Ask Willie….

Irish Minister of Defence Willie O’Dea, who has featured on my blog before, has recently been asked why the Irish army did not provide assistance during the floods in Ireland & if they would assist with releief efforts in Haiti. Both times he answered that they would have to be asked first.

So I did just that, I asked him. More specifically I asked him via email on January 17th if he could assist with transport to get a team of volunteer telecoms engineers to Haiti. It took him 5 working days to reply. And his reply can be described in 4 words: “go ask someone else”. Below is the verbatim contents of the reply I received. Make up your own mind.

Dear Mr. Bopp

Thank you for your e-mail and for your kind offer of assistance following the enormous tragedy in Haiti. The offers of assistance from the public have indeed been exceptional and indeed heartening, once more showing the generosity of people in this country.

The Irish Government response to the humanitarian crisis in Haiti is being led by the Development Cooperation Division (Irish Aid) of the Department of Foreign Affairs. I have been in touch with that Department in relation to your e-mail.

One of the lessons of the international community’s response to the 2004 Tsunami was that the mass deployment of volunteers and delivery of relief items, while well-intentioned, can often hamper relief efforts. In light of these lessons, the Government is of the view that all assistance should be provided in response to the real needs of the affected population in-country. Aid should also be provided in a structured and coordinated manner, and through providers on the ground who have the capacity and know-how to receive and distribute aid appropriately.

As you may be aware, Irish Aid is a donor organisation which is not directly operational in emergencies, but which provides its funding and material assistance through established and trusted UN, Red Cross and NGO partners.

According to Irish Aid, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is leading the response in the area of Emergency Telecommunications. The WFP’s emergency platform website is a good source of information and may be of assistance to you: http://ictemergency.wfp.org/home in your planning.

The strong recommendation is that, in the first instance, you make contact with the WFP’s Emergency Logistics personnel in order to ascertain from them if the expertise and product you offer will be required in the immediate emergency response, or indeed later in the recovery phase. If so, they may be able to advise how best you should channel your assistance. Contact details are on the website link herewith:

http://ictemergency.wfp.org/14;jsessionid=E05F9426294AC82BD48496D7D2452A68

I would also refer you to the How You Can Help website (www.howyoucanhelp.ie), which has been developed by our NGO partners to provide guidance to the general public on the best ways they can assist in times of overseas emergency.

In addition, the following is a list of Irish Aid’s NGO partners who are operational in Haiti, together with contact details. It is possible that one of those will wish to engage with you and your colleagues.

Concern: www.concern.net info@concern.net 01 475 4162

CBM Ireland: www.cbm.ie info@cbm.ie 047 71820

Oxfam Ireland: www.oxfamireland.org communications@oxfamireland.org 01 672 7662

Trocaire: www.trocaire.org info@trocaire.ie 01 629 3333

Christian Aid Ireland: www.christian-aid.ie dublin@christian-aid.org 01 611 0801

Irish Red Cross: www.redcross.ie info@redcross.ie 01 676 5135

Plan Ireland: www.plan.ie info@plan.ie 01 6599 601

World Vision Ireland: www.worldvision.ie ireland@wvi.org 01 498 0800

GOAL: www.goal.ie info@goal.ie 01 280 9779

Habitat for Humanity Ireland: www.habitatireland.ie/ info@habitatireland.ie 01 629 9611

MSF Ireland: www.msf.ie office.dublin@dublin.msf.org 01 660 3337

Tearfund Ireland: www.tearfund.ie enquiries@tearfund.ie 01 497 5285″.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to contact me and for your kind offer of assistance.

Yours sincerely,

__________________

WILLIE O’DEA T.D.

MINISTER FOR DEFENCE

Providing emergency communications for Haiti.

Last night while sitting on the couch I got one of my brainwaves; why not try to organise a volunteer effort to set up an outdoor wifi network for Haiti using wifi? Now I have for years been playing with the idea of developing emergency (disaster zone proof) wifi units that without too much work can be used to deploy a mesh-type data & voice network. Why wifi? Well it’s easy to use, cheap, license free and most off all: it works!

