovered was “Aao, Aao, Aao” and I thought wow that’s really a neat song. There is a video where we got a transcription of this. But tell us a little bit about your start in music.

Mr.Tariq (TEE-M): Well I started, you know, I am from Karachi, Pakistan. I started around 10 or 11 years old. I think my cousin left me a guitar because he was leaving abroad for his studies and I was so excited that happened because his brother saw me later in that day and said, “Hey! You know Khalid left a guitar for you.” I said, “Oh really?” I was flying kite at that time. Then I said, “Let’s go get it.” So, I got the guitar. I am a self-taught guitar player.

Suzanne Bowen: So, you just kind of had an ear for music.

Mr.Tariq (TEE-M): I guess. Because I remember at early ages that I always like very intrigued by the records, you know 33s or 45s, even 78s. So, I was very curious about the sounds that came out of records and that’s what really got me going. And when I got the guitar eventually, I started playing and I want to form a band and all that.
Suzanne Bowen: Yeah. I remember the 33s and 45s. I remember playing the Cowsills, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan back in the early 70s I believe. When you were learning to play the guitar… like you said you had an ear for music, you were able to listen to the stuff and kind of mimic it on the guitar. What songs do you remember and musicians and groups that really had an influence on you at that time and may be even now?

Mr.Tariq (TEE-M): Actually during that time in Pakistan there was an instrumental band from England called Shadows I liked. There was a band from America also that had a song called Walk Don’t Lean, a great instrumental. Shadows has a song like Apache This was the first song I learned. Because my cousin used to live very close to my house at that time, I used to go there quietly and ask him, “Can you show me.? After a while reluctantly he started showing. So, he always gives me the example of the Beatles that look like their guitar players are all at least six feet tall. He did teach me. I think I watched me until I could sing the song “Apache.”

Suzanne Bowen: That’s interesting. Someone was telling me that you were selected as Music Collection Magazines’ 100 best unsigned artists and as anybody who knows you, they know that. You have used the Internet very well to get your music heard and seen. And as result. people all over of the world, become your fans. So, just tell us a little bit about what and how it all worked.

Mr.Tariq (TEE-M): Music collection is a great magazine out of Los Angeles. But they are worldwide. Few years back they started locally. Slowly it’s been going on but now it’s international. It’s a very cool little magazine. Remember when I moved to Los Angeles in 1983 and I was rocking. It used to be very local and exposing own local bands. But eventually in the 90s those local bands become the national acts on the cover of magazines. It was really interesting. I remember they were trying to switch but I said no you should keep it local. But for the commercial reason, they had to go international. Once a year they publish the 100 best unsigned artists. So, for five years in a row they have selected me and after the fifth year I said to them that thank you very much from TEE-M and music collection have many points for the music industry. But from the next year please count TEE-M out of the running and give another person or another act or a band in my place. I would love somebody else to take that part. I think five years in a row is excellent. So, after five years I had them take me off the run.

Suzanne Bowen: Yeah and I think that’s fair-minded. It shows that you are a good example of integrity and the independent music industry in general, you know… like is there any thing you can share with us maybe some music or something new coming up? Give us a sneak preview.

Mr.Tariq (TEE-M): Oh well you know, I was on a draught. You know you hear about that writers’ block? I always say no man I can not just write. But it was happening with me. After I had done Earthiotic, my one and only album, which has Aao aao aao… That album has a lot of stuff that I had written over the years. And a sort of like selected and I was feeling great to record those. That’swhy it has 16 songs. It’s a long album but last year after I got back from Pakistan which is my 3rd or 4th tour within the last three years. Somehow visiting my homeland Pakistan broke the song writing block. And I was very much ready to record my next album. I am trying to figure out how to go about it and how I do the next record. But one of my best new songs is called, “I’m Just Starting.”

(Then, Tariq starts singing for us!) “So, it’s like you might say that I am always here that I have got some news for you dum dum dum. You might say that I am always here. Here is the little blues for you.”

That song I wrote from being so impressed about New Orleans. I think September 2005 soon after Hurrican Katrina happened. You must listen to that song.

Suzanne Bowen: I will. I am not a musician but I am a writer and a runner. Every morning I wake up and run. Sometimes I being a small camera and stop to take pictures. Then I go back to my room and I am full of ideas to write about.

Mr.Tariq (TEE-M): You will love that song. I will email you a promo copy and you will hear it. There are four songs on my Myspace page. I will send you the link, too. It’s actually Myspace.com/teemrocks. I love to do that as my next video while in New Orleans.

