INFORMATION PROVIDERS CELEBRATES TWELVE YEARS OF ACHIEVEMENT
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PROJECTS BOXED CREATIVE MAGAZINE TEMPLATE STORIES03 DESIGNS SOLUTIONS
ONLINE
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APRIL 2014
CLEAR INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS 42
Jordhy LEDESMA TELLS THE *IP STORY 36
LATINO LEADERSHIP 06
*ip IN 20 FACTS 34
OUR METHODOLOGY
MEDIA SENSATIONS 09
RESPONSIVE DESIGN 28
GLOBAL BRANDS
*ip PLANS EXPANSION
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WWW.YOURDOMAIN.COM
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ISSUE 03 - WINTER 2012 >
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
> CONTENTS A compilation of our most significant projects and their impact on the Latin American society. Insights into the *ip DNA, best practices and consumer Internet trends.
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FIVE PRINCIPAL Questions for our founder and principal.
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GOVERMENT 2.0 How social media is reshaping government at every level.
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A NOTE From Our Principal introduces this celebration of a creative decade
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THE BEST Of The Region takes us into the production process of sb.gob.do
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MISS UNIVERSE D.R. Chapter, the most visited site of 2004
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MEDIA SENSATIONS A recap of our most trafficked media projects
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PRINCIPAL QUESTIONS A conversation with Jordhy Ledesma about *ip’s roots
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THE RIGHT Measures, portraits The E.U. and *ip changing the Dominican society
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A PATH Of Contributions to major Dominican institutions
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CREATING GOVERNMENT 2.0 is an account of our most impactful projects in the public sector
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COLLABORATION WITH Presidents to create the INFOLED Legal System
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*IP EMBRACES The Social Media Revolution, we share global figures and trends
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INTERNATIONAL CLIENTS How *ip has impacted global corporations?
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RESPONSIVE DESIGN Discover a new technology and how it’s improving our customers’ businesses
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FEATURED CLIENTS A selection of some of our most prominent clients
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ALSUPER.COM.DO How we crafted the largest e-commerce site of the Caribbean?
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20 INNOVATION Facts about our history and professional practice
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THE *IP Story is an account of our major achievements and struggles
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GLOBAL BRANDS Our impact on international corporations.
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*IP’S HISTORY Our past, present and future endeavors.
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THE BIG Picture narrates our vision for inclusive design and best practices.
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NGO IMPACT Highlights our most important projects for global NGOs.
WASD METODOLOGY Is *ip’s propietary modus operandi. Discover how we make award-winning websites! ONAPI VIRTUAL How the patent registration office improved it’s operations by 5000% CLEAR INDUSTRY *ip has served more industrial clients in the D.R. than any other web development firm FAMILY FOOD Jordhy Ledesma produced more than a dozen projects for the famous Pizzarelli brand
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THE BIG PICTURE How has our vision of the Internet evolved over the years
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WORLD-CLASS Technology and design. *ip’s technical production details
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NGO IMPACT Our passion for community improvement and institutional development
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*IP PLANS Expansion into new markets and technologies
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> FEATURED PROJECTS Review *Ip’s wonderful history of achievement with a selection of projects and industry contributions that highlight information providers’ contributions to latin american society and the world. we cover projects from every major type and industry as well as many of our own portals.
A PATH OF CONTRIBUTIONS
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How to craft a modern government 2.0 presence that sets the standard for the South American web.
In 2004, Jordhy Ledesma built the most trafficked website of the Caribbean. A feat that *ip repeated in 2005 and 2006.
SUPERINTENDECE OF BANKS
MISS UNIVERSE - DR CHAPTER
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SOCIETAL contributions provided thru focused information solutions. 3
THE SOCIAL MEDIA REVOLUTION
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Our many projects for the European Union as they invested to develop the Caribbean Internet.
*ip, The Dominican Presidency, Serigraf and Funglode create a historic legal database for the D.R.
THE EUROPEAN UNION
DOMINICAN PRESIDENCY
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In crafting the biggest e-commerce portal of the Caribbean we saved millions in time and money.
