DID YOU KNOW?

A Monk and a Riddle

After decades of military rule, Myanmar, also known as Burma located in Southeast Asia, now has at least nominal civil government and is keen on catching up economically with the rest of the world. In the years ahead it will surely become an Eldorado of opportunity for technology infrastructure providers.

On a trip there in February I found out that, at the moment, the country ranks second lowest in internet access - 215 out of 217 countries. Most cell phones brought in by visitors don’t work in the country, but I heard that foreign visitors can buy inexpensive SIM cards. One of our guides had cell phone access, though he complained that as a resident it had cost him $ 300, down from $ 2,500 - still prohibitively expensive for just about everybody.

Essentially cell phones and internet access are out of reach for most of the people in a country that has an average GNP of $ 1,300 per year and where life for a third of the population of 60 million remains under the poverty line.

Statistics are not terribly reliable, but I was told that there are some 6,000 internet access points for the (whole) country, which is nearly twice the size of Germany. Across the street from the Yangon airport there is a hot spot at a restaurant that works and the larger hotels have wifi. Our hotel in Bhamo had a wifi sign up at the reception, but it didn’t work, disappointingly. The Amara Ocean Resort at Nagpali on the Bengali sea coast, a paradise in itself with or without wifi, has reliable access.

So when is the cell phone and internet access going to boom? It will depend on how fast the infrastructure can be set up, how the telecom tender process develops and regulatory clarity. The country is not yet ready for business, but there is huge potential.  It is experiencing a surge in tourism, and the visitor can’t help but be touched by the quiet, awesome beauty of the country and be buoyed by its prospects for development.

LTC NEWS

Ready, Set, Go

Philipp Mikschl has joined the LTC team as a PR & MarCom Account Manager. Previously, he worked more than four years for another PR agency focused on high tech marketing for SME. Philipp said, “I was eager to join LTC - the agency offers me a wide range of new experience in High Tech, Life Science and Clean Tech as well as the chemical industry.” His strengths include PR program management and execution for software companies selling products and services to manufacturers in automotive, industrial machinery and equipment, medical devices and other industries. “Philipp’s ability to consult with our clients on strategy and on PR programs is already much appreciated by our client base as well as his colleagues,” remarked Thomas Hahnel, LTC Managing Director.

Surrounded by Raspberries

This year I visited the Embedded World 2013 which was held for the 11th time in Nuremberg, Germany and where more than 740 international companies exhibited products related to embedded systems technology. The show is a “paradise planet” for engineers and all kinds of electronic specialists that are developing systems, as well as journalists interested in the field. Unfortunately the show doesn’t get covered by the broader non-technical German media, so it remains an “unseen cosmos,” and an opportunity is missed to aspire young people to pursue a technology education and a stimulating career.

However as a tech agency, LTC thinks the show is pretty close to the center of the universe, at least ours! Embedded systems are everywhere in our environment today – just look around and start counting the smart modules, processors or microcontrollers that we use and you’ll see that we’re surrounded! So I am really happy that our client Farnell Element14 is a key supporter of the very successful Raspberry PI, the low-cost credit-card-sized single-board computer, which was developed to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools. See the photo of the huge cake brought onto the booth to mark the 1st anniversary of the Raspberry Pi. Thomas Hahnel, Managing Director.