Last week, Wednesday, March 27th, at Tech20/20 networking lunch I met John B. - local entrepreneur from Knoxville, TN. Quick chat about my country of origin - Ukraine - led us to discovery of John's participation, as member of Rotary Club of Knoxville, in helping orphanage in Eastern Europe, city Matezalka, Hungary.
Listening to his story of delivering bicycles "by pedaling" from Budapest to Matezalka reminded me my own story related to Rotary Club of Budapest.
I started playing chess with my dad when i was 7 years old, as 1st grader in School #5, Uzhgorod, Ukraine, in year 1978. By age 10 i was playing at competitions with grown-ups at chess club, then located at downtown of Uzhgorod, Korzo Street. Back in Soviet Union for some idiotic decision chess were classified as sport. So when i started to receive recognition as chess player it was presented to my school as sport achievement. It didn't go well with classmates who were big into real sports, like football. Nonviolent bullying led me to drop playing chess and switch to real sport - hockey. But that's another, rather unpleasant, story...
But back in early 90x as student of Uzhgorod National University i decided to resume playing chess. So i went to known address at Korzo, but there was no chess club anymore. Instead the old location hosted Uzhgorod Club of Intellectual Games. I walked into the club and met its chairman - Galitzin Petr Alekseyevich (Голицын Петр Алексеевич), descendant of known Russian Nobility. You can read more about his life and tragedy of his ancestors in Russian language at following article.
Short discussion about Uzhgorod Club of Intellectual Games and i learned that behind big name is actually Bridge Club. Back in Soviet Union playing cards were considered politically incorrect, so Petr Galitzin found the way to mascaraed Bridge Club under politically correct title of Intellectual Games. I tried to play bridge and liked it so much that introduced game to classmates at University, one of which - Michael Janochko, is currently one of Contract Bridge champions in Eastern Europe. We started to play Bridge at tournaments in Eastern Europe - mostly Hungary and Romania.
One day, few years later, Petr Galitzin announced at our Bridge Club that Rotary Club of Budapest will be visiting Uzhgorod, Ukraine and as part of their program there will be Bridge Tournament. Members of Uzhgorod Bridge Club were paired with members of Rotary Club of Budapest. I got as partner the President of Budapest branch of Credit Lyonnais Bank. I was in the middle of transitioning from French language, studied at high school, to English, that i started to study in University. So my communication was weird mix of English and French words, that was very confusing to French banker. Nevertheless we scored 2nd place, which made him pretty happy especially considering that it allowed him to tease his buddy which ended on fifth or sixth place. At the end of tournament he gave me his business card with statement to stop by if i to be in Budapest. Courtesy invitation, as i know now, didn't really mean that he invited me to Budapest. But back then i took it literally...
About year later my classmate - Istvan Biro, told me about VAT reimbursement - process to file at customs for reimbursement of AFA (Hungarian VAT) paid during original purchase of goods in Hungary. The process allowed to get back 20%. Then that's was know-how worth of descent patent nowadays.
Back then i worked as Computer Helpdesk Technician at West Contrade - one of first post-USSR private commercial companies, owned by now famous Ukrainian politician - Nestor Shufrych. One of lines of his business back then was importing hi-tech goods, including computers, from Hungary.
So connecting all dots together i made sales pitch to Istvan to go to Budapest and buy computers for re-sale. I leveraged French banker as my connection to Hungarian business world and Nestor's success in importing computers as market knowledge. Istvan agreed.
We traveled to Budapest, bought couple of computers and decided to stop by at Credit Lyonnais at Budapest downtown. We walked into nice building at Vaci Utca and i handed to receptionist the same business card i got at Bridge tournament, and told her that i'm interested in loan to purchase computers. Few minutes of conversation in Hungarian and receptionist told us that Branch President is in Paris, and therefore cannot meet us in person. She was very nice and apologetic, offered us some materials about bank and how to apply for credit. After we walked away Istvan looked at me and said that he thought i was bluffing that i know President of Budapest branch of Credit Lyonnais Bank.
We never applied for credit as we were not citizens of Hungary, but we did managed with Istvan to sell a dozen of computers imported from Hungary back in year 1993...
Nowadays when asked what would be formula of future business model, my answers is:
continuous education + handshake networking + social workload (or community volunteering).
Above story is good example of networking and community components of above formula.
March 20, 2013
Roman Havrylyak
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
eQ - Electronic Currency
Everything New is Well-Forgotten Old - famous Russian saying, and as it's getting usual on this blog, today's post is about old memory triggered by recent event.