An account of our projects for the most succesful restaurant chain of the Caribbean.
ALSUPER.COm.DO
PIZZARELLI
THE IMPACT of our societal and technical contributions accross the globe.
WE FEATURE nEW VENTURE INFORMATION PLUS KEY INSIGHTS INTO UPCOMING INTERNET AND BUSINESS TRENDS.
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
A NOTE FROM OUR
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And how will we celebrate more than a decade of digital innovation, a string of achievements that have changed our lives and the Latin American region for the better?
I say we celebrate my making a pledge. By pledging to engage in ever-greater projects, towards the pursuit of even greater achievements for the benefit of our families, our region and the planet.
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We life in amazing times, called the information era by some and the second enlightment by others. It is time for us to embrace the great possibilities that this era offers our professional and personal lives. Now we can be faster, leaner, more productive and far happier all thanks to technology. Information Providers is proud to help in the attainment of your greatest goals. Together we have crafted a new reality for our society, we have closed the digital gap and surpassed barriers of geography, socio-economic status and historic limitations. From e-commerce, to e-government to education, entertainment and art, our firm has managed to excel and bring the best of our society into the digital roads of the Internet. We have won prizes, made headlines and provided services to millions of global citizens whose lives have been touched by the magic of the Internet. *ip introduced to Latin American web development, the content management system in 2003, social networks in 2005 and tablets in 2006. We have pioneered in every conceivable front but our technological achievements are but the crystalization of the great love and respect we feel for our institutional customers, our partners and the entire latin american and global Internet audiences. Our compromise with innovation is such that instead of resting in our laurels we decide to double down, improve our game and keep innovating in areas such as cryptocurrency, hyperlocal social networks and the Internet of Things. *ip is already a local leader in these areas and will remain so for a very long time. May these twelve years serve as a reminder of the great
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compromises that any pioneer must make: the struggle to start an enterprise in unexplored lands, the passion to pursue greater goals and the tenacity to maintain his efforts. As founder and online producer of Information Providers, it has been my honorable pleasure to work with two presidents, the Dominican First Lady, three Superintendents and hundreds of CEOs to build this new reality for all of us: a world in which communication is instant, a world where information is accesible, where stores and libraries have no limits. We have created the backbone of the Dominican Internet and some of the most popular Latin American online destinations. But our mission is not over and, as we turn 12, we vow to take our technologies to an even greater audience in the eyes and mind of the global web. These years have been a blessing and our technical as well as creative work have been well appreciated. Customers love us and audiences visit our web properties at breaking neck pace. We have built the largest e-commerce website of the Caribbean and many top five sites in their respective areas.
INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
HELLO FUTURE Our slogan for 12 years
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This achievement is as much yours as it is mine, so let us celebrate for Information Providers
To implement innovation as fast as humanly possible so corporations and citizens can benefit and prepare for what’s coming with greater ease and strategic alignment has been our purpose for over a decade.
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Informations Providers’ impact extends thru e-government creations crucial to the functioning of our country to hot entertainment productions and massive institutional websites. We have impacted industry, culture, education, entertainment, finance, security, energy, defense and families in countless ways. And we owe it all to you, our trusting customers that gave us a chance when this company was a mere toddler. This achievement is as much yours as it is mine, so let us celebrate for *ip, one of the most accomplished web development firms of Latin America. Jordhy Ledesma Founder and Online Producer 12TH ANNIVERSARY-APRIL 2014-VISIT IP.DO >
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
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CLIENT SUPERINTENDENCE OF BANKS PRODUCER JORDHY LEDESMA TECHNOLOGIES PHP, COLDFUSION, CUSTOM CMS
THE BEST OF THE REGION OUR CHALLENGE WAS TO CREATE THE BEST E-GOVERMENT TOOL FOR A NEW AND IMPROVED FINANCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE. IN THE PROCESS, INFORMATION PROVIDERS CReATED THE FIRST GOVERMENT 2.0 PORTAL OF THE COUNTRY AND RECEIVED NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION.