As with any disaster zone it’s been flooded by a large amount off relief effort: NGO, foreign government relief efforts etc. The most essential thing to coördinate all these efforts is coördination and coördination cannot take place without communications. I am starting from the assumption that the local comms systems are gone. That leaves system put in place by the US military and also a number of Iiridium (or other) satellite phones. That is still only a fraction off what is needed to accomodate the relief efforts. Now having worked with wifi for more than 10 years I am certain that a few qualified volunteers with a container of the right hardware can get a rudimentary network up & running in a few days. We could start by a few point-to-point links from a locations with backhaul (Port-au-prince?) and build out from there. Repeaters connected to the point-2-point links can distribute the signal locally where it can be used by PDA’s. laptops, iphones, VOIP phones and the like. From there the network can be built out. This type of network has been used before for disaster relief after hurricane Katrina & Charley.

Haiti’s topography seems to be suitable for this as there are quite a few mountain peaks ( sea level up to highest point: Chaine de la Selle 2,680 m) so it would be easy enough to shoot point-2-point links to high point and roll out from there.

I am sure that if I can get together a team of 5-10 engineers with sponsored hardware and transport (and security on the ground) we can make this happen.

However as I am putting this together from scratch I need all the help I can get so I am reaching out to you people reading this from home, office, at home or on the road. Below is a list of what I (so far) think we need. Please let me know if you can help or if you know someone who can. I am counting on you all to help me make this happen!

• 5 -10 volunteers (I am already reaching out to some people I know but if you have the skills and want to help please contact me via the details below).
• Wifi & Networking hardware (as much as I appreciate private contributions I really need a company to step in here and provide the lot. Have a few things in the pipeline but need to get this sorted ASAP) I need outdoor-access-point, repeaters, bridges, antennas, a couple of switches & routers, loads of ethernet cable & connectors etc. Contact me if your company wants to help.
• Transport: While I think that we can work this out with a government agency I am open to any airline offering to fly us out there.
• Expenses: While I am willing to do this on a voluntary basis and expect other volunteers to come forward we need to be fed & watered and have a roof over our head while we’re in Haiti. So I need donations.

Really that’s all I can think off for now. I am sure that more info will be put up here as we go along so keep checking back.

In the meantime those who want to help can contact me by the following means:

Email

Phone: +353 (0)86 8645099

Twitter: @evertb

Skype: Airappz

P.S. For those who wonder if I’m crazy to do this; I probably am but I am at a stage in my life were I refuse to sit back and watch people suffer like this. Hopefully you feel the same.

21/01/09 UPDATE: We’re putting together a dedicated website to coordinate this relief effort due the the overwhelming interest. The site will be at www.haiti-connect.org and should be live at the end off the day. You will also be able to donate online via this website.

DNA database, the story grows.

I recently wrote about the discovery that (since 1984) Temple Street hospital had retained all newborn bloodsamples submitted to it for the purpose of the PKU/heelprick tests. That means that they have a database of people born in Ireland since 1984! This is an estimated 1.54 million people. This was all following an article in the Sunday Times on December 27th 2009.

The Sunday Times ran a follow up story on January 6th. Their research discovered that “external researchers” had been given access to the database on at least 4 occasions. It has also become clear that at least one request from an “agency” for access to the database was received.

This raises two immediate questions:

1. If the database was illegal and/or secret how come external organisations were aware of its existence.
2. If access was granted to “external researchers” did money change hands over this?

I am pursuing this matter further and am in the process of submitting a number of FOI requests and will post results in this blog when I receive them.

However I have also decided to put up a website similar to the one run by the CountMeOut campaign. This website will allow people to send a standard email to Temple Street & the HSE requesting to be notified if their or their children’s data is contained in this database and if this is the case to request that the data is destroyed.

However as I am not a web developer & have not got the time to learn this I am looking for a web designer who will assist me with this on a pro-bono basis. The site is going to be fairly simple and mostly text based but it needs to have a backend that can submit the completed form (via email) to 3 different email adresses simultaneously.

So if you’re a web developer willing to help with this please send me an email!

New project: Inventorium.

At the end of a decade I managed to get involved with a new project. It’s a combined project between the NDRC in Ireland & CAST in Wales. Inventorium is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Ireland Wales Programme (INTERREG 4A).