Few days ago on Facebook my old friend (and former manager) Alexey Ivasyuk started discussion about Bitcoin - peer-to-peer virtual currency. While personally being skeptical about currency based on algorithm of "intense process of bruteforcing" it actually brought to memory brainstorming sessions with my mentor Mitar - Israeli curator of UkrNet.
Back in 1998 after internship at ISP TexasNet (San Antionio, Texas) i was very determined to find job at Internet Service Provider. In Summer 1999 the search brought me to ISP UkrNet and i was assigned to work on Billing and Accounting System for dial-up users. Business Architect who put all requirements together was Mitar. But besides just driving requirements he was mentoring me on how to develop multitier systems. It was first time, in 1999, that i heard 3 layered design: data layer, business logic layer, and presentation layer.
Our billing&accounting system had PostgreSQL as database tier; it had vast majority of business logic written on PL/pgSQL; and multiple presentation layers. Not at all obvious one was from Cisco NAS via Tacacs+ AAA server - it was my crown jewel as developer to customize Tacacs to make PostgreSQL inquiries via ANSI C calls to PL/pgSQL functions. Rest of presentation layers were few websites written on PHP under Apache web server for consumer self-service, internal sales and customer care personnel, and IT superuser console.
While all above design was envisioned by Mitar, he actually was not software developer, or at least he didn't write even single line of code for above design. This fact was actually made me smile when i recently read autobiography on Steve Jobs, written by Walter Isaacson. There was well described arguments between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, where Steve was criticizing Bill for lack of vision and style, and Bill was criticizing Steve for lack of coding experience. Irony was that i used to be skeptical on Mitar's ideas due to same reason - i didn't see him coding, while he kept telling me that i lack big picture vision.
That argument was especially true when we were discussing internal currency unit used in billing&accounting - eQ. Sounded like "eCu" from e-Currency. Mitar's vision was to spin it as virtual currency that will go way beyond purchases of prepaid dial-up hours or premium web content. He dreamed about e-commerce web sites accepting eQ as method of payments. Now it seems very trivial now, but please note that we are talking about years 1999-2000.
I didn't see it happening in Mitar's way and kept telling that eQ should be limited to only "seconds and bytes", as how it was already used in billing&accounting system. I did offer scale-ability by envisioning that each domain name would be like separate bank that keep accruing eQ from domain users. Later domain names would trades accrued eQ via supply/demand driven exchange rates. And AAA Tacacs+eQ would be engine behind it:
- A for Authentication of eQ owner;
- A for Authorization of transaction to change ownership of eQ;
- and final A for Accounting of all transactions in the log/database.
Possibility of using eQ as payment method used by website visitors to access web site content was not new either. At that time Banner Exchange Systems were used for exact same purpose - web site owner would present banners on his site and later sell (or exchange) them. My idea was to drop advertisements from web sites for person willing to pay few cents to access site without annoying ads.
At the end of the day neither of us was right. Overall system grew up to have only 3 Internet Service Providers in Ukraine that were using variation of that billing&accounting system, and that's about all potential it had...
In 2005 under signed H1B contract to work in USA i had to drop all software support for clients in Ukraine. But that is another story...
Nowadays my code is below average, but hopefully my design vision is improved.
Roman Havrylyak
Few days ago on Facebook my old friend (and former manager) Alexey Ivasyuk started discussion about Bitcoin - peer-to-peer virtual currency. While personally being skeptical about currency based on algorithm of "intense process of bruteforcing" it actually brought to memory brainstorming sessions with my mentor Mitar - Israeli curator of UkrNet.
Back in 1998 after internship at ISP TexasNet (San Antionio, Texas) i was very determined to find job at Internet Service Provider. In Summer 1999 the search brought me to ISP UkrNet and i was assigned to work on Billing and Accounting System for dial-up users. Business Architect who put all requirements together was Mitar. But besides just driving requirements he was mentoring me on how to develop multitier systems. It was first time, in 1999, that i heard 3 layered design: data layer, business logic layer, and presentation layer.
Our billing&accounting system had PostgreSQL as database tier; it had vast majority of business logic written on PL/pgSQL; and multiple presentation layers. Not at all obvious one was from Cisco NAS via Tacacs+ AAA server - it was my crown jewel as developer to customize Tacacs to make PostgreSQL inquiries via ANSI C calls to PL/pgSQL functions. Rest of presentation layers were few websites written on PHP under Apache web server for consumer self-service, internal sales and customer care personnel, and IT superuser console.