Accessed by users in 93 countries, the Superintendence of Banks has one of the most advanced websites of any Latin American Superintendence. This website has five self-service centers, a dedicated TV program that also airs on national TV, the biggest financial database of the Dominican Republic, online financial calculators, multiple news rooms, realtime search facilities and multiple staging and testing servers for each financial dataset.
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As one of the largest websites of the country, the press heavily reported on our achievements and, since launch, traffic has doubled, making this one of our most successful e-government productions yet. Citizens will now have a useful tool to file their financial claims and inquire about their credit cards and other financial instruments. Economists and educators the world over now have a stable and comprehensive financial information repository to report on whichever business cycle the Dominican Republic is experiencing.
The home page of sb.gov.do highlights the institution’s colors and drive for organization
The center of user attention, one of the first of the country, provides free advice for users
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
ELEGANCE was CONVEYED every SINGLE second
Jordhy Ledesma and Information Providers have sponsored the Miss Universe National Pageant in D.R. three times (a record for any web development firm). Our commitment to beauty and excellence have earned us the nick name of “Online Guardians of the Tropical Beauty”.
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The Miss Universe portal in the D.R. has been the most visited site on the country on three ocasions. And it’s been a joy to work with beauty queens, master photographers and international fashion designers. Our firm truly grew larger after these experiences. Active development in the entertainment industry remains a core part of our DNA and further productions in this area will be announced shortly.
MISS UNIVERSE D.R. CHAPTER
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
ACROSS ALL GENRES
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MEDIA
sensations >
Casandra winners Ruby Perez and Aljadaqui chose *ip to craft their online presences. Jordhy Ledesma managed the image of these stars to conquer and even wider audience using *ip’s proven methodology and top notch design techniques. The highlight of our creative endeavors in the entertainment industry was our site for Anima Studios, an Arroba de Oro finalist and the most widely recognized 3D animation portfolio of the Caribbean. All brought to life by the magic of *ip’s online production team. It says a lot about your work when distinguished designers choose you to portrait their history of accomplishment. As designers they were very, very selective, but eventually realised that *ip was the best choice for Anima.
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as designers ThEY WERE VERY, VERY selective
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
FIVE 10
principal questions Our principal answers five critical questions about *ip
Creating a top online production company requires technical expertise as well as managerial dedication to please customers, employees and key partners.
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1 A
Would you do anything differently if you were to start from scratch?
Definetely no. Information Providers emcompasses a world class group of designers and developers that fulfill my creative vision everytime. As online producer I can’t think of a better team to realize my vision for the Latin American Internet. We have made a lot of mistakes but eventually grew stronger because of them and that is also a very important part of the journey. We are like a big architecture firm in which the vision is brought to
reality by hard work and obsesive care over details. And I’m very glad to have crystalized such a culture.
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Which design has been your best?
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My best design is the one I will do tomorrow. I expect the best of myself and my team and everyday new technologies come out that increase our possibilities and broaden our global reach. I want to offer that new array of possibilities to each and every one of our clients.
INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
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Like Hillman Curtis said: “We make visible the invisible”
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3 A
What is the key to producing awardwinning websites?
Like Hillman Curtis said: “We make visible the invisible”, when representing big global firms online it is key to find the soul of the message and the needs of the recipient. Only then can we architect an online dialog that serves both the needs of the audience and solves the pain points of the brand. Then technical mastery and detailed communication play an important role. We don’t always get it right but I’m very proud of our track record.
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What excites you in technology right now?
Cryptocurrency is the next frontier. We have already produced so many apps for the iPhone and tablets and Bitcoin now looks like the next frontier. Latinos need a cheap way to send money to their relatives in Latin America so crypto will be a big hit in our region. We’re already deploying bitcoin-ready websites and we have a partnership with large cryptocurrency miners and developers in London and the USA.
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What is next for Jordhy Ledesma and Information Providers?
