Values, ideas perfect mix for this CEO
| Mario Toneguzzi | |
| Calgary Herald |
Monday, May 01, 2006
|
Nashir Samanani has some simple advice to immigrants who have moved to Canada.
“If somebody is hard working and they stick to their value system, and keep certain goals in mind, very quickly they can establish themselves not only for the benefit of their family and themselves, but they could also become very meaningful contributors to society in general very quickly,” says the president and CEO of Elluminate, a Calgary-based technology company.
“That needs to be a starting point for most immigrants that come to Canada and with that it allows you to establish opportunities that can go beyond what you will find in other countries or in other places.”
Samanani has taken those values and translated them into a very successful business career in Calgary. So successful that recently he was the recipient of the business award during the 2006 Immigrants of Distinction Awards put on by the Calgary Immigrant Aid Society.
Samanani’s success story is noteworthy.
In 1995, he and Mike Mabey co-founded Erasoft Technologies in Calgary which went on to develop a Y2K remediation application for desktops. The product sold more than two million copies in just over 18 months with revenue over $75 million. The company was sold to Viasoft in 1998 but continued in a partnership with Viasoft until 2000.
In 2001, Samanani and Mabey co-founded Elluminate. The privately-held company has become a leading provider of live web conferencing and eLearning software solutions. It also has an office in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. for sales and marketing.
The company began with about seven or eight employees but now has 75 on staff with about 350 clients comprising corporations and academic institutions. The number of employees has doubled in the last year. The company, whose slogan is Where Bright Ideas Meet, is a finalist in the Company of the Year category for the Canadian New Media Awards later this month.
Elluminate’s average annual sales growth has been 213 per cent over the past four years. In the past five years, its revenue growth rate has been an astounding 4,857 per cent.
All IP is 100 per cent owned and, in a survey done between January 2003 and October 2005, it was found that 48 million minutes were used through Elluminate technology.
Samanani said the company’s success is based on being able to identify an emerging market trend at its early stages and capitalizing on that.
“If you take a look at how this market is unfolding, we’re very strong right now in the education space,” said the 47-year-old Samanani.
“If you take a look at our market penetration in North America alone in the education space, we estimate that there are probably over 10,000 institutions in North America that could benefit from our technology in a very direct way. And that space has been expanding quite rapidly.
“To date, while we believe that we are a leading player on the education front, the market opportunity in the education sector alone is tremendous and we’ve established ourselves as a market leader in the education space.”
Karen Adolf, a teacher with the Rocky View Virtual School and a Masters of Education student at the University of Calgary, is using the Elluminate system in both her roles.
As a teacher, the system is fantastic, she said, because it saves time.
“We talk to each other in real time. We wear headsets. I prepare my lessons in powerpoint presentations so they’re put right up there on the whiteboard . . . It’s just incredible for visuals and I can draw all over it and write on it and the kids can do the same thing. The whiteboard is totally interactive in that sense. It’s just fabulous,” said Adolf who teaches senior high school English.
As a student, Adolf lives about an hour and a half out of Calgary and “it would be a real pain in the neck for me to be driving into the city once a week.”
“I have classmates from all across the country,” she said. “It’s absolutely fabulous. It offers a real time interaction between students and teachers. You can be thousands of miles apart. I have a student right now who is in Mexico. She’s been in Mexico most of the year. We’ve had students at other times who have been in Egypt, France. It doesn’t matter where the kids go. They’re still getting what they would if they were here in Alberta. As long as you have Internet access, you have access to this classroom. It’s absolutely marvellous.”
The company has developed technology solutions for delivery of real time in training, distance education, web conferencing, virtual meetings and virtual conferences.
All the innovation is done in Calgary with 80 per cent of Elluminate’s revenue coming from a United States client base. Over the years, the company’s technology has become recognized as a “global leader,” said Samanani.
“It captures face-to-face meetings and teaching in a live, online environment,” he said. “We’re taking the strength of face-to-face communication and bringing it online to distance communication.”
Hadassah Ksienski, chief executive officer for the Calgary Immigrant Aid Society, said Samanani, who arrived in Canada from Uganda in 1976, created not only one business but two businesses and has been very active in the Calgary community.
He has also made a contribution to the global economy and his companies created many jobs.
“He has overcome barriers, educated himself and turned barriers into opportunities,” said Ksienski.
mtoneguzzi@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2006
Ismailimail 