Unified Messaging Systems (UMS) is one company that is bringing new technology to the task. The Oslo, Norway-based firm helps first responders and auhtorities communicate better with one another and the general public during an emergency.

Photo: Anand Anupam of Unified Messaging Systems gives a presentation on his companies services during Andicom 2016 in Cartagena. (Credit: Loren Moss)

To better understand how the systems work and are being used in Colombia, Loren Moss, executive editor of Finance Colombia, recently sat down with Leon Hausman and Anand Anupam of UMS. They discussed their operations, their experience at Andicom 2016, and their outlook on the Colombian market.

Finance Colombia: What is Unified Messaging Systems and what leads you to come to conferences in Colombia?

Leon Hausman: UMS is a Norwegian company founded in 1997. From our beginnings we have been dedicated to the development and implementation of critical messaging solutions and national alert systems. Nowadays we are leaders in the world market in this kind of industry.

At Andicom, we had the honor of presenting the different technologies that are available nowadays on the market for attention to disasters. We discussed how these technologies are integrated into the different channels of communication and existing infrastructure in the country to communicate notifications of emergency alert messages to certain segments of the population. They also go out to groups of authorities so as to be able to attend to a disaster and minimize any kind of risk and safeguard the greatest number of lives in the face of any eventuality.

Finance Colombia: Fascinating. And how does the communication work?

Leon Hausman: Generally, the area of attention to disasters has been handled by radios, handsets, LBS, and the authorities. In many countries, this all works with handsets, walkie-talkies, and radios.

Finance Colombia: What challenges do you face in the fascinating digital world where the radios handle data? They are connected to internet instead of an antenna?

Anand Anupam: Right, so the radio technology that you are talking about is essentially used for first responder communication. For example, within the police force, among themselves. So there are two kinds of technologies that you’re talking about. One is public warning, which is to people, to citizens. Everyone doesn’t have a radio phone, right?

The other is the communication between first responders. And what is happening across the world now is you have the same systems communicating to radio channels and to the walkie-talkies. You have tetra radios now, so you have the same system communicating to tetra radios as well as to the public communications channels on phones and whatnot.

In fact, today in some of the European countries we work with technologies that allow you to have conference calling between a person with a radio on the ground, with a person who has a cellphone on the ground, and with the emergency operations center that is on a fixed-line phone. So you see more and more technologies converging these days, especially on the kind of use cases that we talked about.

Finance Colombia: Why Colombia? You guys obviously are global. What did you see in the Colombian market that made you decide to establish here? Are your operations here specific to Colombia, the Andean region, South America, and the Americas?

Anand Anupam: We’ve been working in the Latin American market for the last five years, across countries from Mexico and all the way to Argentina. The reason why we have a focus on Colombia is primarily because of the kind of engagements that we are having here, mostly with MinTIC — the ministry of communication — as well as the civil defense organizations.

We’ve been in discussions with them over the last couple of years around multiple technologies, our experiences, and use cases. And looking at the kinds of disasters in Colombia, I think systems like ours make a lot of sense.

Finance Colombia: In what kind of applications have you seen success? For example, In India we have seen there has been recent flooding. Here in Colombia, of course, we have floods and we have earthquakes. We don’t have tornadoes or hurricanes, but what use cases have you seen specifically where your system has been employed and you’ve been able to find success?

Anand Anupam: We have worked with systems and incidents from those as localized as something seen in a campus or an event in a particular community to events that have an impact on the beaches.

Earlier in the presentation we were talking about multi-hazard systems that are able to handle communication and incidents at the local level as well as the national level. So our systems work, for example, on tsunamis, earthquakes, flooding, cyclones, as well as man-made disasters like bomb-blasts, terror attacks, large-scale demonstrations, or public accidents. So use cases include systems capable of handling all of these various catastrophes and disasters.

As the winner, the Bogota-based company will now receive assistance from the famed Springboard accelerator, which has helped turn many companies from small startups into big-money success stories.

Second place went to Kiwi Campus, an on-demand delivery service for food and other goods that works on college campuses in Colombia — including University of Los Andes, National University of Colombia, and Javeriana University — as well as in the United States, Chile, and Mexico. CityTaxi, a cab-hailing app and member of the Wayra accelerator portfolio, took third prize.

(Photo Credit: Colombia Startup)

In all, more than 1,500 attendees gathered in the capital for the fourth edition of Colombia Startup, an annual event that brings leading entrepreneurs in the country together with international investors and experts. At least 11,000 people live-streamed the event from across the world.

