MoDaCo fighting Childhood Leukaemia, supporting Cancer Research UK

published on 14/10/2010 by Remo Knops

One of my international friends, Paul O’Brien founder/owner of MoDaCo (a leading online community about smartphones & mobile technology), has started a great initiative for the good cause to fight Childhood Leukaemia.

A few months ago I wrote about the Child Cancer Just BEAT it foundation, great initiative of Berner Benelux in the context of Corporate Social Responsibility. During the HTC Participation Ride the day before the start of the Tour de France in Rotterdam, I attended the HTC participation ride in a special role as goodwill ambassador for the ”Child Cancer Just Beat It” foundation, and asked the team if it was possible to sign a HTC-Columbia jersey that will be auctioned for the fight against child cancer.

Therefore I have some feeling and insights in the good work Paul O’Brien is doing with all the people from the MoDaCo community. In the rest of the article I will have a more detailed look in the initiative and the specific project that is supported.

10K for £10K for Childhood Leukaemia campaign

Paul O’Brien created a post on the MoDaCo forums in which he shares some background details about the initiative and the 10K for £10K campaign:

“Since the very early days of MoDaCo back in 2002, we have been involved with raising money for Cancer Research. When we’ve held our face-to-face events over the years proceeds have always been donated to CR and other fundraising efforts since have always contributed to this extremely worthy cause. Just recently I noticed that my follower count on Twitter was heading towards 10,000 and this got me thinking about whether I could use this following to do some good. This in turn led me to wonder if we could raise £10,000 for the MoDaCo Cancer Research ‘My Project’ in aid of Childhood Leukaemia, which equates to a donation of £1 per Twitter follower. ”

Great to see the longterm commitment of a technology community like MoDaCo to Cancer Research UK. Cancer is a terrible class of disseases, but it is even more frightful when it strikes young childeren (where the lifestyle through the years doesn’t have as much impact as a 60-year old person who smoked all his life).

In the section below you can read more about the work of professor Vaskar Saha, a world-renowned for research on childhood leukaemia, who’s projects will be supported with the 10K for £10K campaign.

Concluding thoughts and wrap-up

With a small donation to the special 10K for £10K campaign MoDaCo donation page on the Cancer Research UK website, you can really make a difference and change the lives of children diagnosed with cancer, their parents, friends and family!

About Professor Vaskar Saha

“Professor Vaskar Saha is world-renowned for research on childhood leukaemia. Sadly, around one-third of all deaths from cancer in children in the UK are caused by leukaemia. Professor Saha’s vital work could improve the outlook for the 20% of children with an acute form of the disease who do not respond well to chemotherapy.”

Child Cancer – Just BEAT it ! – An initiative of Berner Benelux

published on 21/06/2010 by Remo Knops

Recently one of my cycling friends, who is a product manager at Berner Benelux, asked me if I wanted to buy a blue “Just Beat It bracelet” in order to support the fight against child cancer. The answer to this question is a definite “YES, I’ll buy a few” without blinking an eye !

Almost everyone has experienced (directly or indirectly) the impact of a terrible disease like cancer in the circle of close friends and family. It is even more tragic when young children are hit by this class of diseases called cancer, as defined by Wikipedia:

“Cancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth (division beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood).”

[Read more…]

Remo Knops’ Brain Bits – Sharing news bits in Tumblr style !

published on 03/05/2010 by Remo Knops

Yesterday I silently launched the Remo Knops’ Brain Bits website, as a complement to the Remo Knops’ Personal Blog and MobilityMinded.

You might remember the article “Mobile Technology related articles publiched @ MobilityMinded.com” last year, in which I explained my thoughts about this strategic decision. The result however was an increased and a significant focus on professional-related content to be published on this blog. It was a first step of strategic re-configuring and re-positioning.

In the same article I briefly addressed the increasing importance of social networks like -for example- Twitter and Facebook. Social networks are not only new distribution channels for marketing purposes, but have become interesting, highly valuable sources of rich information on the tip of your mouse button, as well. The information flows on social networks have super fast, real-time characteristics, and it would be extremely time-consuming if you wanted to write 500+ word-articles about all the great news out there.

“A bit is the basic unit of information in computing and telecommunications; it is the amount of information that can be stored by a digital device or other physical system that can normally exist in only two distinct states. There are several units of information which are defined as multiples of bits, such as byte, kilobit or megabyte, etc. Computers usually manipulate bits in groups of a fixed size. […] ”

Remo Knops’ Brain Bits a complement to Remo Knops’ Personal Blog

Remo Knops’ Brain Bits will cover a wider spectrum of these real-time interesting news bits from various types, that trigger my brain and may valuable for other readers.

While I still will stay deeply committed to write extensive and in-depth articles on this blog as well as on MobilityMinded, I will be able to share interesting information in a shorter and more time-friendly format complementary to this blog.

I really hope you will find some value in the near-future-shared content on Remo Knops’ Brain Bits, and it would be nice if you check back on this website for more extensive and in-depth articles in the context of my professional innovation and entrepreneurship field. You could also connect via one or more social networks like Twitter or Facebook.

Möbius Conference 2009 (Seattle, United States) – Short Trip Report

published on 10/12/2009 by Remo Knops

In November it was time for the annual invitation-only Mobius conference, and I was one of the very fortunate ones to be invited for this great event. The Möbius conference 2009 was held in Seattle, and I was very excited about my first visit to one of the top 10 tech cities in the world.

In this article I will provide a short section with background information about Möbius, and than focus on this year’s Möbius conference and the discussed contents (which I’m allowed to share).

