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webmonday/iphone 3.0 beta testing app

I was at the webmonday in Zurich last night organised by amazee and held at the Amazee office in Technopark with some great presentations, firstly, The Blind Association online, this presention put us sighted people to shame, the presenter, Jürg Cathomas, whipped through vocalised commands like lightning and showed us how to navigate the web and how to develop for the blind and partially sighted. The question session was lively and really interesting, great eye-opener for all of us.
Also on the bill was new Soc Media start up Minsh, who are doing something “fishy” with twitter, watch this space. My twitter page came up, and yes I got a minsh preview of me as an angelic white fish…
Ok, the usual networking took place with some really interesting techies and developers and then at the end of this evening, I met with a developer to discuss platform dev but we spoke about this iphone cut and paste option
You can’t get us away from talking about new iphone apps. And now Skype for iphone Woot!
follow me on twitter

Got something to say? a question maybe? leave us a comment
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist
Wisequeen

Do you poken.com ?

Those of you who follow my blog and my Swiss Tech posts will have heard of the gadget I’ve written on often POKEN, the social media networking tool thats set to take the world by storm. I’ve been blogging on founder Stéphane Doutriaux and the Poken team since they launched in Laussane in 2008. Poken’s recent expansion to UK, Italy, and now the US (as it was the most talked about device at Austin SXSW) means people will be pokening each other everywhere.

The Poken video will tell you how to highfive people and get rid of all those business cards on your desk that you can’t remember where you got,or who they belong to. Just buy a poken a bee, panda, monster or skull and start smart networking. Then register online and take your contacts with you wherever you go. The corporate version will be released soon, a slick USB pen size. The Poken conference badge was launched at #LIFT09 and will soon make interactive conference badges the smart choice.
So do you Poken? Interview with Stéphane Doutriaux
If you’re in Ticino Switzerland or Italy, tweet me or mail me at wisequeenmail (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll get you one. If in the USA You can buy them online at www.gotpoken.com or in UK at www.firebox.com

Leave us a comment and let us know what you think
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist
Wisequeen

Fun Webmonday in Zurich

Last night Techies,developers and startups came together at the 5th webmonday held in Zurich to listen to two informal presentations. One given by Hannes Gassert of LIIP, who hosted the evening, with snacks beer and wine, and another by Jani Penttinen on his Finish start up -XIHA Life a mutilingual lifestyle site. Great exchange of ideas took place among the forty or so people there.
Ideas take wings at events like these, so thanks to Amazee for arranging the webmonday nights in Zurich.
The photos above show my journey to #webmonday from arrival in Zurich to departure by train into big snow at St Gottard.

Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist

#scs09 Swiss startup camp Basel

I promised to take you to the Swiss startup camp in Basel this weekend.
The day kicked off with a really excellent keynote talk/interview of Suhas Gopinath CEO and president of Globals Inc a multi-million dollar international company that he started at the age of fourteen without any money in India and took global.
His truly inspirational story of how he used his pocket money to fund his first proposals in business at his local internet cafe because did not even have access to a computer had everyone enthralled.
Suhas Gopinath born in Bangalore, started his company at 14yrs old in 2000. He founded in San Jose California as the law did not allow him to set up in India. His story was trully inspirational. I asked him in question time where he got the guts from to approach and even take on big business at that young age, and he answered he had the courage of a young man who took the chance because no wasn’t an option.
Mr Gopinath was announced as the Young Global Leader for 2008-2009 by the World Economic Forum Davos. In this position he would be involved in development programs around the world, and would be studying leadership at Harvard University. He is the youngest Young Global leader in WEF history.

WATCH THE VIDEO OF HIS INTERVIEW at #scs09.

Watch FB video Startups networking at the event

Startups then gave their pitches and then presented in sessions on different subjects of which I was one, and I presented on “Personal Branding The face of your company”.
Successful Start-ups from 2008 were present Wuala, Poken and Amazee all of whom I wrote about as startups here, attended the event. Poken did great business selling their poken for eveyone to connect with. Tech Bloggers were in attendance and will no doubt blog on the event. Many Tweets were sent from the event #scs09 on Twitter.

It was a productive day with Nicolas Berg of Red Alpine who I interviewed here on wisequeen.com and other startup Angel investors presenting on what angel investors want from startups. Many meetings and much networking took place. The food and facilities were great, as was the wifi. People came from all over Switzerland, myself from Italy and some from nereby Germany. Thanks to all the sponsors and to Amazee, Sun microsystems and Amiando for the organization.
Leave a comment or ask a question.
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist.

