Archive for Technology – Page 15

Quali Health

Dr. Nthabiseng Legoete is the founder and CEO of Quali Health which is based out of South Africa. Dr. Legoete graduated in 2003 from the University of Pretoria and qualified as a doctor. At the time South Africa’s medical industry was very poor, and it continued its poor reputation for years. People who worked in South Africa were faced with a choice when they needed medical treatment which was either skip a day of work and wait in line at a medical treatment facility all day, or go to work and hope their problems go away. Multiple people would become terminally ill throughout this time period due to the fact that they couldn’t afford skipping a day of work. Dr. Legoete saw this as a major problem and decided to do something about it.

Dr. Legoete established Quali Health in May 2016 when she opened the first public facility in Diepsloot. Quali Health’s goal is to “improve access to primary healthcare in under-serviced communities.” The vision was simple. Solve the problem of choice between work and healthcare in South Africa. According to their website (qualihealth.co.za) their plan is to “provide effective primary healthcare to this segment in South Africa in the short term and Africa and other emerging markets in the medium to long term.” By 2017 they had expanded with three new facilities located in Alexandra, Tembisa, and Soweto.

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https://twitter.com/nthabileg

Quali Health begun with only 40 employees and has grown to over 200 employees across four locations. Dr. Legoete’s first facility was only receiving an average of 62 patients a day upon opening in May, but it didn’t take long to take off. By August of 2016, Quali Health had over 400 patients visiting the one facility every day. The impact on the poor communities around the facilities has been incredible. Residents now have access to affordable health care that also allows them to receive assistance in the morning and be out and off to work by mid-morning. These facilities also have created over 200 new jobs, the majority actually residents within the communities. Quali Health is also working with small businesses around the areas by offering catering, plumbing, and maintaining of the facilities. Quali Health also offers training opportunities for potential new staff. Dr. Legoete is making it her personal goal to change healthcare in Africa, and community by community she is slowly achieving her goal.

 

The Determination of a 15 Year Old Girl

At fifteen years old, Catherine Cook and her brother came up with the idea of building a social media website that would build an online version of a yearbook. They launched MyYearbook and later merged with another site that allows users to post and complete online quizzes.

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At her young age, she did not know how to program, so she worked with a team of developers to help build the website. This process took a lot of dedication and Catherine and her brother sacrificed many things. While attending high school, they worked on the program and stayed up extremely late chatting with the developers, which truly shows their determination. After a lot of hard work, they were eventually able to launch MyYearbook.

Their website grew very rapidly to over 5 million members. Catherine claims that they were successful because they listened to what their users wanted and implemented the new features and changes. It is important for entrepreneurs to get feedback from the consumers and recognize their needs and desires.

Catherine Cook did eventually decide to sell MyYearbook to focus on other new entrepreneurial ideas and school. Unfortunately, the new owners changed the name to MeetMe and also changed the objective of the site. However, Catherine is a great example of a young entrepreneur, who had an idea, implemented it, and became successful within a few years.

Love equals No Work.

It is safe to say we all have heard that we will never have to work a day in our life if we love what we do. George Matus took those words to heart and did just that. At the age of 12, while everyone else was hunched over on social media, he built a flying quadcopter. For those who do no know what a quadcopter is, a quadcopter is a mini helicopter with 4 rotors. He had a passion for drones and fast flying technology. Matus flew everything that the drone companies made, and he was confronted with multiple problems with how restrictive the technology was. At that age of 16 he became an entrepreneur, whether he knew it or not, and decided to invent a drone that met his standards. He saw a problem and decided to do something about it, a great demonstration of what every entrepreneur some day hopes to do. Matus is the CEO of his own drone company, and had not even graduated yet. He has big goals for his business and plans on growing and expanding what other possibilities he can do. Matus says ,”The advice I would give to young entrepreneurs is to really find what interests you, and then it doesn’t feel like work.”

CNBC Article

It’s Like You’re at the Game!

Millennial entrepreneur Andre Lorenceau founded his startup LiveLike ( http://livelikevr.com ) in 2015 in order to take advantage of new VR technology to improve the live sports watching experience. He partnered with Fox Sports the French Tennis Federation among other groups to produce 76 events on its platform in 2017.

This platform pairs a virtual reality experience with social media during sporting events. It broadcasts live-streamed events with VR, augmented reality, and mixed reality from the perspective of a “360 degree virtual suite.” The user has access to camera angles, stats, highlights, and replays and a means of connecting with other fans through Facebook.

LiveLike recently worked with Fox Sports to create the VR app:

The new app enables fans to experience hockey, football, basketball, soccer, and other sports like never before.

The company gained a second wave of investment this year totaling about $9.6 million which will be used to continue developing the LiveLike brand by expanding the platform and making it more user friendly. They are seeking ways to incorporating fantasy sports and intelligently targeted advertising into the VR experience. This will be done by using funds to expand their employee base and invest more into maintaining and perfecting their product.