Quoting from the NDRC website: “Inventorium is a three year inter-regional project designed to establish a sustainable distributed mechanism for the generation of new ideas that will lead to the formation of new businesses or contribute to sustaining existing businesses, with particular focus on digital technologies for health, public services, education, leisure, entertainment, environment and transport.

It will aim to develop and test systematic methodologies for early stage knowledge interchange, support initial conceptualisation of products and services based on innovative technologies, provide channels of communication between potential and existing stakeholders (including SMEs, MNCs, public bodies, academic and research institutions and interested individuals) and provide mechanisms and supports for activities leading to the generation and subsequent early-stage commercialisation activities of innovative technical solutions to real-world problems.”

Now what that means is that we will look at problems/challenges in the private & public sector. This could be challenges in their current procedures or business models or it could be the need for certain technological solutions. We will cast our net wide. At the same time we will look for providers of sulutions, entrepreneurs & innovators. Basically people who can address the challenges and solve the problems that we discover. What Inventorium will do is bring together a party with a problem/challenge with someone who can possibly develop a solution. We will then assist, guide & support these two parties in the development process with as ultimate aim the creation of a new commercial venture.

What we won’t do is provide funding, however if needed we will provide introductions to sources of funding. We are also not an incubator. However we have a great team spread over Wales & Ireland with a wealth of experience and connections. This will all be applied to bringing people from both areas together and to merge existing technologies & knowledge together with opportunities or needs and create the seeds for commercial success.

My involvement is only part-time so I will still be keeping up all my activities with The GreenHouse, Airappz and my other projects.

Temple Street Hospital & illegal retention of DNA/blood samples.

I came across this article in last weekends Sunday Times newspaper. The article outlines how Dublin’s Temple Street Hospital has:

“built a database containing the DNA of almost every person born in the country since 1984 without their knowledge in an apparent breach of data protection laws”.

What has happened is that the hospital:

“amassed 1,548,300 blood samples from “heel prick tests” on newborns which are sent to it for screening, creating, in effect, a secret national DNA database”

The hospital is now under investigation by the Data Protection Commissioner who will possibly order that all these record will have to be destroyed if it is not satisfied that the hospital is taken all necessary actions.

“Clearly it is a matter of significant concern to us that holding data of this nature containing sensitive health details of such a significant portion of the population appears to have operated without taking account of data protection requirements,” said Billy Hawkes, the DPC commissioner. The issue of the justification for the holding of the blood samples for any period beyond that which is necessary to perform the initial blood test will have to be considered as part of this office’s investigation of this matter. At present the position would appear to be that there is no consent from parents for the information to be held at all.”

A hospital spokeswoman said the blood samples were being stored to help develop the screening programme and was in accordance with practices in other countries.

I have several serious issues with this DNA database and have voiced my concerns in a number of online forums. I have also contacted the DPC for advice. I was advised to contact the CEO of Temple Street hospital by email to determine if my children’s records were held in this database and if so to request that they be destroyed. I have done so but have not received a reply so far.

Now while I can understand the retention of the samples for the development of a screening programme, I do not see why the private details of each baby had to be retained. Surely statistical data (DOB, ethnic background, geographical location etc.) should be sufficient? I also have questions in how secure this data is stored and who has (and has had) access to it. As the database is defacto illegal I do not see it complying in either of these areas.

A “funny” thing happened though when I made a comment about this on Twitter. My tweets are posted to my profile on IGO. Within hours my comment was being criticised by someone who seemed to have an insider knowledge of hospital procedures. This person failed to grasp the essence of my objections and insinuated that by my objections I was showing a disregard to the welfare of sick children who could be helped by a database like this. What was interesting though was that this person set up an IGO & Twitter account only shortly after I posted my comments and only used these accounts to criticise my statements. Both accounts also gave no real indication as to who the person was. When I asked them to disclose who they are they preferred to go silent. I have my suspicion but will leave it to you the reader to draw your own conclusions.

Something else emerged from the discussions with this and other person though; apparently the retention of blood (and DNA) samples past the necessary period is allegedly commonplace in other hospitals and labs across the country. Also the procedure apparently calls for the HSE to order the hospital to destroy said samples before they are allowed to do so. Even though these rules are no excuse and do not supercede the applicable legislation it does indicate that at some level within the HSE there must be an awareness of the existence of these databases.

