New Startup Views Relief Efforts As Revenue Generators
Hoover's Online, June 16, 2004 6:13pm
Wireless Data News
The need for 100,000 humanitarian- and reconstruction-aid workers worldwide to manage and communicate information quickly from remote parts of the world spurred a former refugee coordinator to start a company that intends to fulfill the mission by using satellites and wireless technology. The startup also believes it can do well by doing good.
Portsmouth, N.H.-based Global Relief Technologies Inc. (GRT) is the brainchild of Michael Gray, a former U.S. Department of State official who once served as a refugee officer in Macedonia and Albania. The year-old startup recently teamed with Telenor Satellite Services of Rockville, Md., to provide the global service that is in Gray's head.
GRT is targeting customers that include the U.S. government, the United Nations, the International Red Cross, Catholic relief groups and other non- governmental organizations. GRT plans to generate revenue by charging a subscription fee tailored to the number of users [in a group] who need the data services coupled with the amount of customized software required. One financial consultant believes the business could grow into a $100 million-to-$200 million-per-year enterprise.
Telenor spokesman Tom Surface says his company is both an investor in and a product distributor for GRT. Telenor's commitment also includes such in- kind support services as cash, marketing, sales and engineering.
Like GRT, Telenor believes the humanitarian service "will be a revenue- generator and profit center targeted on the types of industries that need robust communications in remote locations that lack infrastructure," Surface says.
Telenor will provide a wireless data link to connect people working in the field to a home office, and vice versa. Maps, photographs and electronic data forms also could be uplinked and downlinked. Workers would use PDAs embedded with electronic forms that could be filled out on a touch screen. The PDAs can be connected to an Inmarsat satellite phone provided by Telenor. The data then would be transmitted from anywhere in the planet into the network to the GRT virtual Internet-enabled network operations center in Portsmouth.
When the data is collected, an entire series of reporting formats are available to input the information. Managers then can retrieve the information from the Internet. Another valuable feature of the PDAs includes software that would send alerts to evacuate personnel in dangerous situations.
The availability of this type of a service also has undisputed life- saving potential. One powerful example of how it could have been used occurred in Afghanistan, when the office of the International Committee for the Red Cross was bombed accidentally three times by allied forces, "despite the best of intentions," due to the receipt of inaccurate positioning coordinates for the facilities, Gray says.
Michael Gray, 240/235-5044;Tom Surface, 301/838-7805
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