Suzanne Bowen: You need to go New Orleans. It’s a beautiful place. Full of color, excitement. All kinds of people. It’s just unbelievable.

Mr.Tariq (TEE-M): I just love the people, excitement all that. It was so down to earth and I was there for two or three days.

Suzanne Bowen: So, I recommend anybody who is in New Orleans in business and maybe you operate any type of restaurant or lounge or other good venue for music. You should hire TEE-EM for a weekend and ask him to come and play some music. Let me know, so my family will come over, too.

Mr.Tariq (TEE-M): Yeah, that will be great.

Suzanne Bowen: So, now we know how people get in touch with you like listening to your music. Some website?

Mr.Tariq (TEE-M): It’s TEE-M.com. That’s my website. They can see videos there. Then I also have the http://www.decipherpictures.com/hallucination/Hallucination/Video.html. I think I believe that you should watch that. I just want to say that I love the name TECHISTAN of your company’s magazine. That’s like an Earthiotic community to me.

Suzanne Bowen: I think you can relate. We are looking to bring people together, collaborate more. Not be hampered by geographical boundaries. People are really lucky to find you, to find each other and something like Techistan, Internet itself, great search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Dogpile as well as Facebook, Twitter… We will keep in touch with you and follow your progress and success. So, I just want to say we really appreciate it.

Mr.Tariq (TEE-M): Oh, thank you very much. Internet is a different world. So, people can get and stay in touch with each other.

Suzanne Bowen: So, my assistant Omar Shaikh said he would like TEE-M to say hello to him on the podcast.

Mr.Tariq (TEE-M): Omar sheikh yah yah, “Hello Omar.” By the way and I think he connected with me on Facebook. You and I are now connected on Facebook. He sent me a good welcome message also. That’s great, has Omar been to Karachi right?

Suzanne Bowen: Yes he is there and sometimes can travel to other places to work within our company. We work well together remotely all over the world and other times face to face. Maybe one day we have convention, TEE-M, and you will perform. I like the idea. Actually there is one called ITEXPO, very popular one, thousands attend, in Los Angeles in October, believe it or not, where you live.

Mr. Tariq (TEE-M): Ooh really. That’s a great idea right here in L.A. Yeah, I could bring my band, I could be do it myself. Sounds good!

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Are you a Madyee? Cool Pakistanis Seem to Be

suzanne — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 19:43:59 +0000

Madyee.com is a consumer review site mainly targeting Pakistanis. It includes blog, groups, questions and answers area, games, forums, polls and photos. Consumers write and share reviews on cars, movies, cell phones, restaurants, colleges, degrees, or anything you choose. The idea is to help all Madyees make smart consumer decisions.

Raheel and Raza began this projects as kids and then in early adulthood with no plan to monetize despite arguments from their parents. Mom asked if they were mad!

Listen to the podcast and read the transcript only here at Techistan!

Suzanne Bowen: Welcome to Didx. and Techistan Podcast media channel where we bring you the expertise of entrepreneurs, inventors, developers, philanthropists and more with a special emphasis on media, social networking and telecommunications. Today we talk with Raheel Dhariola of Madyee.com. .

Mr. Raheel: Its nice pleasure talking to you today. Let me introduce myself. My name is Raheel Dhariola. I founded Maydee.com in the 2006. Since my school days I was very passionate in doing something big. Completed my primary education at San Patrick’s High school in 1996, and then joined San Patrick’s College. At the same time, I started a computer sales and service business named Intelligent Brains with a very small capital. I had a hard time to establish that business. I didn’t even see any sign of success for almost two and half years, but I didn’t quit. After that, I finally started making some money, and it’s just because of the decision to NOT quit.

Intelligent Brains is now 14 years old. As the time passed by, I found another job which suited me well and handed over the business to my younger brother. Now, I am working at Eplanetcom where I am Manager for the IT staff and the software development and things like that.

Suzanne Bowen: So, Raheel this is the common thread that I hear from really successful people all over the world that we interview. And just because you had a difficult time in business, school and so on you got to hang in there. Because as you mention, you started having some success eventually. Which bring us to Maydee. Everyone has heard about it in Pakistan, the most popular product review site and more. Would you tell us a little bit about it? Like its mission, its origin and the idea behind it.