This issue is far from over for me and I will be posting regular updates to my blog. Keep reading!

Five tech predictions for 2010

1. 2010 will see a huge surge in wifi usage. Those who thought that wifi was on the way out will be proven wrong. The ever increasing use of smartphone and other devices with built-in wifi will only grow the demand. The recent spate of 3G or Wimax to wifi devices is also an indicator. Mobile broadband providers see their current networks getting overloaded and will try to hand of load to public wifi networks. 2010 will be the biggest year for wifi yet and will also see an increase in “free” wifi services that utilise different revenue streams.
2. 2010 will also be the 1st year that the market share held by the Apple iPhone will start to shrink. While Apple can always count on an almost Evangelic core following the common denominator smartphone user will realise that Apple, with its restrictive software policy, is ruining the technically great device that the iPhone is. Apple’s AOL-type app policy and the iphones’ dire battery life will feed the demand for the increased number of Android devices as they come onto the market.
3. RFID tags will be a big thing next year. Not only will RFID tags be used to track items but it will also see an increased use as a mean to trigger actions. You put an item with an RFID tag near a device with a RFID receiver and it will trigger an action. Think vouchers, LBS and a whole raft of other great applications
4. As much as I love Twitter 2010 will also see the beginning of the end for Twitter. In its attempts to generate increasing revenue Twitter will start scaring away early adopters and core users. The enormous user base will also make it harder and harder for new users to find the “catch” that drew the initial crowds in.  Once it requires a significant amount of time/effort to get to grips with Twitter the decreasing user base will not be renewed. New service that pay users to be allowed to insert ads into their twitter stream will also lessen the appeal. Q 3/4 of 2010 will see a number of new services/applications emerging that are based on the best elements of Twitter but that will provide a more tailored/manageable stream.
5. Mobile devices will become absolutely huge but not in the way that we know them. I expect to see the first examples of something that I’ve been looking forward to for some time; portable devices that will become desktop replacements. You carry it around with you all day and just plug it into a cradle when at your desk. The cradle is connected to a keyboard, mouse & monitor just as laptops used to be. New battery technology and a significant increase in processing power and onboard memory will make the new generation of portable devices the new desktop replacement.

The end for public wifi in the UK?

I came across this article on ZDnet a few weeks ago and the title grabbed me and made me sit up straight: “Pub fined £8000 for wifi copyright infringement”. In short the story was as follows: A pub in the UK had a fine levied against them in a civil case taken by the copyright owner of content that was accessed/downloaded illegally through a public wifi hotspot in the pub.

Now this type of case is very rare and raises several questions;

• What was the content accessed, and how did the copyright owner find out?
• Why was the civil suit taken against the pub instead of the network owner The Cloud.
• What effect will this have on future cases in regards to liability for ISP’s and the accessibility of public wifi networks?

Now there are a number of points that need definition. First there is a “public (wifi) network”; this is a network that is accessible by any member of the general public and in such not limited to any specific group or type of people (not the legal description but close enough imho). Now a wifi network that is broadcasting in a public space and which offers paid or unpaid access could under this definition be considered a public (wifi) network as also described in the legal advice sent to The Cloud by the law firm Faegre & Benson on 17 August: “Wi-Fi hotspots in public and enterprise environments providing access to the internet to members of the public, free or paid, are public communications services“. Now, operators of said public communications services are by law not liable for content downloaded through the service provided. So the owners of the pub could argued this point in court. However instead they appeared to have settled out of court. The £8000 euro awarded to the plaintiffs is also not a fine but instead a “compensation” for damages incurred. I sincerely hope that it is actually a settlement as that would also mean that the legal precedent is questionable and that we won’t see a raft of these cases shutting down public wifi access all over the UK.

