NET PIONEER / JOHN 'NUVO' RATTANAVEROJ
DON SAMBANDARAKSA
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| Many fishing boats damaged by the December 2004 tsunami in Krabi still wait for help. If John's project with the Meteorological Department to set up a weather SMS service for fishermen had been in place, maybe the tsunami damage could have been reduced. |
For the past decade, John "Nuvo" Rattanaveroj has been an IT evangelist, inspiring generations of children as to the wonders of the Internet and technology.
The seeds of his love of technology were sown back when he was nine years old and the proud owner of a cutting-edge Sony Betamax video recorder.
"I could help my mother who always was rushing home to watch a soap. I told her, 'Mom, relax. You can have dinner, take a shower and watch it later anytime.' Technology was magical as it could give [quality of life] to the ones you love," he explained.
This was the start of his theory of using technology rather than being used by technology, a way of thinking that continues to this day.
His second epiphany came during his time as lead singer of the 90's pop superband Nuvo, though John said he preferred to think of himself as lead keyboard-synthesizer player. With PC-based synthesizers, you could mix sound, create new sounds and improve the song in ways that it would never be possible with real instruments.
But the third and life-changing milestone that made him decide to dedicate his life to educating our next generation came when he was touring the country as a celebrity and talking to children in a remote school in Chantaburi in 1997.
"I asked if anybody was connected to the Internet. Out of 300 children, only three lifted up their hands. I told them, I am now going to connect your school to the Internet and showed them a website, cnn.com."
Halfway through the presentation, CNN updated its web site with the breaking news that Princess Diana had died in a car accident in Paris. John said he turned around to class, shocked, and said, "kids, you are the first people in Thailand to know that Princess Diana has died in a car accident."
"Bang. That did it. In one split second I decided to dedicate my life to technology for Thailand and for the children," he said.
Soon after, John started his first Internet-related TV show, Maya dot-com, only the station producer did not allow him to use the word, "dot-com" as it was deemed similar to a bad word in Thai, dork torng. Such was the lack of understanding in those days.
One of his later shows, Logon Asia, was the first time viewers could send in comments via SMS to be published on screen, something the current interim government has "stupidly" banned.
John's memory is littered with frustration from other projects that could have been and a series of governments that neither understood technology nor managed to carry out their plans to fruition. By not sticking to long-term plans. Thailand is tripling the work we have to do and starting from square one every few years, he feels.
As president of the Thai Federation of Mobile Services, he listened to how the Interior Ministry viewed SMS to television as a potential form of gambling. Now the Culture Ministry views it as exploitation. "Nobody mentioned that it was democracy in action," he pointed out.
But there was one not-to-be project that managed to bring tears to his eyes. Six years ago, John was trying to work with the Meteorological Department to set up a weather SMS service for fishermen to help them decide if the weather was too dangerous to go fishing.
"Just think how many lives could have been saved in the Boxing Day tsunami if this system was in place. At least a thousand. I tell you, it hurts. It really hurts," he said.
John laments the sale of Shinsat and in particular of the iPSTAR broadband satellite, which he says has deprived Thailand of a focal point of technological pride, one that will be hard to replace.
Yet there are many things that have been done right too.
The success of companies such as True, TT&T, Jasmine and even Shin Corp has shown us that technology companies can succeed. In particular he praised Supachai Chearavanont of True and Craig White of Sanook for being pioneers and role models.
He praised the Meeting Incentive Conference Exhibition (Mice) for being at least one government agency that understands the power of the Internet. Mice supported his latest company, tricast, in broadcasting ICT Expo 2006 live over the Internet. This helped extend the reach of the exhibition to people who had no chance of attending in person.
But he also believes that today there is too much evil on the Internet. Camfrog.com was a good example. At one time, up to 1,500 people were online on the web site viewing young women strip in front of a webcam.
Through his work with the Culture Ministry, John said that the popularity of "online evil" in Thailand is so much more prevalent than other countries.
Despite all this, John is not pinning his hopes on help from this, nor any future government.
"You're talking to a guy like me who has been kicked out of the business for one year. My TV programme, the only Internet TV programme on the air for eight consecutive years and one that has inspired over seven million children, was replaced by a wrestling show.
"This has taught me a lesson. To do things with my own strength, to keep telling the truth and give people information. I just know that I'm dedicated to use technology to make the world a better place."
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