I recently got some comments on Facebook about my services at PolynesiaMedia and I find one of them to be quite criminal if true.
I have hold the position that massive corruption is at play but I also think to a degree, there just isn’t the people with the skills to make it happen. This has been voiced by many in Samoa and American Samoa. We just don’t have locals that can do quality work in technology.
Continue Reading…
I am taking a break from blasting Samoa’s Technology sector for a day and going to talk about back home, our technology industry and what is happening in June.
Government officials, community workers, and religious leaders want to sit down with leadership in Tech15 (a group of 15 Technology executives which I am part of) This is an amazing opportunity because it gives us a chance to show the leaders of religion, government, and culture that we must embrace technology even more because technology is the answer to poverty.
I, personally, am very excited about this opportunity because I have a personal connection with Palawan. I have been there every year since 2005 and own a home in Palawan on the beach.
Many of the leaders in Goverment, Religion, and Culture are friends of mine and we have sit and had dinner together over the years. In fact, some of them have been to my home and we have been island hopping together. They are dear friends.
It will be a reunion for me.
Why would regional directors for Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Bebo, and Friendster to name a few leave Makati to come to Palawan without payment to talk technology to public servants? It is because we care about the people.
Tech15 was formed out of a concern to be the voice of the poor using technology. We all have a firm belief that technology can end poverty and open up economical opportunity no matter where you live. You can live in Palawan and work from Dallas.
The forum will be a report that now Tech15 and the 15 companies (including my former company, PinoyTech) has gotten GSM internet coverage to every inhabited island in the Palawan chain. We have technology in every one of them, including the highly remote Kalayaan that has only 114 people on it and is roughly 170 miles to the closest population. Geography is no distance.
However, as cheap as we have made the internet: less than 600 pesos in Palawan; some still struggle to get it and many do not have computers in their home. That’s what we will talk about in June. How do we get a computer in every home and help the poorest of the poor get internet access? I have some ideas and one of them is importing used desktops from the United States!
More on it coming soon.
Warning: this has nothing to do with web design, internet technology or anything besides how I am feeling.
There is a winds of Change. This was a phrase coined by Todd Bentley a few years ago but it is so true today. The winds of change are here and it is creating a hurricane in me.
One thing I often find is we do not know the difference between a tornado and a hurricane. Hurricane like to call ahead, introduced themselves, tell you their name, etc. Torados are more blow in, blow up, and blow out. They just come to crash the party.
I feel my life about to get just flip upside down like Manila did in 2009 with some winds of change. Hurricane come and over a period of time it dumps wind, rain and sometimes fire on a region.
If you follow philosophical methodology, the winds are the change, the rain is the new begginning and the fire is the transfer of the soul. Plato loved this type of stuff.
For years, I have taken some things that happened in the Middle East over 35 months of experience and bottled it up with a huge neon sign saying “Don’t open or I will kick your butt.” I knew there was only one thing that was powerful enough to get the lid off. More on that in the future, maybe.
I am dealing with things, and even broke down and was crying this evening as I thought about what this means if I do let something that is happening in my life crack the lid. It quite honestly scares the crap out of me. In fact, it will be an act of God if it does really happen.
I have told people over and over again that there is only one way I will ever deal with all the stuff from there. People close to me know what that one thing is. It is something that I have avoided at all cost and even at times, cut off people from getting too close. However, I may be facing a sutition that I would be a complete fool to turn off just to avoid dealing with all the trash connected to those 35 months.
If the thing I am talking about goes away, it will be bittersweet. I will miss one of the most amazing opportunities of my life. A opportunity that could mean 10 times what be an executive in the technology at 26 meant. On the flip side, I am put these bottles of stuff away from another rainy day. Either way, winds of change are blowing right now inside of me.
Has the time come for me to finally open the lid on this and let the wild ride of dealing with the stuff? I do not know. I do not want it but I also know that if this opportunity before me happens, it will have to be done. I can not take this opportunity lightly. It has some possibilities of destiny.
A moment of destiny wrecks you forever. I used to hear that all the time. Leonard Ravenhill use to say, “the opportunity of a lifetime must be seized in the lifetime of that opportunity.” In other words, there is a timeline on destiny sometimes and that time is not Fiji time and it is for sure not Palawan time.
This opportunity may be a critical key to helping me with my ultimate vision to use technology to end poverty in Pacific Islands. (more on that another day) Or, this opportunity may not exist or it may expire on me before I can cash it in for destiny. Who knows.
If the opportunity passes, life goes on with just a question of “what if”. It the opportunity does not pass and I am able to redeem it, life changes for a long time.
The good news is this opportunity STILL gives me the freedom to travel the islands helping the poor and helping them embrace technology. It stills allows me the option to bless people with the hope they can find. That does not change. There is hope for the Islands. In fact, this opportunity will just make doing that 10 times easier in reality.
The bad news is this opportunity will come with some terms and conditions. Namely, I can not just travel chilling in hostels, talking with the poor locals, sharing hope and eating bananas. I have to actually go back to work and really work. (Not that IT people know how to really work lol) In fact, I am daydreaming how I can start a 100 Billion company right now to fund this opportunity.
What is this opportunity? I can not say because it is has not been cleared by leadership of PeterVandever.com (me) and the other parties involved. All I can say we are very active in ligation. It may be months (or not) before PeterVandever.com can broker a deal on this opportunity. Like I said, it is all in ligation.
One thing is for sure though, if it does get broker, the entire organizational flowchart of the business will be radically changed to make room for this merger of two visions with one cause.
I have said all I can say without the approval of all parties named.
Here is a hint
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As the world grieves or celebrates the passing of Steve Jobs; I am wondering what is about to happen in the technology industry in general, I mean I have been preaching at confernces all the world that I feel change in the air. That’s for sure without Jobs at the top of Apple, Inc now.
Apple was not the leader of the industry but it was for sure a major player in the hardware area. Especially, among users in the graphic design element of it, it is like a cult of a religion. When people hear of me using a Dell run of the mill laptop to do high end projects; they think I need a couch at the office of the local physiologist.
What does the sudden change with a major player mean for the industry? A changing of the baton.
Many of the founders and CEO of technology companies are getting old (they are 35 or over) and they are founder of leading companies that got in of the beginning of the “internet boom.” They have made their billions and now it is time to retire to Hawaii.
That mean two things: the handing over to younger (under 30 year old) executives to run the companies and a massive movement of people quitting their executive jobs to have startups as well. I believe the technology of the next generation will be lead by guys that roughly 23-26 right now.
I see John Riccitiello become an ex-CEO in the next 36 months as well as Nelson Gonzalez living in the Cayman Islands soaking in the rays soon.
Just look at the richest people according to Forbes in America
1. Bill Gates (Microsoft), 55
13. Jeff Bezox (Amazon), 47
14. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), 27
15. Larry Page (Google), 38
18, Mike Dell, (Dell, Inc), 46
19. Steve Ballmer (Mircosoft), 55
23. Paul Allen (Microsoft), 58
39. Steve Jobs (Apple), 55
50. Pierre Omidyar (Ebay), 44
Of the technology leaders in the top 50, the average age is 47.2 year old while the average person in the technology industry is 27.6. It is the for the tycoon of technology to fade and be replaced by young innovators. We have too many cavemen of the industry still working at the office. I believe this about to change.
What you think?