Mr. Raheel: Well I was very much a thinker and idea person by birth and I was and still am experimental guy, too. I started learning, self learning web development tools, and languages during my stay at Intelligent Brains. I was doing well there, but I always wanted to create something of my own which could bring good social change, something different. And something which could really be exciting.

My younger brother Ahmad Razzak Dhariola is an associate chartered accountant who had always been there to motivate me when I was down. He did some research for something, looking for something, which could really work. Something really helpful to Pakistan and maybe later … the world.

Together we came to a conclusion to build a consumer review system for Pakistan especially. We did not want to build something which has already been here. So, this was the idea behind Madyee. Our mission is to encourage consumers to share their experience with products and services they use and help others use Madyee to make smart decisions. I wish to make every Pakistani a Madyee user, a slogan you know that. Are you Maydee?

Suzanne Bowen: No, I didn’t know that. What does it means?

Mr. Raheel: Are you a Maydee?

Suzanne Bowen: Am I? Hopefully it’s a positive thing. Right? Chuckles.

Mr. Raheel: Maydee well. This is an interesting story. Me and my brother Raza were used to having crazy hours on this project at home. My Mother used to shout at us which developed an emotional connection between us with this project. We kept on working it, without some plan to monetize it.

So Mom would always ask, “What the hell are you both doing all the time? Go and find some real work for yourself. Are you going mad or something? What have you created in your brother’s mind?”

We then came to a conclusion and the main name then comes to Maydee.com.

Suzanne Bowen: That is perfect. Yeah, I love that story. Tell us in your opinion what makes Maydee unique? There are now other sites in Pakistan, as well as South Asia, all around the world that are review sites. What makes Maydee unique?

Mr. Raheel: We try our best to keeps an engaging community at Maydee, continuously adding some new social features. But what made Maydee.com special out of the crowd is the consumer area system.

We have more than 70,000 products and services listed at Maydee.com. Users can read and write reviews, and share their experiences things like that. Users can also suggest new items to review which are not already there. We can add new sections as needed through user suggestions.

There are many simple five star rating websites around. But what again is unique in Maydee is that users can rate every aspect of the product separately on a scale of one profile. For e.g. writing review on a mobile phone, user can rate the standby time, voice quality, looks, durability and potential for resale. This is what I believe. One of the features which make Maydee.com the one and only of its kind in Pakistan.

Suzanne Bowen: I am definitely going to check into it. You know we have TECHISTAN, and we are looking for interesting reviews of different products so, am going to look into Maydee a little bit more now that we have talked.

Would you share some of the most interesting reviews?

Mr. Raheel: Users can write reviews on almost anything. Like they can write reviews on: Cars, motorcycles, elctronics, computer equipments, laptops, movies, newspaper, TV shows, TV channels, celebrities, banks, credit cards,cellphones,cellular networks, video games,places,airlines. One can even write reviews on education, schools, colleges, Universities and even on qualifications and degrees. Whether someone should go for ACCA or someone should go for certain degree or not?

Suzanne Bowen: Can you recall may be some most interesting review?

Mr. Raheel: Interesting reviews. Yes. Of course.One review was on ACCA qualification which in this review told us about cost of completion, scope of ACCA in Pakistan, scope abroad, time of completion etc. It is one of the most helpful.

The ACCA professional qualification has become a global benchmark of accounting excellence.

Suzanne Bowen: Give us the numbers of visitors and registered members. We are curious about that.

Mr. Raheel: Actually we have not done any marketing effort yet. And plan to do this pretty soon. But it’s just the word of mouth which gave us around 9000 registered members. And we keep on getting new sign ups each day. But still as I say I think this number is pretty small and we need to work on this by doing some efforts on marketing.

Suzanne Bowen: This podcast will definitely be a step in the marketing direction, no doubt. We get the word out to the online world around on Twitter, Facebook Linked, Youtube, Viddler, blogs, Paki.com and other social networking sites. Tell us about the future plans of Maydee? What directions are you taking it?

Mr. Raheel: We always keep on working on the suggestions and feedbacks we get from our users. We just try to keep on adding features as per request from our users. We are soon relaunching Maydee.com with some exciting new social features which will help our users keep more engaged; ask and answer questions from each other similar to Yahoo answers.

Suzanne Bowen: In fact I understand when you say that your users direct the directions. We pretty much do the same things in our company with our different services. Whatever they want, that’s what we want to do.

Mr. Raheel: Yeah. That is the core of anything we do. Give them what they want. Give the users what they want.

