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January 2007
Web access from your car?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dunwoody-based Hughes Telematics is taking a big step towards putting us all behind the wheel of high-powered computers with cars strapped onto their backs.
The company announced earlier this month (click for full story) it has signed on with the Chrysler Group to put connected car technology in its vehicles.
The Hughes platform is the most comprehensive of several recent automotive technology announcements. it will include safety and security features familiar to owners of OnStar-equipped GM vehicles.
But it will also provide some gee-whiz capabilities, such as the potential for wireless broadband Internet access, in-car wireless networks and the ability for cars to sync up to home networks to transfer music, movies and files via a PC interface.
What kinds of features do you think they should offer drivers? What would you be willing to pay for?
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TechBridge: Providing IT help for non-profits
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Think about technology in the nonprofit sector and what’s likely to come up is an image of a few old desktops and a dot matrix printer.
But these days, the need for high-tech solutions to business problems isn’t an issue faced only by big corporations.
As it happens, Sandy Springs is home to one of a dozen or so organizations nationwide dedicated to helping nonprofits solve their technology problems.
TechBridge, itself a nonprofit organization, was founded six years ago to help bring tech expertise to nonprofits, said CEO Jack McMillan.
The organization, which has a $1.8 million annual budget, helps about 160 metro Atlanta nonprofits — including the Georgia Aquarium, where it maintains all 15 of the aquarium’s servers and its internal network, said corporate relations director Carrie Bates.
Where commercial IT vendors may charge $125 an hour for planning and support services, TechBridge charges from $57 to $85 an hour, depending on the size of the client’s budget, McMillan said. Ultimately, that means the money donated to those organizations can be put to more efficient use serving the organization’s mission — not its cranky computers.
“This is about cost effectiveness, this is about reaching constituencies more effectively, and it is about being able to carry out their day-to-day operations not only at a lower cost, but usually at a higher level of efficiency,” McMillan said.
That’s certainly true for the Gateway Center, a downtown Atlanta facility dedicated to ending homelessness.
Director Vince Smith said his organization couldn’t afford commercial IT services but has been able to directly affect the needs of metro Atlanta homeless because of TechBridge’s help.
The IT solution TechBridge put in place allowed the organization to take note of an unexpectedly large number of mental problems among homeless clients. The organization took the data to the state and won additional funding, which it now uses to support psychiatric services at the center, Smith said. While TechBridge isn’t in the business for profit, it still sees an opportunity for growth.
McMillan said about 1,300 nonprofits in Atlanta fall into the “sweet spot” of organizations with budgets from $750,000 to $2 million a year that are large enough to have sophisticated technology needs but not quite wealthy enough to catch the attention of for-profit technology consultants.
Right now, the organization’s operating budget is pretty much split evenly between fees for services and donations from corporate sources such as Accenture, Microsoft and Home Depot, as well as donations raised as part of its annual Digital Ball.
That’s the event where the organization announces its annual Innovation Award recipient.
The award recognizes good use of technology by nonprofits, and comes with some hefty rewards of its own — $15,000 worth of TechBridge Services, $25,000 in Microsoft software and a $5,000 cash award for the winner.
Last year, a nonprofit called CHRIS Kids, which serves victimized children, won for its use of a Web-based application to track client detail while maintaining privacy, allowing better tracking and outcome measurement and saving the organization time.
Learn more: Applications for this year’s Innovation Award are now open. To apply, visit www.techbridge.org.
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AeA Venture Forum & Golf Event
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The AeA, the technology trade group headquartered locally in Alpharetta, is looking for companies who are, in turn, looking for venture capital.
The AeA Venture Forum & Golf Event is scheduled for March 13-14 in Greensboro, Ga.
For the last seven years, the trade group has invited 18 technology companies to argue the case for their business models to bankers, venture capitalists and private investors.
Last year, according to the organization, more than 180 entrepreneurs attended, and the event helped participants raise more than $18 million in funding.
“This is an amazing opportunity for up-and-coming technology companies to get in front of some of the most influential investors in the technology arena,” Atlanta-based Steve G. Nussrallah, a general partner for Noro- Moseley Partners, said in a statement.
There are two submissions rounds. The first round has a Jan. 29 deadline. The second, smaller round closes out Feb. 15.
Just a few rules … companies can be located anywhere, but should have revenues between $2 million and $25 million.
To apply, visit www.aeanet.org/VentureForum.
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Wikis with suits
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wikis are going corporate this year in a big way, Forrester Research predicts.
The company predicts in a recent research report that businesses will rapidly pick up adoption of wiki technology to help employees collaborate more effectively.
Forrester says companies such as IBM and Microsoft are already making use of wikis, but doesn’t identify any metro Atlanta companies making use of the tools.
Is yours? If not, is anybody thinking about building one? And why?
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Blogfest
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Local bloggers will disconnect from the Web, however painful that might be, and gather in Cobb County next month for a conference on new media.
“SoCon07” is scheduled for Feb. 9-10 at Kennesaw State University.
According to a press release for the event, the conference aims to “bring together bloggers, new media pros, academics and people from across the spectrum of marketing, public relations, human resources and the executive ranks to discuss new media.”
So far, they’ve lined up an interesting group of speakers, including Atlanta’s own Chris Klaus, the whiz-kid founder of Internet Security Systems, who’s now working on launching his own version of a virtual world.
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Sharing health records
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One component of plans to institute a national electronic medical records system is the ability to share health information among providers and researchers.
What would motivate consumers to open their health records?
Money, of course.
Forrester Research is out with a new study that says 47 percent of consumers would allow their medical records to be shared among providers and researchers if it meant lower insurance premiums for them.
The study doesn’t seem to differentiate between sharing identifiable data among health care providers and sharing anonymous data with health researchers, as many plans call for. Regardless, less than half of those willing to share their records say they believe current health privacy laws are sufficient to protect personal information.
What do you think? Would you be willing to let researchers use your health records to look for public health trends or conduct studies if it saved you money on health insurance?
Unwired
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wired, it appears, is in the eye of the beholder.
Wired magazine has produced a list of most-wired cities, and Atlanta is notably absent from the list.
That’s interesting because just a few months ago, Forbes named the city as the most wired in the country.
Wired’s methodology was certainly interesting enough, and really focuses more on “geek chic” than wiredness. The magazine focused on each city’s proximity to top-ranked engineering schools, tech jobs per capita, personals on Geek2Geek.com (a dating service), per capita Craigslist postings, participation in meetings of a tech group called Dorkbot, the availability of free Wi-Fi service and the number of comic stores and Circuit City stores per capita.
The magazine didn’t rank its top 10, but predictable entries such as Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, New York and the Raleigh-Durham area appear. Also included are Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Orlando.
Raleigh-Durham got the nod for its top-notch educational and research facilities and being home to Red Hat, home of geek favorite Linux. Orlando? Well, Disney figures in somehow, as does a very active Craigslist community.
Forbes, in an August analysis, used the percentage of Internet users with high-speed access, choice of service providers and availability of public Wi-Fi.
The magazine said of the 30 cities it measured, Atlanta ranked first in choice of access providers, third in Wi-Fi access and ninth in the number of residents using broadband.
The magazine did make one important caveat: the ratings looked only at the core city of Atlanta itself, which bristles with wired and wireless Internet connections, and not the suburbs —- where Internet access rarely travels outside the home or business.
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