Carlos at E&Y EoY

 

Making the most of it ...the key to virtually limitless growth

Making the most of it ...the key to virtually limitless growth



9/26/2008 THE SWISS STYLE, by Alexandra Galluci

As one of the original founding members of the Annual Meeting of New Champions, Carlos Moreira, Founder, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive of WISeKey Corporation, has developed a unique understanding of this dynamic event, so much so that, following last year’s meeting in Dalian, he led the company to realize several direct and immediate benefits.

WISeKey, a Geneva-based world Internet Security Company, is now the fastest growing company in e-trust, esecurity and Digital Identification for personal, governmental and business computing. WISeKey provides high security for communications, identity and information, using specialized technologies to identify and authenticate people, organizations and devices over closed networks and the Internet.

A focused environment

Moreira agrees that the name “Summer Davos” is fitting for the Meeting of New Champions, seeing it as a highly valuable counterpart to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“The Meeting of New Champions fulfils a sector that was not covered previously by the World Economic Forum. Davos is a great environment for multinationals to meet heads of state and VIP celebrities, but it is not necessarily as suitable for those smaller companies in the 200 million to 5 billion US dollar revenue range that are facing specific issues of growth. These companies are in need of a more focused environment in which they can have the opportunity to network with companies of all sizes and establish their brands internationally,” he enthuses.

Along with several other members, Moreira annually attends both the World Economic Forum in Davos as well as the Meeting of New Champions, given that they are undeniably distinct events that present different opportunities. Comparing the two, Moreira says, “The feedback I received in Dalian is that the Meeting of New Champions, for the type of companies that are members of the New Champions, is a more proactive, down-to-earth and business-oriented event. Companies, investors and venture capitalists all come to the Meeting bringing great ideas that inspire innovation and interaction. It is increasingly becoming an international gathering that is particularly unique due its objective to create a new community of fast-growing companies destined to join the ranks of global multinationals in the next 5 to 10 years.”

Visualizing a strategy

Without a doubt, Moreira’s high regard and advocacy for the Meeting of New Champions comes as a result of his positive experiences in Dalian last year. For Moreira, the success that has come to WISeKey from his attendance at the event is specific and quantifiable. At the first annual meeting, he effectively established contact with 25 of the 100 New Champion members. Of these 25, WISeKey has completed business transactions with five different companies on three continents – all within the last year.

However, Moreira stresses that these results did not come effortlessly. He attributes WISeKey’s success to his extensive preparation and he maintains the importance of visualizing a strategy in order to fully realize the benefits of such an opportunistic event. Additionally, Moreira claims that, “WISeKey is highly conscious of the value of establishing brand recognition and this is the reason our company has progressed so quickly. The Meeting of New Champions gives us great visibility in a market that we know will be technology-dependent.”

Without a doubt, the Meeting of New Champions presents valuable opportunities for networking that would otherwise be difficult to find. But even more intriguing is the fact that participants of the event often effortlessly find themselves in one-onone meetings with CEOs of companies of all sizes. At Dalian, Moreira benefited from private meetings with companies such as Avaya, Publicis, WPP, Swift, BT Global Services, Wikipedia, among others. These meetings, Moreira believes, are the type that one can only find at the Meeting of New Champions because arranging such discussions outside the event would prove to be an arduous and expensive process.

Building on the opportunities

The Meeting of New Champions also presents several advantages for WISeKey based on its location in China. Moreira explains that last year’s event in Dalian has led it to become a platform for WISeKey to launch projects in China as well as help focus its marketing strategy for the region and accelerate company growth. Additionally, the event exposes its participants to Chinese investors and helps companies to develop familiarity with the New Champions, which can be a difficult task in a market as large as China’s.

Indeed, the potential gains and opportunities available to the participants of the Annual Meeting of New Champions are simply astounding and the ease with which they can be realized even more staggering.

For those who follow Moreira’s strategical advice, growth may prove to be virtually limitless.