Suzanne Bowen: Exactly. This is wonderful to talk with you.

Mr. Raheel: And great to talk with you.

Madyee should have a page on Paki.com.

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Direct Inward Dialing Entrepreneur Sergio Fogel, a Quiet Enabler of Global Dreams

suzanne — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 21:43:11 +0000

Sergio Fogel, entrepreneur completed computer science graduate studies in Israel, worked for IBM on semi-conductors, switched to graduate studies in business in France, returned to Uruguay, worked for an Oracle corporation, founded an Internet company which failed, noted in 2001 the power of virtual phone numbers, started Uniotel, then Jet Numbers and later FreetoSkype. He shares the story of a Russian lady who buys a USA number to be “reachable” by qualified potential American husbands. He shares trends in mobile voip, advice on entrepreneurship and why you should vacation in Uruguay!

Ali Hassan Interviews Sergio Fogel Local Presence Entrepreneur Part 1 transcription:

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor: Welcome to DiDX podcast video and audio channel where we bring you in touch with technology leaders from around the world. I’m your host Alli Hassen and today we have Sergio Fogel, the CEO of Uniotel, headquartered in Montivideo, Uruguay.

He is quite a well-known name in the VoIP Industry. Glad to have you with us, Sergio.

Sergio Fogel: Thanks for having me.

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor: Sergio, you’re CEO of Unitel and we’ve been reading about your

company quite a lot. It has a lot of presence on the internet. Tell us about yourself, tell us about your background. What led you to become an entrepreneur? Tell us about your career before becoming an entrepreneur.

Sergio Fogel: Okay, it’s a long story, which speaks a lot about my age. I grew up here in Uruguay, then I went out to study Technology in Israel. There I studied computer science, earning my master’s degree. Later I went to work for IBM and did work related to semi-conductors. After that I decided I wanted to enter the business world so I went for my MBA and studied in France. After that, I’ve been out of my home country for ten years. Now I thought it’s time to get back. I’m excited also that it’s possible to do some technology stuff from outside the Arab countries.

So I came back home. At first I worked in a corporate environment for an Oracle corporation. Then in the year 2000 after the first big dot-com boom, I decided it was the right time for me to start as an entrepreneur. I founded my first Internet company. It was called (Algobora?). It was not successful. In retrospect it’s easy to know why but at the time it was much harder to realize.

Just to tell you what happened, we got into the business to business market place and it was really too early. Many times we as entrepreneurs feel we are late into a market and that market wasn’t there at the time. So in the year 2001, I founded a company together with my partner, a company called Uniotel which is a voice over IP provider, a service provider. We got quite large, and then in one point we were selling voice over IP devices like Cisco ATAs, which were the most popular at the time. Then we started to see that one of the main driving reasons for people buying the ATA’s was that could have a phone number in a place other than where they were located physically.

So for instance many people inside finance want to have numbers in Manhattan. Many people wanted to have numbers in London. Here in Uruguay were a large supporter of their software. Some companies wanted to have a number for customer support in Mexico, the UK, Spain, in the US and so we find that people were buying the devices which were very complicated to deploy at the time. They were buying the devices not because they needed the device but because they wanted to test and use the number.

Maybe it’s not so important to sell the device and having all the complexities of installing and have a device which warrants our support. We were getting calls from people, you know when you’re living with these devices, it gets tough to manage support. People are calling us and saying the device doesn’t work, and so the first question was “Take a look at the device and see if the lights are on.” And many times they weren’t, the device was unplugged. Which sounds trivial, but it isn’t. Sometimes the device was located in a difficult to reach place like data center or something like that.

So we said, “Let’s provide a product that’s 100% sold as a service and doesn’t have anything else with it.”

So we decided to launch the product, but we found that launching a new service is, especially an Internet service within a company can be quite difficult. People have other priorities and you’re all the time dealing with the urgent stuff and who has time for the new stuff?

So at the time we got on board a partner to launch this. A guy called Andres which was instrumental in the product launch. So he worked very well, we pushed very hard to launch in time. We had a team of designers and programmers, programmers for the telephony part and so on. So that’s essentially how our current company started and how we made it to here. We are talking 2006. We didn’t have very many suppliers. It was difficult getting a supply of phone numbers, but we managed and after that suppliers came up and it became much easier.