Wuala Swiss Tech success

I first met Wuala and one of the founding partners Dominik Grolimund ( shown here talking to Scoble) at a Techcrunch Bluewin startup event in Zurich that I was blogging live at (yes I can do that, have Swisscom roaming and it works well.) I wrote on wuala at the time and other startups.
I have since written about and interviewed many Swisstech successes

My first hurdle was understanding the name in the striking red and white Wuala logo. It’s the phonetic spelling of Voilà ( French meaning, here it is.) And is pronounced exactly as you see it.
So there you are. I spoke to Dominik presenting his startup there at the Bluewin Swisscom,Techcrunch event and asked him about the competitior box.net and about his startup, a social storage solution too, which he told me was going to be bigger and better than box.com.
Well the Wuala launch party with the friendly team in Zurich of Oona, Sushi Domink and the rest of the team of seven, I missed, as I had broken my leg, but since then the rise of Wuala has seen no end.
30,478,784 files securely stored in Wuala.
A string of start up awards:

The lift08 conf venture award watch wuala presentation video

Recently announced by ReadWriteWeb as one of the
Top 10 International Products of 2008

Finalist in #leweb startups 07 And mentioned as a startup success at 2008 #leweb by TechcrunchUK’s Mike Butcher.

#leweb photo Andre Ribeirinho

So what exactly is Wuala?

Wuala is a mesh/cloud/P2P storage system which harnesses the idle resources of participating users and thus provides a sound solution as there are no file size limits and no bandwidth limits. This is an improvement on other systems that Dominik spoke to me about. This is essentially your own on-line hardisk where you can store photos, files, contacts or whatever, safely and ready to access.

Developed at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich). Dominik Grolimund and Luzius Meisser started research and development on Wuala at ETH Zurich in 2004. In alpha mode it was tested for three years with many communities.
In 2007, they founded their company, Caleido Inc.
The BETA Wuala launched in August 2008.

Wuala, the social online storage
Features content from wuala site:

Voilà, here comes Wuala! Securely store and back up files online, access them from anywhere, and share your photos, videos, and music with friends and family.

Join Wuala today and experience a new dimension of storing and sharing files - free, simple, and secure.

Features
Security

Privacy
Like you, we care about privacy. That’s why privacy is a key aspect of Wuala. All files get encrypted on your computer and you control who has access to which folders. Since your password never leaves your computer, no one else - including us - can see your private files.

Unlimited and fast

Lots of storage
You start with 1 GB of storage for free, but you can get much more! You can either trade unused local disk space for more online storage (e.g., trade 50 GBs on your computer to get up to 50 GBs of online storage), or buy additional storage at a really good price. With Wuala, you can easily get as much room as you need for all your photos, documents, and videos.

Unlimited traffic
Wuala does not limit your traffic in any way. You can upload and download as much as you want and downloads are very fast. Amazing? Sure - our novel technology makes it possible.

Any file, any size
You can upload any file of any size. Be it a 100 KB Word file, a 2 MB JPG photo, or a 3 GB video.

Fast downloads
Downloads in Wuala are fast. Why? Thanks to our storage grid technology you can download from multiple sources in parallel, providing you with maximum download speed.

Convenience

Drag and drop
Simply drag and drop the files or folders you want to upload into Wuala. Done. No “choose file” dialogs, no single selections.

Desktop and web
Convenience is important to us. Wuala is not a clumsy website where you need to upload files one by one, but it’s a desktop client where you can drag-and-drop and upload files in the background. Nevertheless, Wuala can be started from the web, making it easy to run anywhere.

Integrated into Windows, Mac, and Linux
Wuala is fully integrated into your system, be it Windows, Mac, or Linux. You can open a file with a double click from Wuala or browse the Wuala disk from the “Open” dialog of any application. You can also edit files directly in Wuala. No copying around, no synchronization.

Upload in the background
That’s another thing a web-based solution just can’t do: Dump your files into Wuala and let it take care of the rest. You need to quit Wuala or shut down your computer while uploading files? No problem! Wuala will continue right where it stopped when you launch it the next time.

Responsiveness
Being an application, Wuala is not bound by the limits of web-based solutions which makes Wuala much more responsive and allows for improved efficiency. The time you need to create a new folder and insert some files is only limited by how fast you can handle the mouse.

Experience

Streaming
Media files such as videos or music can be streamed directly. No waiting until it is downloaded. Just lean back and enjoy.

Slideshow
Wuala has no constraints regarding file size or quality. One of the obvious advantages is that your friends can upload photos in full quality for you to enjoy as a full screen slideshow. Being fully integrated into the operating system, Wuala can make use of the gorgeous slideshow feature of the system itself.

Notifications
Stay on top of what your friends are uploading - you get a notification whenever they share new files with you. That’s like mini-feeds in Facebook, just for files.

Links and more

Share folders
Sharing files with friends could not be simpler: Select a folder in Wuala and choose who of your friends can access it. Or share a folder by password and send a link plus password by email or in an instant message.

Link to your files
After making a file public, everyone can access that file. You can then copy the link of the file and post it anywhere to point people to your latest pictures, scientific paper or freeware application. Or link to your files from MySpace, Facebook, etc.