International expansion. We are in the process of opening up our consulting and development practice to serve a large number of Latinos in the US and the EU. This requires a lot of paper work and due diligence but it’s well worth the effort. For example, there are more Dominicans with access to the Internet in NYC than in the D.R. A presence in America means we can serve the needs of millions of Latinos that need our services. 12TH ANNIVERSARY-APRIL 2014-VISIT IP.DO >
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
The Right Measures
THE EUROPEAN UNION AND THEIR BROAD CONTRIBUTION TO THE CARIBBEAN’S INTERNET ECONOMY
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nter the world of cross continental contributions and you’ll understand the strategy of the European
Union. By helping countries in the path of development, the EU accelerates the economic growth of some of its key partners with
the most efficient capital expenditure possible. One of these projects is the PRIL (a program that fosters civil communication in the DR). The EU contracted *ip’s services to maintain and bolster the presence of this critical program that is targeted directly at the civil community of the D.R. and Haiti. ePymes PROEMPRESA is another EU program that contracted *ip’s service thru open tender and tasked us with the creation of the largest portal for small businesses of the Caribbean. Hosted by Verizon, the ePymes portal was one of our
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greatest achievements of the last decade, one that got hundreds of thousands of visitors and substantial media attention. ONFED The distinguished ONFED program also contracted our services to enrich the set of online tools available to small business owners in the Caribbean.
Impact of the Information Providers’ Portals Developed for the EU
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ePymes’ launch had a broad impact in the small businesses of the region. Both residents of Santo Domingo and Santiago regularly access the site to complete various managerial tasks. As a result, the EU commissioned the development of more portals and several indicators grew significantly including funds requests, online visits, company creations (within the PROEMPRESA program) and so on. Today, most small businesses in the D.R. file their taxes online, register
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their brand names and logos using the web (in another portal we developed) and generally use the web browser as a natural tool. This benefits European businesses greatly because now they can interact with Latin American suppliers in a very swift fashion. The impact of the Proempresa, PRIL and ONFED programs thru the technical efforts of Information Providers have increased the speed of business in the region and given businesses across Europe the benefit of dealing with
local providers without using the phone. The most succesful of these local businesses, RG Global uses a website developed by *ip and processes monthly shipments of tropical foods and delicacies in the order of tons of produce that enrich life in Europe, the Americas and Asia. Like RG Global, the online tools and services developed by *ip have impacted the live of millions of Americans, Europeans and thousands of local business owners.
INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
Technical Facts
How are the EU processes different and how do they help?
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In preparation for these and other related projects, the EU created specialised procedures to help small business owners ride the digital waves and grow by learning about web development and marketing with *ip. The staged methodology allows for a development process that educates the business owner as the site is developed. So they can become self sufficient in the marketing and growth of this crucial business properties. Such an approach guarantees both the
Small Business Owners Small business owners in the Caribbean have a big impact in European businesses. For one, they are the suppliers of exotic produce and art that are highly demanded in Europe, and they provide touristic and industrial alternatives at such a competitive price that EU businesses can’t easily replace them. Producing Websites For Small Business Owners The selection of these strategic small businesses was initially very hard. Officers of PROEMPRESA wanted us to craft websites for three thousand small businesses, however such a task is not sustainable in the long term. It’s best to educate the businesses so they become online conversant and then able to use email, social networks and search engines. Then the biggests ones can apply for a website. After a rigurous selection process we ended up working with a handful of impactful
What Was The Geographic Impact Of This Initiative? Small businesses with operations in DR, Haiti and Puerto Rico were impacted. Big businesses, restaurants and supermarket chains in Europe, Asia and the Americas were also very impacted. Online ordering means that the global supply chain of tropical and exotic produce is cut in half and the whole process becomes more reliable.
ePymes was the first Coldfusion portal of the DR. The technology allows for dynamic PDF generation, interactive form presentation and Verity search. The sophistication of this systems allowed for the presentation of tens of thousands of documents from which the entrepreneurs could choose. The system also allowed for multilingual deployment and realtime announcements. Verizon made this possible by donating several servers in their datacenters and giving us full control over them. We went on to program on one of the most complex hardware platforms of the Dominican Internet. In such a state of affairs our firm was compelled to excel and deliver very creative solutions to tough communication problems. We made extensive use of Flash animations, ActionScript, .Net technologies, Java, compresion technologies, Verity Search, Outlook integration and MS Office dynamic document generation. Products from Macromedia, Adobe, Microsoft and Oracle were instrumental to our achievements.