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor: From IBM to semi-conductors to an MBA to Oracle and Alagora, you do have quite a story. I’m sure many people in the world would yearn for such exposure. Every entrepreneur faces challenges, which challenges did you overcome to start your own business?

Sergio Fogel: Well, I think for almost every entrepreneur, the main challenge is you want your organization and your suppliers and your services providers to move at a different pace than what they are used to. I want to get my website up and working by tomorrow. It makes it very tough for the organizations to keep pace and sometimes it’s very frustrating because you have all the resources but people just don’t move at the same speed. I’ll say that’s the main issue.

The other thing is you’re very anxious to launch things, you want to get things on the market but on the other side if you don’t go through the processes together with the product, you will suffer early withdrawal. So for instance if you launch and don’t have the support processes, you don’t have the program, the billing systems, it’s going to be a pain in the neck later on.

On the other side you have all the anxieties of both the launch and you feel all the time that there are other competitors coming up against you and that’s really tough to manage. Having the process in place before, that’s the critical part, you really must have this in place sooner than later.

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor:. Sergio, Uniotel is quite well-known in the world of our industry of telecommunications, everyone already knows about it but if I was to ask you how you would describe your company, your products and your services, what would you say? Just tell us about your company in your own unique way.

Sergio Fogel: We provide (virtual) phone numbers from other countries that we have interconnected with, not many countries have regulations regarding them, some do. So for any company that wants to have a future presence in a country other than their own, they can buy phone numbers from us to make that happen.

I think I’d choose how they want to receive the calls. They can receive the calls on their current regular phone land line, they can receive the calls on a mobile phone, they can receive the calls over Asterisk PBX in a voice over IP device or make it ring on their http://www.Skype.com ID. Essentially, we allow companies to have a virtual presence in a different part.

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor: So are you only providing virtual phone numbers to companies and not individuals?

Sergio Fogel: We also provide this service to individuals, but our main target is small companies and people who would use phone numbers for work. That’s our main target, we do have individuals who use it but most of our customers are small to large businesses and large. Many call centers use our service.

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor: So Sergio, since you’ve opened up a business outside the USA in Uruguay, does the Uruguayan government give incentives to small businesses?

Sergio Fogel: Well actually we’re just a USA corporation, we do have operations in Uruguay, but technically we are a US company. We do banking in the US, and we have our both of our main suppliers in the US. In today’s world with the internet, you can have your company in one place and your employees in another. But to answer your question, yes the Uruguayan government does provide lots of incentives. Right now we’re not using those.

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor: Sergio, what areas in the world seem to be the most popular to have a phone number from? And why?

Sergio Fogel: Well the most popular is the USA. It may have to do with the fact of the language issue. We are in the process of translating the website into other languages, but right now we only have it in three languages, and of course the USA is such an important economy. The USA is a place people want to have a virtual presence in. The second one is Europe, and we are seeing the rise of China more and more and some other emerging markets such as Brazil, Mexico, and places in South Asia as well, South East Asia especially.

Ali Hassan Interviews Sergio Fogel Local Presence Entrepreneur Part 2 transcript:

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor: So Sergio we’ve seen quite a lot of examples, quite a lot of inspiring examples of people using voice over phone numbers.

There have been foreign exchange students going out of the country and buying voice over phone numbers so that their parents can call them easily.

There have been companies that have shifted their operations off-shore to save costs.

Tell us a unique story that you’ve come across with virtual phone numbers that shows a very unique use of a voice phone number?

Sergio Fogel: I think the prize for that goes to a Russian girl that wanted to, she wanted to marry an American guy, so she wanted to have a US phone number essentially as an aid to marry an American person. She was one of our first customers, and she was successful. She did marry some American guy. So unfortunately we don’t have her as a customer anymore but she did find her goal.

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor: Wow, VoIP and matrimony that is really interesting (chuckles), yes. So which part of the VoIP industry do you see booming in the next five years? Would it be either call forwarding, fax, VPS? Which areas do you see to be at the highest levels, at the big levels in the next five years?

Sergio Fogel: We are very excited about mobile Voice over IP, and people are having today a soft phone on their iPhones and on their Symbian phones. They can use Skype or Fring on the iPhone. We launched a new service, it’s a separate VoIP-based service. It’s called FreetoSkype with Jetnumbers, which is very exciting. It’s a free service, and instead of providing a phone number, we give you an extension inside a phone number. That’s what allows us to provide the service for free.