Event organizers were also proud to announce that they exceeded the 400 mark for official meetings between investors and entrepreneurs, a new record for Colombia Startup. Each of the 19 startups selected before the event got the opportunity to sit down in front of 25 investors to make their case for funding.

The event was also record setting in terms of the number of companies that showed up. “Colombia Startup is one of the most important events for entrepreneurs in the country, and we want to make it one of the most important in Latin America,” said Alfonso Gomez, CEO of Telefónica Colombia and president of the forum. “This year, the call to entrepreneurs broke the record by having 644 registered enterprises. Colombia Startup is a unique space for high-level networking and accessing potential investors.”

The conference kicked off with a reception on Thursday, October 6 in at the prestigious Casa Egresados Uniandinos before getting down to business the following day at the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce headquarters in the neighborhood of Salitre.

Some of the biggest guests were expected to include: Juan Gorricho of The Walt Disney Company, Andrés Hernández of Google, Gladys Corredor of Banco Davivienda, Carlos Ángel of Uber, and Daniel Arango of Colombia’s Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism.

The invitation-only event, to be held at the Metro Toronto Convention Center, will include the launching of “Colombia Bring IT On,” the country’s official campaign promoting Colombia’s ICT (Information, Communication, and Technology) sector that includes IT, Software and Digital Services companies. The campaign focuses on countries with high demand for services in these sectors such as the U.S., Canada, Spain, England and countries in Central and South America.

The Business Matchmaking Forum on Software, IT and Digital Media will take place in Toronto on October 28and 29, 2015 at the Metro Toronto Convention Center.

Since 2012, almost 1,000 Colombian companies in the software and digital content sectors have exported over US$166 million in services to 60 countries. Between 2012 and 2014, the main destinations for Colombian software services were South America and the U.S.; Canada was among the top buyers of digital services in that same period, along with the U.S., Ecuador, France and Spain.

According to IDC, Colombia is the third largest provider of IT services in Latin America after Brazil and Mexico, with total sales calculated at US$2.5 billion. Apps account for about 40% of software development in Colombia, while outsourcing makes up about 40% of all IT services sold.

Success Stories

• Hi Mom, an app developing company based in Medellin, Colombia, created the Typic mobile app for editing photos, which has been downloaded more than 3 million times on iOS devices and won an Apple award for best in its category in 2014. The company launched Typic Kids, too, and expects to continue developing new products for markets in North America, Asia and Europe.
• Adsmovil, based in Bogota, Colombia, supports mobile marketing campaigns targeting Hispanic audiences from the U.S. to Central and South America.
• Below the Game, the result of a student project at a university in Bucaramanga, Colombia, is now a provider of videogames for the U.S. market. BTG is currently part of the Sony Playstation incubation program.
• Grupo Jad, based in Pereira, Colombia, has developed a successful mobile platform for Android for data-capturing and processing, tailored specifically to the agricultural sector. Most of its users are based in Australia and The Netherlands.
• Heinsohn Business Technologies is based in Bogota and develops software for Silicon Valley. Its services are sought after by companies like Tibco, a provider of brands including Delta Airlines, Citibank Asia and Fedex. Heinsohn’s operations are ISO 9001:2000 and SEI-CMMI Level 5 compliant.

“Colombia Bring IT On”

The first day will consist of training sessions for Colombian companies featuring speakers such as Hussam Ayyad of Communitech; Brendan Dellandrea and Andrew Jenkins of The Digital Media Zone at Ryerson University; Peter Liber of the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development, Employment and Infrastructure; and Peter Carayiannis of Conduit Law, among others.

Participants will then visit key technology and innovation centers in and around the GTA. Sites include MaRS Discovery District, DMZ, OCADU and the IBM Canada Lab. Dr. Sean Wise, an experienced venture capitalist and Professor of Entrepreneurship at Ryerson University, will coach a select group of Colombian entrepreneurs looking to pitch their ideas to North American investors.

Day Two will feature an all-day conference including opening remarks by a high representative from Toronto City Hall; keynote speeches and panel discussion with Colombia’s Minister of Information Technologies and Communications, Mr. David Luna; a business round of one-on-one meetings between visiting Colombian companies and their Canadian and American counterparts; and a “Demo Day” in which a limited group of Colombian companies will be allowed 10-minute slots for pitching their ideas to a group of potential angel investors. An event officially launching the Colombia Bring IT On campaign in Canada will follow.