While all above design was envisioned by Mitar, he actually was not software developer, or at least he didn't write even single line of code for above design. This fact was actually made me smile when i recently read autobiography on Steve Jobs, written by Walter Isaacson. There was well described arguments between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, where Steve was criticizing Bill for lack of vision and style, and Bill was criticizing Steve for lack of coding experience. Irony was that i used to be skeptical on Mitar's ideas due to same reason - i didn't see him coding, while he kept telling me that i lack big picture vision.
That argument was especially true when we were discussing internal currency unit used in billing&accounting - eQ. Sounded like "eCu" from e-Currency. Mitar's vision was to spin it as virtual currency that will go way beyond purchases of prepaid dial-up hours or premium web content. He dreamed about e-commerce web sites accepting eQ as method of payments. Now it seems very trivial now, but please note that we are talking about years 1999-2000.
I didn't see it happening in Mitar's way and kept telling that eQ should be limited to only "seconds and bytes", as how it was already used in billing&accounting system. I did offer scale-ability by envisioning that each domain name would be like separate bank that keep accruing eQ from domain users. Later domain names would trades accrued eQ via supply/demand driven exchange rates. And AAA Tacacs+eQ would be engine behind it:
- A for Authentication of eQ owner;
- A for Authorization of transaction to change ownership of eQ;
- and final A for Accounting of all transactions in the log/database.
Possibility of using eQ as payment method used by website visitors to access web site content was not new either. At that time Banner Exchange Systems were used for exact same purpose - web site owner would present banners on his site and later sell (or exchange) them. My idea was to drop advertisements from web sites for person willing to pay few cents to access site without annoying ads.
At the end of the day neither of us was right. Overall system grew up to have only 3 Internet Service Providers in Ukraine that were using variation of that billing&accounting system, and that's about all potential it had...
In 2005 under signed H1B contract to work in USA i had to drop all software support for clients in Ukraine. But that is another story...
Roman Havrylyak
Sunday, March 17, 2013
How Bill Gates and Ukrainian teenager in wheelchair helped me discover America
Couple of weeks ago Pack 12 of Boy Scouts of America, Great Smoky Mountain Council at Farragut Church of Christ had disability awareness program. Cub Scouts learned letters using sign language, experienced how to walk blindfolded using cane, tried to use hand-powered wheelchair, etc.
Watching Tigers, Wolves and Webelos brought to memory my personal story of discovering America.
It all started with Bill Gates quote about The Art of Computer Programming (author Donald E. Knuth) with statement that if you read whole thing you should send him resume. Just graduate of Uzhgorod National University and not sure what to do i took it literally. Volumes #2 and #3 were easy to find and they are still on my book shelve at my parents house in Uzhgorod, but volume #1 had long wait list in all libraries (i guess i was not the only one inspired by Bill Gates quote). Impatient to wait i managed to offer bribe to librarian to get ahead of wait line. When she realized that i offered her money to rent the book she smiled and said something like "Young man, you are probably the only person in the world that attempted to bribe librarian". She refused money, but promised to let me know when volume #1 will be returned. I never actually read the "whole thing".
But few years later in year 1997 when computer books were easily available in stores, but were cost prohibitive for libraries and individuals, and remembering my personal struggle to get right book i decided to fund non-profit organization Uzhgorod Computer Club with 2 main purposes:
- build library of computer books available for club members to rent for free;
- and to popularize computer science in Transcarpathia region of Ukraine.
Reality check very quickly showed that younger generation has no interest in books, but they did like computer games. So our club very quickly became known as place to hang out and play games. But it all changed when a women asked my colleague Valera for computer lessons for her kid. Teenager was in wheelchair and it didn't feel right to take money, though his mom did offered to pay for lessons. So I asked Valera to give few lessons for free. The first time kid saw computer and laid his hands on keyboard his eyes lit like Christmas tree. I haven't since then seen person being more excited about computer. Those free lessons to wheelchair teenager completely changed our club. His mom was a teacher in kindergarten and recommended our club to parents, effectively starting "word of mouth" marketing. Club didn't (and couldn't) charge for computer lessons, as education business was highly regulated and licensed business with high bureaucratic barrier to enter. So our response to increased number of requests for private computer education was that we provide place with computer to our members for free based on availability and schedule; parents would arrange private lesson with geek (usually university student or young software developer) and pay him directly. It was soon a known place for geeks to make quick buck: pay $1 per month membership fee and schedule private lessons (approximately $2 per one hour lesson). Please note that back then in 1997-1998 the average salary for computer professional was $50 per month, or $0.25-$0.30 per hour.