Since the phone numbers do have some costs, if we can share our phone numbers between, say hundreds of users. That’s going to be a very popular service. We have many thousands of users and we see that people are using that and their taking the calls on their Skype, their mobile Skype.

The other area we’re see more and more movement, as people become more and more confident with technology, they’re starting to use Skype, virtual phone numbers and IP telephony for mission critical services. We have many call centers that are using it for really critical applications.

For instance we have a customer who is an airline and they’re using our service for two different services. One is for reservations which is mission critical for them and the other line that they have is very special. They have a phone line for emergencies in case they were to have an accident, they need to have a phone line to call and have some information. We are providing numbers for that. Very very mission critical and it would of been unthinkable* five years ago, but today people do trust the technologies, they understand it can be relied upon for mission critical needs now.

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor: Yes, that is the one of the greatest things about Voice over IP, that it is changing the world and making the world a better place. So Sergio, what’s next for the company?

Sergio Fogel: That’s a tough question, we keep growing, we don’t want to diversify too much, because we want stay very focused. So our idea is to keep improving the service, we want to provide some new features and many people want to have re-route where their phone numbers ring to according to the time of the day of the week or the hour of the dday. We want to integrate with the CRM Systems. But essentially we see that there’s more features for the same main products. We want to stay very focused and on the course, we believe we’re on the right course.

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor: So Sergio, what would you suggest for all those aspiring to be entrepreneurs in the telecom industry, and advice in particular?

Sergio Fogel: Well I always give the same advice, which is that it’s better to launch first and organize later. It happened to me many times that we we worked a lot to get the perfect product on the market, and sometimes we found out that there is not too much demand for the product, but it’s better to find out after you’ve spent a limited amount of resources and not after you’ve spent a whole year and lots of money on the product.**

So I always prefer to start with a smaller launch. Test the market, see if there’s a real demand and then there’s always the time to re-organize later. Which can be quite a lot of work afterwards. I do prefer this to the other approach.

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor: I’m sure it’s sound advice, coming from an experienced person just like you. Anyone just now tuning in, this is the DiDx broadcast channel with your host Ali Hassan, and with our guest Sergio Fogel, the CEO of Uniotel. We’ll post this on the DIDX podcast channel and on iTunes’ IP communications channel. Sergio we do thank you for your interview.

Sergio Fogel: Okay, thank you very much for having me.

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor: So Sergio, wait one more topic! Tell me about Uruguay, your country.

Sergio Fogel: Uruguay is very different than what people believe. It’s very European. It’s a small country, very stable. We’ve had democracy for something like 30 years now. And it’s a country that contrary to most of Latin America, has a stable government and laws. Very stable rules. So we’ve had over the last few years governments from the right and left, but they all kept the same economic course. It’s very investment friendly and it’s a very easy country to do business in. We have some technology parks which are really great. They provide lots of excellent services. So essentially, I like to say it’s a country open for business. We have some great companies. For instance data consulting services that have American headquarters here

One of three largest worldwide calling centers is located here in Uruguay. And we see more and more companies that are setting up quite large offices here. Because they see it’s a good place to live for their executives, and it’s also a very friendly place to do business.

We have a place, I don’t know if you’ve heard about it. It’s called Punte del Este. It’s a resource, it’s just great, it’s an amazing place. It’s become very fashionable place for years and we get many tourists literally all over the world.

Ali Hassan Memon, Techistan Managing Editor: Whoa so it’s a “definite recommend” to all of our Techistan readers and podcast listeners.

Sergio Fogel: Yes, I think so.

* “Unthinkable” an owner of a major worldwide company in the year 2000 said that voice over Internet and the concept of Virtual Phone Line, invented by Rehan Ahmed of Super Technologies, Inc. would never be used by large businesses, governments nor for mission critical services. In 2010, many small to large businesses and consumers admit they use Skype, Google Voice or Google Talk, Vonage, 8×8, MagicJack, NetTalk, Fring, Nimbuzz, JKL5Group, IPkall, Truphone, Avaya, Rebtel, Moonitin, MyDivert, DIDww, and other IP communications solutions on their networks and smart phones.

** Some may say that the reason there is not enough demand for a particular product rolled out alpha/beta mode is that is too difficult to use and not ready for use. Some may add to make it clear that the product is in the alpha/beta mode while canvassing for early adopters.

***The transcript was completed by Josh Alfrejd who offers to transcribe your files at low rates because he is a lifelong learner and says transcription pushes him to much research on topics he previously had no knowledge.

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