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relevance of the site as well as its efficacy in a very long timespan.
small businesses for which we created an onsite development process. Small business owners would then be able to come to our offices and learn about various things related to web development and online tools.
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in many of them. Perhaps the most notable, the PRIL program is a long running communication program that seeks to enable the civil society at large to use online tools and become more productive. Jordhy Ledesma has been a key consultant in the project and is working towards maintaining the quality and relevance of content that empowers small business owners and professionals across the region. The tools and services created by the PRIL are among the best of the country and they are generally provided free of charge to small business owners and entrepreneurs. These tools and information systems enrich the business relation of any country that transacts with the Republic. *ip is very glad to be an important part of the EU ‘s initiatives.
What is Next for the EU And Online Initiatives in the Region? PROEMPRESA was a twoyear program that ended up running for four. Hundreds of similar aid programs are still in operation and *ip is proud to contribute 12TH ANNIVERSARY-APRIL 2014-VISIT IP.DO >
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BOXED CREATIVE MAGAZINE TEMPLATE 03
industry case studies TECHNOLOGY ANALYSIS TRENDS AND CHARTS
A DETAILED ANALYSIS OF WHERE TO INVEST YOUR 2015 TECHNOLOGY BUDGET
ONLINE PORTFOLIO
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INDUSTRY NEWS
a e of r fo nicl o .d hro ars p I e IT c VIS ital t 12 y dig r firs ou
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ISSUE 03 - WINTER 2012
VISIT IP.DO AND DISCOVER A WORLD OF DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY THAT CAN ACCELERATE YOUR ORGANIZATION
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ISSUE 03 - WINTER 2012 >
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
A PATH OF CONTRIBUTIONS Value-driven design and development have guided Information Providers since the very beginning. Our culture is one of societal compromise and constant achievement. We can’t be entirely profit driven, such a path limits our potential for social impact. Hence, we strive to be the best and help impactful institutions as much as our business endeavors allow us to. Pro bono work has been an important component of the growth of our firm and is quite certainly a distinction from our competitors. The list of *ip pro bono work recipients includes:
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Architectural design values make up an important part of what influences online producers when choosing creative paths.
The Codespa Caribe Foundation, IDDI, UNESCO, ADOARH, The Dominican Math Olympiads, Funglode, and The Dispatch of the First Lady among others. Helping our immediate community is an important part of our DNA. However our charitable work has also had global impact in the form of open source software translation of key programs of the open source movement. Ning, Farcry CMS, Wordpress and Rainbow Portal were translated to Spanish by Jordhy Ledesma, taking the contributions of our work to international shores.
> Translations Our Ning social platform translation was quoted by Marc Andressen, the inventor of the web browser. > Criteria We choose recipients based on mutual benefits and potential for societal and global impact.
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> Codespa Caribe Is one of the most prominent international collaborators that help with Caribbean education and development. > ADOARH The Association for HR Professionals is the chief point of contact for organizational development and HR practicum.
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CREATING
GOVERNMENT 2.0 and a tidal wave OF standards A tour of our most successful goverment projects and how we created a new digital infrastructure that changes the world every minute. We discuss impact, standards and e-government technology.
e-government services are the cornerstone of modern societies. Our most impactful work is related to e-government developments. In this respect, we’ve built new standards, won awards, created platforms for international collaboration and national organization among other major things. Jordhy Ledesma has carefully crafted platforms that can stand the test of time by adhering to international standards and pushing the infrastructure of the national Internet forward. We’ve introduced intranet systems, CMS,
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advanced search facilities, custom made systems, Coldfusion data stores, Microsoft .Net real-time web services and new software and designs that make our national government sites world-class. Even the Society for Information has taken notice, nominating our online producer for a global e-government award in 2005. We expect to continue our amazing string of achievements in e-government in order to accelerate national growth and better life in our region thru practical digital interfaces.