Our club expanded to offer free dial-up service to its members and even registered newspaper "Uzhgorod Online", which may sounds oxymoron to have word "online" in paper media but back then it was significantly cheaper to spread news via paper then it was by internet.
But most amazing thing is that my experience with Uzhgorod Computer allowed me to win internship program at San Antonio, Texas, sponsored by US AID. In March-April 1998 i spent 2 months as intern in companies like ISP TexasNet, San Antonio Express News, and Pitney Bowes.
And that's how Bill Gates and Wheelchair teenager helped me to discover USA.
Nowadays Bill Gates is heavily investing in education technology but his vision of pure online experience doesn't resonate as strong as his famous quote from last century. It lacks mentor-mentee personal relationship, which is strange considering his reference of Yoda and Luke Skywalker.
The future education should rely more on how Boy Scouts of America approach training: Den Leader prepares materials, gives theoretical background followed immediately by practice in father-son pairs or in scout groups. But that is another topic worthy another lengthy post...
Roman Havrylyak
Watching Tigers, Wolves and Webelos brought to memory my personal story of discovering America.
It all started with Bill Gates quote about The Art of Computer Programming (author Donald E. Knuth) with statement that if you read whole thing you should send him resume. Just graduate of Uzhgorod National University and not sure what to do i took it literally. Volumes #2 and #3 were easy to find and they are still on my book shelve at my parents house in Uzhgorod, but volume #1 had long wait list in all libraries (i guess i was not the only one inspired by Bill Gates quote). Impatient to wait i managed to offer bribe to librarian to get ahead of wait line. When she realized that i offered her money to rent the book she smiled and said something like "Young man, you are probably the only person in the world that attempted to bribe librarian". She refused money, but promised to let me know when volume #1 will be returned. I never actually read the "whole thing".
 |
| Book shelve at my parents house in Uzhgorod |
- build library of computer books available for club members to rent for free;
- and to popularize computer science in Transcarpathia region of Ukraine.
 |
| Business card from year 1997 - the only survived proof of Uzhgorod Computer Club existence. |
Reality check very quickly showed that younger generation has no interest in books, but they did like computer games. So our club very quickly became known as place to hang out and play games. But it all changed when a women asked my colleague Valera for computer lessons for her kid. Teenager was in wheelchair and it didn't feel right to take money, though his mom did offered to pay for lessons. So I asked Valera to give few lessons for free. The first time kid saw computer and laid his hands on keyboard his eyes lit like Christmas tree. I haven't since then seen person being more excited about computer. Those free lessons to wheelchair teenager completely changed our club. His mom was a teacher in kindergarten and recommended our club to parents, effectively starting "word of mouth" marketing. Club didn't (and couldn't) charge for computer lessons, as education business was highly regulated and licensed business with high bureaucratic barrier to enter. So our response to increased number of requests for private computer education was that we provide place with computer to our members for free based on availability and schedule; parents would arrange private lesson with geek (usually university student or young software developer) and pay him directly. It was soon a known place for geeks to make quick buck: pay $1 per month membership fee and schedule private lessons (approximately $2 per one hour lesson). Please note that back then in 1997-1998 the average salary for computer professional was $50 per month, or $0.25-$0.30 per hour.
Our club expanded to offer free dial-up service to its members and even registered newspaper "Uzhgorod Online", which may sounds oxymoron to have word "online" in paper media but back then it was significantly cheaper to spread news via paper then it was by internet.
But most amazing thing is that my experience with Uzhgorod Computer allowed me to win internship program at San Antonio, Texas, sponsored by US AID. In March-April 1998 i spent 2 months as intern in companies like ISP TexasNet, San Antonio Express News, and Pitney Bowes.
 |
| ISP TexasNet, San Antonio, Texas, 1998 |
Nowadays Bill Gates is heavily investing in education technology but his vision of pure online experience doesn't resonate as strong as his famous quote from last century. It lacks mentor-mentee personal relationship, which is strange considering his reference of Yoda and Luke Skywalker.
The future education should rely more on how Boy Scouts of America approach training: Den Leader prepares materials, gives theoretical background followed immediately by practice in father-son pairs or in scout groups. But that is another topic worthy another lengthy post...
Roman Havrylyak
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