[Read more…]

Mobile Technology related articles published @ MobilityMinded.com

published on 15/06/2009 by Remo Knops

It has been some time since I have written my last article here on my personal blog. A fair question is: “Haven’t you been writing anything ?” The answer is certainly: “No, I have been very busy !” At first together with 3 other friends we have re-launched www.mobilityminded.com. Second with the rise of social networks much of the discussions are moved from blogging to these social media. In this article I will shortly eleborate on these two reasons.

MobilityMinded.com

A significant part of the articles on my personal blog were (Windows) Mobile-related, and I still love writing those articles ! Since -with 3 other friends- we re-launched www.mobilityminded.com a little while ago, this is the new “place’ where I publish most of the mobile technology related articles & reviews. Never heard of mobilityminded.com ?

“MobilityMinded aims to be(come) a true strategic partner in mobility for end-users, manufacturers, providers and developers, but foremost to the readers and contributers to the MobilityMinded website. The MobilityMinded focus will be on Views, News & Reviews in an interactive community setting.” [ref01]

And let me introduce my colleagues as well:

“The MobilityMinded Team now consists of Mark Briggeman, Remo Knops, Johan van Mierlo, Paul Willen and other guest contributers. More information and a brief history of the MobilityMinded Team Members can be found on the Team page.” [ref02]

Below you will find a list of articles and reviews I wrote @ mobilityminded.com. Some of the articles are really extensive and describe much detail. Personally I had much fun writing the articles of Spb Mobile Shell v3.0, Microsoft Facebook client and of course the HTC Snap review (a great successor for the all-time-favourite HTC S620).

For additional background information on the website and a brief history of the mobilityminded-team, you should certainly check out the website, or follow mobilityminded via one of the (social) media below:

Social networks

Everyone who is following developments and trends in technology and ICT knows that social media are becoming increasingly important. An example is the agressive growth in users of the micro-blogging platform Twitter, and the huge investments that Venture Capital firms made into this “start-up”. John Starkweather has described the same movement on his Microsoft Live Space page as below:

“But as everybody reading this already knows (that’s all 20 of you), personal blogs – where somebody rambles on for 500 words – are really not where the action, and definitely not the readers, are spending time. We’re all on Facebook or Twitter now; and for kicks I’ve even started a new MySpace page – as a new personality all together (in the name of marketing research of course!).” [ref03]

Of course the main reason is time. An article or review on a personal blog or website takes quite some time, but you can write into more detail, while the (status) updates on social networks are very short in characters and don’t take much time. This real-time flow of information on the world wide web has diverse implications, like for instance “searching the web”. This was one of the problems descibe in a reference of the aticle: Bing a Google search alternative described as decision engine ??

The bottom line is if you want to get in touch, please connect with me via one of the social networks below. Linkedin I use to connect on a professional level, while the other social networks are also for meeting new friends and catch up with old friends! Let’s connect ….

TECH EVENT: CntrStg the place-to-be during CES 2009 (Las Vegas)!

published on 29/12/2008 by Remo Knops

The technology enthusiast may know that it’s less than 2 weeks to go until the start of the world’s largest Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Within this show a special event is organized by Eric Hicks, Johan van Mierlo, Mike Temporale and Steven Hughes (all members of the Microsoft MVP program), which can be summarized as:

“CntrStg (pronounced Center Stage) is a proactive, community-led effort that strives to match up influential bloggers with representatives of products and companies in order to drive meaningful interaction, discussion and word-of-mouth referral. CntrStg actively represents the wants and needs of bloggers, allowing them to better interact with companies, their products and associated messages. CntrStg also provides a centralized, controlled environment for companies and product managers to share their message with interested and engaged audiences through direct, meaningful interaction.” [ref01]

While the concept of CntrStg tries to minimize the logistic problems for both manufacturers and journalists, it’s also a place to meet old friends and make new friends. In the modern online world there is a lot of interaction on the web, although it’s not a given fact that all the online journalists know each other in person. Personally I’m really looking forward to catch-up again with one of the CntrStg organizers, Johan van Mierlo, as the editor emeritus of Pocektinfo.nl. Furthermore, it will be great to meet some fellow Mobians, Microsoft Most Valuable Persons, as well as other journalists and manufacturers !!

On the CntrStg website there is a nice overview of the presenters, among which Nigel Dessau, AMD chief marketing officer and Stephen DeWitt, SVP and GM for HP Americas. Great to see the “top management” will present and interact during the CntrStg event. However my personal favorite is the Windows Mobile Team, which has confirmed to present at CntrStg:

“The presentation lead by Greg Sullivan, Senior Product Manager will take place for registered CntrStg attendees at 11 AM- 12.30 PM on Saturday January 10th at CntrStg . The Windows Mobile team will present some new hardware and never been seen software running on the Windows Mobile platform with some real-time demos.“

I’m really looking forward to this session, not only to see what news Microsoft has to present, but also to meet the developers who build the Windows Mobile platform. I hope there will be some time to interact and provide feedback about the current Windows Mobile “status” to them.

My fellow friends, Willem Ditters, Paul Willen and Mark Briggeman and myself are really counting down to this great event. The last preparations and registrations will be done this week. If you attend CES 2009, don’t forget to register for the CntrStg event. And don’t forget to drop me a line or two so we can catch a cup of Las Vegas’ cofee …. 😛

If you want to keep up-to-date in this last hectic weeks before the start of the CES, pleas subscribe to the CntrStg Twitter Feed !!

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