My history with the Internet goes back to Arpanet days, using UNIX in XWindows with a Hayes Modem logged into the University of Michigan to send and receive email. Those were the 80s. I think Pine was the email program. When my consulting work took me to a RAID manufacturer I set up the company's first website. We had just dropped the Mosaic browser and started to use Netscape. So I have been around the Internet from its fundamental start to today and remain fascinated by the powerful implications of having a global framework for communicating words, speech, images and data, and using a wide range of electronic devices as receptacles to both receive and send information.
I'm located in Toronto Canada. My practice is focused on new business development, working with empowering people with disability, or at-risk youth, and finding technology solutions that can change lives. For example, one of the companies I am working with has launched an academic social network focused on elementary, middle schools and beyond with one of its stated goals to engage at-risk students so that they embrace learning and graduate to go on to higher education, and better jobs. The network has created amazing results in just a few months at one of Toronto's more troubled schools.
I am strong advocate for using social networking in organizations to tap the collective talent within it to go beyond the daily work experience. I joined Kiva.org over two years ago because I believe that micro-loans can have a powerful impact in micro-economies in the developing world. I believe Kiva should be used in the developed world in inner cities in North America where developing world conditions exist.
I have been in business for 35 years. I graduated from University of Toronto in 1973 with a Bachelor's degree in Islamic Stuidies and Medieval History. I'm an avid researcher, book reader, gardener, pet lover, father of a 20s something daughter who has a vision of her future, husband, amateur cosmologist, humanist and a lover of life and all the fascinating aspects of this world.