A second issue to consider here is the EU wide Data Retention legislation. This legislation (in short) means that telecommunication providers, including Internet access providers, need to retain records of their clients usage (who, when, where & what). For w provider of public wifi access to comply there would have to be a once off registration process and a repeated authentication process. That way usage can be linked to the individual and comprehensive records can be produced. Some wifi providers will argue that this is not necessary or that this can only be done through a charging process. Both are wrong. While providers theoretically do not have to start retaining this data until asked to do so by the government it is best practice to do so. The “paid argument” is also faulty as it is perfectly feasible to ask a user to register the first time they use a service and hence create a user profile. They will then be assigned authentication details (username & password, token etc.) which will be used to authenticate each time they use the network. Now this requires a bit more work and a capable network backend and this is why some providers prefer to avoid this. If this registration & authentication had been in place it would have been very easy to determine the actual defendant in this case.

However it is my suspicion that while The Cloud normally uses an authentication system that in this case the pub and/or its staff might have been handing out login details to its patrons while bypassing the registration process. This means that there is no actual record of who has been accessing what data, where or when. The chain of evidence would end with the pub owner who, if they acted in this manner, created a situation whereby the tracebility ended with them. Hence it could be argued during a civil case where the standard of proof was the balance of probabilities that they are ultimately responsible. To fight this in court would possibly be a long drawn out process that would cost far in excess of a £8000 settlement payment. I really doubt that this went through the full process of a court hearing, however I do not have the actual file on this case so can’t say this with absolute certainty.

CONCLUSION: While this case looks serious it will not mean the end of public wifi access in the UK or Europe. It does however serve one purpose; if you provide or want to provide public wifi access in your venue (whether it’s a pub, hotel airport or any other location) make sure that your network uses a registration, authentication & data retention. We at Airappz have been providing this for years and alleviates all kinds of worries both for the customer & ourselves.

Sources:

• Does net cut-off plan break EU law?

• Pub 'fined £8k' for Wi-Fi copyright infringement

• ZDNet, Wi Fi and the Digital Economy Bill

New year, cross-border Wake Up Call!

I recently received an email from Mark Finlay with a fantastic idea: “how about a cross-border business networking event between the Limerick & Belfast regions scheduled around the Ulster – Munster rugby match? It’s a great initiative by Shannon Development delivered by Presidents’ Club trustees Raymond Sexton and Mark J Finlay with contribution from former Ireland, Ulster and Lions outhalf David Humphreys.”

It’s a fantastic opportunity for businesses from the Limerick region to strength their bonds with Belfast based business. Belfast in a dynamic and innovative region and a great first step in international expansion for every starting (or established) Irish business. Transport form Limerick is arranged and a full program of networking, stimulating discussion and learning will be followed by watching the rugby match from premium seats in the new Grandstand and after the match we will meet the Ulster players & coaching staff.The full program can be downloaded here.

There are only 20 places available. If you are interested please email me and I will put your name on the list. Please include full business details in the email. Places are assigned on a first come, first served basis!

A tale of two cities….

When I was on my way to Business Camp Dublin last week I got a phone-call that made me sit up and nearly crash the car. The statement was simple: “Dell has sold their Lodz plant to Foxconn”.

While this move might make perfect sense on a balance sheet somewhere I find it shocking. so I’ve done a bit a digging into this over the last few days and have pieced together a timeline. In January 2009 Dell announced that they are moving their production from the plant in Limerick, Ireland to Lodz, Poland. This would lead to 2000+ people losing their jobs. Several months afterwards it emerges that the Polish government used 54.4 million euro (EU funds) as a payment to entice Dell to move their production facility to Poland. This cannot be seen in any other light than unfair state interference in the free market resulting in direct the loss of jobs in Ireland.
Now as it stands that is bad enough, however to add insult to injury Dell has now announced that they are selling the Lodz plant to Foxconn (a manufacturer of computer components and supplier of Dell). Now I might be a terrible cynic but I strongly suspect that the plans to sell the plant to Foxconn were already being hatched when the announcement was being made that the Limerick plant would be shut down. The move to Poland put the production capacity in a low-cost country making it much easier to offload. So that’s 54.4 million euro spent on facilitating the sale and possibly increasing the value of the sold asset. Put this in comparison to the paltry 14.5 million that the EU has pledged to Limerick to facilitate retraining off and job creation for those laid off by Dell. It’s a 69.9 million euro exercise with only one benefactor: DELL.