Lorenceau identified the need for a more interactive and immersive sports experience for someone who is not actually at the game. There is often a social disconnect between fans at an event and those at home and he is uses VR technology to eliminate that barrier. Many people had thought this might be a possibility when the technology started to take off, but Lorenceau and LiveLike were able to make the idea work sooner than many people imagined.

For a more detailed look check out Variety Magazine’s article: https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/livelike-funding-social-vr-sports-1202700149/

GCC Student to Full-time Entrepreneur

   Connor Grieb, a 2018 graduate of Grove City College is already self-employed, as the owner of SEO Vineyard, a digital marketing company. He first discovered his entrepreneurial mindset when he was twelve years old and started a snow removal business. This led him to buying a truck and plowing commercially Connor Grieb SEO VINEYARDthroughout his high-school career. This experience showed him how much he loved working for himself and he developed a growing desire to be an entrepreneur in the future. He also decided that he didn’t want to do work that relied on weather or a lot of physical strength. Some other things that drove him to be an entrepreneur include the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others, the opportunity to be extremely successful, the uncapped financial opportunity, a flexible schedule, and less risk in the long run. During his college career, he discovered that through digital marketing, he could meet all of his needs and desires.

      He launched his company, SEO Vineyard during the beginning of his junior year of college. While taking classes, he was also providing services for 3 clients. Unfortunately, he could not manage any more clients with all of his school work. Therefore, he focused on maintaining a good relationship with his few clients. Since graduation, Connor has quadrupled the size of his business. He now has over 12 clients, which he has acquired in 4 short months. However, Connor notes that obtaininSEO Vineyardg new clients was not easy. There was an 8 week span where he didn’t add a single client or make an extra dollar, but through the support of friends and family, he continued to work hard and push through this hard time. He encourages other entrepreneurs to do the same because God has a bigger plan and things do get better. Also this past summer, he became an LLC, partnering with an accountant and an attorney. He did this to create a veil of protection for himself and his business.

From Connors experiences, he has learned a lot about himself and entrepreneurship. The biggest thing that he has learned is patience. He had to wait to graduate to expand his business. He had to wait for prospective clients to return phone calls. He has to wait to become successful. Through the process of starting and building his company, he has become more reasonable with his expectations and is taking things one step at a time. Connor also discovered that one of his strongest entrepreneurial traits is competition. This trait pushes him to improve and make adjustments to the mistakes he has made. He hopes to continue to attract new clients and expand his business.

Website

Email: seovineyard@gmail.com

Phone: 724-987-2881

From One Thing To The Next

Elon Musk is one of the most influential entrepreneurs of not only now, but of all time. He has been working on countless ways to make the world we win in a better place. Elon Musk doesn’t always just fix problems, but he also makes people realize how the world really should be. The first way he did that was through PayPal. PayPal was his innovative way to help people purchase products safely, securely, and quickly. This product has changed the way people are able to purchase what they want with confidence because of their ability to make sure the money only gets paid if the person paying, gets what they actually wanted.

Another innovative idea he developed was Tesla. Tesla is a car company focused on making cars that are run off batteries and from electric motors. This has changed the world of how cars work. The batteries used to make the cars have also changed the though of how powerful batteries can be and how useful they are. Mr. Musk wants to continue to work on making housing panels that allow ones house to be powered by solar energy, and make more clean, reusable energy for everyday use.

Another one of Elan’s innovations is his SpaceX company. This company is working with NASA to help get astronauts back into space. America is currently a country that cannot send astronauts into space, but Musk is working to change that. He has created new rockets that will allow up to seven astronauts to go into space. His design is based off the Apollo mission designs from when humans first went to the moon.

In the end, Elon Musk has truly changed the world by his ability to be an entrepreneur. He has made life better for humans, and will also continue to change the world by his future innovations.

Remote Intelligence

Phil Benner is an entrepreneur involved in more than one business endeavor. In the restaurant area, he was involved in the startup of The Budlong. Another company he’s involved with, though is in a very different area. This company was started by Phil Benner, Merlin Benner, and Rob Schwarz in 2013. Over the last several years, the popularity of Unmanned Aerial Drones has been increasing dramatically. This growing field presented enormous opportunity for application and innovation. They found ways to use this technology in many areas through high resolution imaging, integrated mapping, aerial services. Some of the areas they’ve worked in include Wildlife Habitat Management, Energy Development, Real Estate Services, Search and Rescue, Disaster Relief, Resort Mapping, and Industrial Applications. The services and applications of this technology they provide are a great example of entrepreneurial opportunity in new and advancing technological fields.

 

Check out their website or social media!

http://www.remote-intelligence.com/home/

Need a Myspace Layout?

