Pengungsi Vietnam Menjadi Miliuner di Amerika Serikat

“Setiap krisis menawarkan kesempatan”. Begitulah kata pepatah, tetapi ungkapan tersebut benar-benar menjadi kenyataan bagi seorang pengungsi Perang Vietnam, Kieu Hoang.

Kieu Hoang melebarkan usaha ke Cina sebagai pangsa pasar potensial

Ia saya temui selama liputan di California, Amerika Serikat dalam rangka peringatan ke-40 Perang Vietnam baru-baru ini.

“Keluarga saya tiba di Amerika Serikat beberapa hari sebelum Saigon jatuh ke tangan Vietnam Utara dan tujuan pertama kami di Amerika adalah Pangkalan Marinir Pendleton,” kata Hoang, pria kelahiran Vietnam yang kini telah menjadi warga negara Amerika.

“Wawancara untuk mencari pekerjaan dilakukan di kamp dan pekerjaan pertama saya adalah di perusahaan laboratorium untuk industri plasma,” katanya.

Pada saat itu, lanjutnya, ia tidak mempunyai mobil dan hanya mengandalkan sepeda motor 50 cc untuk transportasi keluarga, termasuk untuk keperluan antar jemput kelima anaknya.

Kieu Hoang mendirikan cabang di Shanghai dan dikendalikan dari California

Pada 1980, Kieu Hoang mendirikan Rare Antibody Antigen Supply Inc., (RAAS), perusahaan yang bergerak di bidang plasma darah dan selanjutnya membeli sejumlah pusat-pusat plasma di Amerika Serikat.

“Menjelang tahun 1985, saya mempunyai 11 pusat plasma di AS dan untuk tahap pertama kami mengekspor banyak produk ke Jepang. Namun karena pelanggan-pelanggan Jepang tiba-tiba menghentikan impor, saya meninjau ulang proses bisnis ini dan memutuskan untuk berpindah ke Cina.”

Di Cina ia mendirikan perusahaan patungan pada 1987. Ia memegang saham 50% di perusahaan patungan tersebut, meskipun padahal biasanya perusahaan asing hanya diperbolehkan memegang maksimum 49%.

“Saya jelaskan kepada mereka tentang pentingnya produk-produk darah, sesuatu yang perlu dikaji oleh Cina,” tutur Hoang.

Kini lanjutnya, perusahaannya di Shanghai tercatat sebagai perusahaan farmasi terbesar kedua di Cina bila ditinjau dari nilai pasar.

“Kami mempunyai sekitar 400 karyawan dan kira-kira setengahnya sudah menjadi miliuner. Kami ingin sisanya segera menjadi miliuner!”.

sumber : BBC Indonesia

Facebook Resmi Mengumumkan Internet Murah

Pendiri Facebook Mark Zuckerberg hari Senin (04/05) menyatakan akan memberi kesempatan kepada situs web dan jasa online untuk bergabung dengan skema ‘internet murah’ internet.org.

Pengumuman ini menyusul kecaman yang terjadi terhadap prakarsa ini.

Pihak penentang menyatakan hal ini akan melanggar netralitas internet, karena akan mendahulukan akses kepada situs web dan app tertentu saja.

Di New Delhi, India, pegiat mempertanyakan tawaran ini, sekaligus netralitas internet yang lebih luas.

Zuckerberg sendiri menyatakan bahwa menawarkan seluruh internet dengan gratis itu “tak bisa berkesinambungan”.

“Dibutuhkan puluhan milyar dolar setiap tahun untuk menjalankan internet, dan tak ada operator yang bisa melakukannya, jika semuanya gratis,” katanya dalam video yang ia pasang di situs internet.org.

“Namun hal itu dimungkinkan untuk membangun layanan dasar gratis yang lebih sederhana dan menggunakan sedikit saja data di telepon genggam yang murah,” katanya lagi.

Internet.org mengizinkan pelanggan dari operator telepon mitra mereka untuk menggunakan layanan online tanpa biaya tambahan.

Sejak 2014, proyek ini telah diluncurkan di Zambia, India, Colombia, Guatemala, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, Filipina dan Indonesia.

Sumber : BBC Indonesia

Google & Bartolomeo Cristofori’s 360th Birthday

You may have never heard of Bartolomeo Cristofori, but you definitely know his invention. Cristofori was an Italian musical instrument maker credited with inventing the pianoforte, or: the piano. One of his biggest innovations was creating a hammer mechanism that struck the strings on a keyboard to create sound. The use of a hammer made it possible to produce softer or louder sounds depending upon how light or hard a player pressed on the keys. In fact, that’s how Cristofori’s new instrument got its name — in Italian, piano means soft, while forte means loud. Being able to change the volume was a major breakthrough. And that’s exactly what Doodler Leon Hong wanted to highlight in this interactive Doodle. We talked to Hong to get the inside scoop on how this musical Doodle came to be.

Though the piano is one of the most popular instruments, the name Bartolomeo Cristofori isn’t widely known. How did you first learn of him?

The topic was first suggested by the Google team in Italy. I was also astonished I had never heard of him given that he’d had such a large impact on music. We’re always trying to find topics that are educational, fun, and surprising – Cristofori is an ideal topic. Hopefully after the doodle, people will think of Cristofori everytime they see a piano.

What music is playing in the doodle ? How did you go about recording it?

The melody is from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. It was important to me to have a piece that was from the same time period as Cristofori’s life. In addition, I was also looking for a memorable tune composed of notes with all the same duration so it would fit nicely with the animations. The timing and loudness had to be precise and consistent so I plotted the notes using software and rendered the sound files with a virtual piano instrument.

Can you walk us through your process for  creating this doodle?

It began with several sketches on paper after a round of research. For this particular doodle, everybody knows what a piano looks and sounds like so it was difficult to think of simple concepts that could be both educational and visually delightful to a large audience. For some reason when I first came up with the idea of a volume control slider labelled with ‘piano’ and ‘forte’ it made me chuckle. It stuck and I began fleshing out the details soon after.

What was the biggest challenge?

Besides deadlines (it’s difficult to change someone’s birthday), this doodle was enjoyable to work on. Creating the animations and music was a fun and educational experience for me. It was probably much more challenging for Corrie Scalisi, our engineer, to take the code I had written and make it bug-free and work on different browsers.

What is your favorite part about the finished doodle?

My favorite part of the doodle is the animation of Cristofori playing when the volume is set on forte. If I had more time I would have put even more bounce to his bottom. I hope people decide to do more research after playing with the doodle and learn more about him.

Which musicians do you think we’ll be celebrating with a doodle in 360 years?

I would say Bob Moog, but we’ve already celebrated him! There are lots of new exciting electronic keyboard instruments coming out these days, such as the Seaboard and Continuum, which are even more expressive than traditional pianos. Maybe one day such devices will be as ubiquitous as the piano.

You can check out Cristoforo’s original pianos at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Google Cultural Institute or at the museum in New York City, at the Museo Strumenti Musicali in Rome, and at the Musikinstrumenten-Museum of Leipzig University in Germany.

Take from : Bartolomeo Cristofori’s 360th Birthday