Put that in comparison to Dells’ complete refusal to do anything to create employment for those laid off in Limerick. I personally spoke to them repeatedly about support for the Greenhouse Incubator and they wouldn’t even let us have some of their used office furniture. Direct appeals to Sean Corkery & Michael Dell fell on deaf ears. I also know of several other organisations that approached them for a support for job-creation initiative. All were turned away…..

The effects actual effects of Dells move from Limerick are quite often underestimated. While the direct job losses were 2510 the total effect for the region is far worse: “it will cost the region 9,500 jobs and suck €117m out of the local economy, a secret Irish government report admits”.

And what does the Irish government do? It has a lot of meetings, sets up a task force that doesn’t really do anything and pisses whatever little money they get from the EU down the drain. This country is being run by imcompetent & inept morons and it’s high time we got rid of them and replaced them with a valid, long term alternative!

FAS(t)-tracking 20 million of money wasting…

In July of this year I blogged about an announcement that 20 million euro would be allocated to job creation for ex-Dell workers (and other people who have recently become un-employed) in the Limerick region. As I was looking to raise funding to kick-start the Greenhouse Incubator I discussed this funding with a few ministers. What I wanted to know is if a relatively small amount of this funding could be made available to the Greenhouse incubator. I had been working on getting the Greenhouse off the ground since January this year and had everything arranged bar the funding. I had a large office (rent-free) I had mentors, sponsors, service provider, a knowledge network, atop-class  board of advisors etc. All I needed was just a little bit of funding to pay for the operational costs and I would be able to create 15-20 jobs within the first 6 months with a forecasted net job creation of 100-ish jobs every 12 months.

A study released last week by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration, in partnership with consulting firm Grant Thornton LLP, found that supporting business incubators, including those multi-dimensional support programs that help scientists with innovative ideas turn them into successful companies, is one of the most efficient and effective way to create jobs.

I was disgusted to hear that ALL this money would be allocated to FAS and would only be spent on public sector “job creation” projects. This is simply unacceptable as FAS has been proven over the last year to be corrupt & incompetent. It is simply unacceptable that in a period in which the public sector has been proven again & again to be either unable to perform its task or is staffed by a large number of civil servants who only interested in serving themselves.

At the time I blogged about it, spoke once or twice on the radio on the topic but I also emailed a number of ministers as well as Vladimir Spidla, the EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. A few of the ministers replied letting me know that there wasn’t really anything they could do for me however what disgusted me most is that I received a so-called “read confirmation” from Vladimir Spidla’s office but NEVER RECEIVED A REPLY!! So not only does the Irish government not give a damn about actually being credible and trying to solve the employment crisis, the EU commissioner in charge of allocating a large chunk of this funding also does not think he needs to at least have someone in his office reply to a valid query. This puts the whole Lisbon Treaty in perspective also.

We are now 4 months on from my original blogpost and what has been done in the public sector regarding job creation? Nada, nothing, zilch, niks, niets! There have been meeting after meeting of taskforces, committees & working groups and enough discussion has taken place that if words were water the plains of the Irish MidWest would have been flooded from Portloaise right up to Ennis…But has all this created a single job or stimulated a single unemployed person to start their own business venture? NOT A SINGLE ONE!

We are in a situation where brilliant entrepreneurs can’t even get help in raising 20k to go a Superstar event in the US to promote & kick-off their new venture. We live in a country where the best thing in start-up support is entrepreneurs themselves chipping in 50 euro each into a fund for new ventures. We live in a country where the only support I can get for organising a series of 5 Business Camps comes from the private sector and individuals (and is barely enough to cover the costs). We live in a country were the government is time after time proven to be unwilling to find any meaningful solutions for the current economic crisis.

We need to make clear to the people running this country that efficiency is not measured in money spent or money saved. Efficiency is measured by result. If we let this 20 million be gobbled up by FAS (with the predictable negligible results) the government will parade it around the halls off the Dail as a great effort because they “invested 20 million euro in job creation”…

We need to demand that at least half of this funding is spent on private sector run projects or we might as well take all this money and use it to stoke the hearths in our houses while the dwindling light of the Irish economy slowly but surely fizzles out…

I for one will not stand by and let that happen!