Category: London

More Than Meets The Eye

There is more than meets the eye with me. On my resume it is majority Microsoft skills. Microsoft is used more than open source because that is what my work and customers demand from me.  Can I do more? Yes! I have experience in a lot of open technologies such as PHP, MySQL, Python and more. I do use these technologies, but not often Continue reading More Than Meets The Eye

Creativity and Love Flows in London

London Ontario boasts creativity and cutting edge ideas with companies like rTraction, Voices.com, Echidna and many others.   These companies are bleeding edge when it comes to employee management, project management and their technologies and methodologies.   I have seen many good things come from these companies and believe London Ontario should be applauded for its support in the technology sector.

Between foosball, MeetUps, OpenData and the UnLab activities, these companies share a bond, that only the technology world can understand.   These companies together will put London Ontario on the same playing field with other technology centres of Ontario, Canada and the rest of the world.  Socially London tech companies are more advanced.  They see the trends and move with and ahead of them at a rapid pace.

I have also noticed a new trend of technology companies in London also getting actively involved social causes, like reforesting, helping homeless, helping students, garbage clean-up and much more.  These people and organizations love London, they love Ontario and they love Canada.  Even politics tend to be a centre point of beliefs and passions for employees and leaders of the tech community.

Now, I have mentioned the tech companies, but it is not without the employees, will these companies advance on to the world stage.  The employees are the heart and soul of the companies that support the leaders of these companies.  These employees are independently trying new ideas and concepts through the support of their employers. These people are truly amazing with their talents.  London has some of the best technology employees around.

Aaron McGowan, is another person to be watching who makes up our community.  Aaron is a champion for OpenData which is a moving trend with our local governments to share data with the development world.  He is full of passion to have more data open to everyone to use and develop software freely.

Applaud the tech community, join in the social movements and hug a geek today.   It is not without each other can we move forward to do even greater things.

Recycling and Trash Ideas

I had just watched Trashopolis on the National Geographic Channel; it featured Paris France.  On it they showed the history of excess trash and how Paris overcame it.  From the principal of rag pickers, they created city sponsored enterprises.   Back in the 1800’s a rag picker would be a person or persons who who would pick through trash, fix or clean items and resell the items at flee markets.

With the city sponsored enterprises, the entrepreneurs would run a depot where citizens would drop of batteries, old appliances, clothing and other items.   The depots would then clean, fix or re-purpose the items for donation or resale.   This seems to be cutting down on garbage, increasing recycling efforts and ultimately saving the city from garbage.  As an added bonus, the people running the depots run routes that would allow them to pick up items from vendors, shop owners and households.   I can really see the benefits here.

London Ontario every year discuss what they can do to save trash costs, increase recycling efforts and work on new contracts with garbage collectors.  Not once I had heard of the idea of a city sponsored enterprise being setup to fix, clean and re-purpose items for resale or donations.  This would also help the city encourage entrepreneurship, increase arts and crafts and hit the international stage for becoming more Green.

I think for thing to work, the city would only have to find a person to run things, donate a building and help build a business plan for the person to start.  This would be a great venture for a young person with a basic knowledge of electronics and business, recruit some local artists to help re-purpose items and you could have a good little business helping the city to become more green.

May be worth while sending a small team of business and city officials to places like Paris who seemingly are doing things a little better.