Swiss Style: WISeKey and the future of personal transactions

M-banking… WISeKey and the future of personal transactions


Modern business can be defined by its speed. Today, major transactions can occur instantaneously over the Internet. This is possible because of services like those provided by WISeKey, an Internet securities company.
Recently, however, WISeKey has taken e-commerce and its idea of immediate abstract transactions a step further, exploring the realm of a Mobile Payment Telco Platform.

Mobile banking – the breakthrough
In September, WISeKey announced that it would be participating in a radical new project to help bring banking to previously unbanked people throughout the world. To accomplish this, they had to identify a route to reach these people.
Carlos Moreira, the CEO of WISeKey asserted, “In the world you have some six billion people, and four billion of whom have a mobile phone. Of those four billion with a mobile phone, only one billion have bank accounts.”
By devising a system where banking can take place through phones, this new platform can rest on the basis of an existing infrastructure and reach previously unattainable heights. This system could bring the ability of banking to people who would otherwise have no participation in the global financial system. It could reach regions where physically getting to a bank simply is not practical. “A bank account is a physical notion, where as here the bank account is on your chip. That’s the breakthrough,” says Moreira excitedly.
To credit money to another phone’s “wallet”, a person would simply enter their WISeKey ID, the desired transfer amount and the number of where it is going. This amount would then be put on the telephone bill of the sender. In essence, the telcos would be working as small level personal banks for these customers. The mobile phone would act in place of a credit card, making it possible to buy things with m-payment credit.
The m-banking system is not only for those without bank accounts. Remote transfers can be made phone-to-phone and then moved into a bank account on the other end. Location becomes arbitrary to the equation.
If, however, you are in a more remote area and have no access to a bank, credit on your phone won’t do you much good. So the “wallet” from your mobile phone can be put onto a smart card and retrieved at an ATM, making this a practical solution in developing areas.

WISeKey’s role: Providing the security
Obviously, this is not a project that could plausibly happen through the efforts of one company. The m-banking project consists of several organizations involved with the Clinton Global Initiative. With the cooperation and collaboration of many institutions, they hope to overhaul the banking system and make it more universally accessible.
Other organizations taking part in the project include CGAP, Equity Bank, the GSMA Foundation (with a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), Mpower ventures, Tostan, Western Union, Wizzit Bank and Women’s World Banking. Together, these organizations should be able to form a complete enough network to fund, build and provide these services. “The bottom line is solving the problem,” says Moreira.
The technological requirements for m-banking have existed for quite some time. However, WISeKey’s commitment to security is what it took to turn this technology into a realistic possibility. By providing trustworthy security on the transactions, WISeKey has built the platform on which this project can manifest.

“I am Mediterranean”
The first major undertaking of WISeKey and the Telco Platform project is the “I Am Mediterranean” program. Moreira expressed their goal “to create an ecosystem of Mediterranean countries” by providing citizens of the region with WISeKey IDs and the possibility of m-payments. They aim to unite the entire region in an Internet community.
It is kicking off with some 300 people linked up, of whom 60 or so are mayors from towns and cities around the Mediterranean. Their desire being that their communities can be compatible with this infrastructure and move into the future of remote commerce. The target is to help around 100 million people from 25 countries in the area. Film star Antonio Banderas is the flagship member, leading the region into this new community.
This should help the region streamline trade and integrate more of their populations into the financial system. “For me it’s a way of doing good at the same time I am building an ecosystem,” says Moreira. In this way, business growth and altruism are one and the same.
This is not the corporate social responsibility of the past but rather a market-demanded social responsibility born out of the linking of people and the inherent egalitarianism of electronic identities.

WISekey expanding to Dubai

 

WISekey CEO visited Dubai last week to expand WISekey services to the region.

WISekey has identified several possible projects in teh area of e-banking, mobile payments and e-government project based on the WISekey Citizen Services Platform (that will make it easier to interact with citizens, streamline processes and, as a result, increase the participation of citizens. WISeKey long experience in securing e-Government services and its unique Trust Platform and ID Portability standard is a major asset for a global deployment of the CSP among Governments around the world said Carlos Moreira, Founder and CEO of WISeKey.