So I think the coolest things about this are its speed, its ease of use, drag drop-file sharing, and felixibilty across software, and its user-friendliness for social media. Plus the groups, API group, and even a Christmas wallpaper group all of which you can find on the site.

Group: Wuala API

Official Wuala API group

It’s cool! Join today

Got something to say? Want to tell us how your experience of Wuala? Leave us a comment above.
Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist
Wisequeen

Wisequeen Interview with Nicolas Berg- Swiss tech Guru

Well I promised you an interview with Nicolas Berg from Redalpine venture partners who has been behind many successful startups in Switzerland and is now widening his start up net.
So here goes.

1. Where is your home town?
Gstaad, Switzerland

2. Where are you living now?
In Solothurn, Switzerland.

2b. What are you doing now?
I co-founded Redalpine Venture Partners with partners in August 2007 to invest in highly scalable European start-ups. It’s one of the few venture funds that focuses on the finance gap («valley of death») of investments in the range of €200k to €2m.

3. What were you doing before this?
Since 1984 I have been a serial entrepreneur. I initiated eight start-ups, among others the financial platform borsalino.ch in 1998 and sold it to Switzerland’s leading publisher Ringier in 2000. Since that trade-sale I spent seven years as a full-time angel investor investing in 16 start-ups such as Genevalogic or XING, the leading European platform for business networking that went public 2006.

3b. So you have been an entrepreneur from the start?
No, in between I checked out how it is to work as an employee: 1986-87 I was working as a sales coach in Norway, 1989-90 as a part-time human resources lecturer at the University of Berne, 1992-98 as an editor for a daily newspaper.

4.What did you study after school?
1980-85 I studied law and business administration in Berne. At the same time I competed in alpine ski races with the Swiss university team, travelled for three months in the USA, supported political activities of social democrats and a green party, and I started my first company that sold PCs, software and networks.

5. What did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to become an architect, a painter, a writer of screenplays or a theatre director.

6. Tell me how your present company came about?
After seven years as a full time business angel I searched for a better business model to fill the European early-stage finance gap. Together with my closest co-investors we had several successful exits with half a dozen «disruptive» companies but we were stressed due to no regular income, and we often lost time for syndicating with other investors. By starting Redalpine we wanted to create a new mix by combining best practices of professional angels (speed & gut feeling) and VC funds (investment power & coherent investment process).

7. Explain Redalpine Venture Partners to me?
As serial entrepreneurs and investors Redalpine’s partners have a strong network. It provides a deal-flow of more than 1000 early-stage business plans annually. We select about 20-30 truly talented entrepreneurs with a disruptive and scalable business model that seem to fit best in our pro-active investment strategy. Then we discuss how we might achieve success together. We end up with about eight investments p.a. – some as a lead investor – negotiating deal terms & active member of the board –, some as a co-investor –leveraging our network by door opening. The investment goal is always to sell the company within two to five years and realising a two-digit valuation multiple.

7b. Who invested in Redalpine?
We are three full-time investment managers and at the same time General Partners (GP) of the fund. The GP is the biggest investor, but we also raised funds from three dozen successful entrepreneurs and financiers in six European countries. These Limited Partners add a lot of value by leveraging our capital and network.

8. What is your vision for it?
We want to be the most successful European early-stage high-tech fund by 2014. If we achieve a high profit we will also have continued to contribute to the creation of thousands of new jobs. And the disruptive technologies of our portfolio will improve the health of the over-all economy.

9. What would you like to do next?
Redalpine II. Maybe it will again finance ICT and science based companies, maybe we will go for green technologies. Personally I would like to do more sports or become what I originally wanted to be: a screenplay writer or director.

10. What does your family think of your job?
My kids (9 and 11) tell friends that Nicolas is working in the Internet and that he «buys» companies cheap and sells expensive. They like that I now am more often at home than during my days as a dotcom founder. When I say no to some of the «investments» they propose they suggest: «You better go and find a job with a real salary, man!»

11. What are you most proud of professionally?
I am most proud of a few good stories as a journalist. And I am proud of some of my start-ups that changed the way of doing things such as social networking, recruitment fairs, speed executive search, super-learning or premedical coaching. The top exit with borsalino.ch was nice as well because I suddenly had enough money to build a house and to learn the profession of a full-time venture investor.

12. Which book are you reading at the moment?
On my bedside locker you will find half a dozen Norwegian, Swedish and Danish detective novels, a biography on German-Sicilian Emperor Frederick II von Staufen (1208-1250) and a book from last year that predicts the financial crisis.

13. What other profession would you like to try.
To become a professional athlete I should be a little younger. So I have to go for actor, movie director, novel writer or painter.

Interview copyright Wisequeen
- link to it yes, Digg it here steal copy? No.

Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist.

So what do you think ? Do the Swiss Tech start-ups rival Silicon valley? Is Switzerland the new Silicon valley? Let’s debate this with intense debate.
Tell us what you think - comment above .