Infocomm Industry Forum

I'm usually not the kind of person who goes around attending seminars and forums, but these two days I've had them back to back!

The first was the Infocomm Industry Forum 2010. Informative, inspiring, and led by high-powered executives and entrepreneurs full of vibe! They presented on the hottest ICT trends, on cloud computing, analytics, mobile techs... all poised to evolve the way we do business, and even the way we live.

I especially liked the last two presentations, about Globe Forum, an ideas and capital marketplace for environmental enterprise, and Grow VC, that promotes the system of communal investment, i.e. growing a VC from the ground up. I grabbed the opportunity after the forum to talk to Mr Jouko, a long-time entrepreneur, investor and the founder of Grow VC. It was inspiring to see someone who believes in a vision and great ideas, especially at his level of multi-million startups!

At the same time, I also talked to Mr Johan of Globe Forum, and.. it was not so inspiring. I asked about his personal motivation (besides being a hero to his daughter!), but instead of hearing about the importance of environmentalism, he exhorted about how it was a truly profitable idea, by taking a stake in multiple startups. Sounds like a VC masked up by lofty ideals.

Of course firms must be profitable. But in which sense? Money? Sure, money is a universal medium of value. But what if this value is not recognized in the monetary sense? Just as housewives and mothers receive no banker's pay, so do many not-for-profits toil away at solving the needs and problems that society falls short in today. How about giving them a pat on the back and some healthy financing, eh?

I'm sure there are so many worthy startups out there that can earn huge profits. With minimal costs they can maximize their revenue: millions worth of peace, billions in conserving the environment for the future, and trillions of happiness for many, many people in the world. Do we really have to leave it to people who get realllllyyyy rich before they can give away half their fortunes to charity and NPOs? (Nice initiative btw, Bill!)

Anyway, I'll been contacting Mr Jouko soon, and hopefully get to engage him on these issues.