Imagine you are just starting out on Myspace (I understand you are a little behind on the times). Obviously one of the first things you will need is a flashy new layout to show people how cool you are. There’s  just one small problem- computers are hard. Thankfully, there is a young millennial entrepreneur who has the solution! Her name is Ashley Qualls.

Ashley Qualls started her website back in 2004. While in school, she learned HTML and applied what she learned to her website. Better yet, she enjoys teaching others how to master HTML through her tutorials. Her website quickly became a big hit as her friends began using her website to spruce up their Myspace pages. Ashley’s website was so successful that by the time she was 17, she had already become a millionaire.

How does one become a millionaire by making Myspace templates? There are a number of factors that played a role- all of them were critical to Ashley’s success. One of the factors was timing. The internet is still a relatively new development, but in 2004 there were not that many options for customizing Myspace pages. Another factor was her content. She was able to successfully deliver value to her audience, which in turn drove site traffic. Advertisers saw how many people were visiting her site, so they paid good money to place their ads where the most people could see them. This way, Ashley was able to make money, without ever charging users a fee for her templates. I’ve left her website name for last because, as the times change, so do websites.

Her websites is called whateverlife.com but it’s glory days of Myspace layouts is long gone. She now uses the website as “a hangout for alternative millennials”. If you are feeling sentimental, here is a taste of the old days:

https://youtu.be/So9doa8vuNw

EchoMark and EchoSure

David Narrow has created substantial waves as an entrepreneur in the field of healthcare. At the mere age of 25, he is the CEO of Sonavex and creator of EchoMark and EchoSure.

David’s career with Sonavex began when he noticed that doctors would often have trouble locating previous surgical sites on patients. Locating these surgical sites is crucial for doctors if they are performing a follow-up procedure on a site. Usually the sites would be marked with implants that could be viewed later with an ultrasound. However, the implants that were currently being used were often difficult to accurately pinpoint in the ultrasounds. David realized that the healthcare industry needed a better implant that could be more easily seen and located with an ultrasound. So he started Sonavex and designed EchoMark.

EchoMark is a surgical implant made from a polymer material that is harmless to the human body. At the end of surgery, a doctor can insert EchoMark into the surgical site to mark it for later procedures. EchoMark’s unique shape causes the sound waves of an ultrasound to bounce off of it at multiple angles, enabling doctors and nurses to distinguish its location more quickly and accurately than previous surgical markers. If a second surgery in the area is not needed, EchoMark dissolves within 18-24 months after insertion, without needing to be removed. David’s product aptly filled an important need in healthcare, but it wasn’t long before he found a new need to tackle.

Another problem that medical professionals face is the occurrence of blood clots in patients who have undergone any surgical procedure in which veins or arteries are reconnected. Over 550,000 patients per year experience this type of surgery, which always involves the risk of blood clots. If a clot occurs and is not diagnosed and treated quickly, the patient may experience serious harm and have to undergo even more extensive surgeries. In response to this problem, David designed EchoSure, an ultrasound system that monitors patients’ newly connected blood vessels for clots. The system automatically alerts medical personnel of flow loss in a vessel. EchoSure’s intuitive interface allows medical professionals to use it without needing any training in ultrasound. As such, EchoSure acts as an early warning system against blood clots, allowing for rapid diagnosis and treatment before they can cause substantial damage.

David Narrow’s creativity and innovation to solve problems in healthcare have benefited numerous patients and have paved the way for even more valuable technology.

The Mind Behind Mozilla Firefox

Blake Ross epitomizes what it means to be a millennial entrepreneur. But before Blake’s story is told, here’s a word about Netscape.

In the late 1990s, Netscape Communications Corporation, an internet suite, was competing against the Microsoft giant, Internet Explorer. One could hardly call it competing, though, because Internet Explorer was beating their competition to a pulp. Netscape needed a better product in order to survive against Internet Explorer. So in 1998, Netscape made development of their new version open source, meaning that any programmers could help develop it. This is where Blake enters scene.

Blake loved programming, and by the age of 10 he had constructed his first website. At the age of 15, he started developing with Netscape. He and two others, David Hyatt and Joe Hewitt, would eventually become the major minds behind Mozilla Firefox through the Netscape open source project. In 2004, at the age of 19, Blake helped release the first version of Firefox. By 2010, Firefox surpassed Internet Explorer as the most popular web browser in Europe, and Firefox continues to be successful to this day.

Blake started working on another project in 2006 called Parakey. It was a computer interface that he wanted to be able to perform the same functions as an operating system. Shortly after its development in 2007, Facebook bought Parakey for a multi-million dollar deal.

Blake Ross excellently shows the benefits of starting young and getting out into the entrepreneurial world as soon as possible. He took something that he enjoyed doing and was able to use his skills to do big things in the field of technology.