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
GOV 2.0
INSPIRING NEW
SIV The securities market of the D.R. is online thanks to *ip, siv.gov.do is a prime example of our work.
ONAPI
W3C
STANDARDS
BNV The National Bank for Housing is one of the finest Dominican institutions in existence. BNV provides housing for millions of Dominicans. Jordhy Ledesma led the production of this nationally crucial website that now serves hundreds of thousands of inquiries in a monthly basis.
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LEGAL FRAMEWORK
e-government websites are the only type in Latin America that must adhere to stringent standards due to international
and national regulations. The W3C and OPTIC standards are *ip’s specialty and our adherence to W3C has been applauded several times.
PATENTS Our online producer was the web designer of the intellectual property registration system of the D.R. ONAPI went to win the Presidential Medal of Honor for this and other innovations.
INFOLED Self-contained legal system to help lawyers navigate the justice system on their own.
WEB 2.0
STATE-OF-THE ART DOC MANAGEMENT
NEW PRINCIPLES
Every governmental website developed by Information Providers has a full repository of all the legislation that is relevant to the institution. Saving visitors time and money and making thousands of pages accesible thru advanced search facilities. As an additional transparency measure, most of our e-government websites include an open government section with all the contracts, bills and critical information. Setting up these systems is a major conquest for Latin America and a great badge of prestige for our firm.
We make government social by integrating e-government into the lives of millions. Every major social network has been integrated to make government more accesible to all.
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
INNOVATION The Superintendence of Banks’ website was the first government 2.0 property of the region. A massive production that shares the largest financial database of the country with economists and scholars from 93 countries.
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E-GOVERNMENT WHAT MAKES AN E-GOV SITE SO SPECIAL? Almost a year is required to produce an e-government site, they are among the most complex websites to produce. Agreement from dozens of managers, compliance with many laws and approval from multiple agencies is needed. We test for accessibility, speed, ease of use, content comprehensiveness, advance search facilities and three click information architecture. OPTIC and W3C standards heavily regulate the production of these websites. Excelling at e-Government equals success at the highest ranks of web production.
IPAD
FINANCE Online financial calculators are present in almost all our e-government productions.
DESIGN
SPEED MOBILE All our productions are ready to be browsed in mobile devices, both tablets and smartphones in a variety of mobile systems.
DYNAMIC
Sites are stress tested to perform at optimal speed even in slow computers, promoting high traffic.
VALUE COPARDOM
SIPEN The Superintendence of Pensions’ website displays a design that allows every visitor to reach any piece of content in less than three clicks.
Search facilities are standards and provide richer advanced facilities than general engines such as Google or Bing.
The Confederation for Dominican Workers is one of the most dynamic websites that we’ve produced. Embeded TV channel, online forums (both public and private), realtime CMS, search facilities and a document management system keep this site fresh and updated to the minute so workers can be more efficient and demand their most current rights.
The governmental content follows a strict curation process to bring the best value to citizens. 12TH ANNIVERSARY-APRIL 2014-VISIT IP.DO >
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
Strategic projects that move a nation forward can make all the difference. Our collaborations with Presidents enriched these creations.
collaboration with
presidents >
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I was contacted by Serigraf, the biggest printing agency in the country, but as unuspecting and aloof as I entered the meeting I quickly gained consciousness: this project is for the President, they told me. As it turns out, the INFOLED system was a key pet project of Leonel Fernandez, the Dominican president at the time. The President has a dream, he dreamt of a nation of hyperconnected lawyers that could browse the entire legal system from their computers without connecting to the Internet. Such a requirement was key as most of the Dominican justice system lacks readily available Internet access. To further complicate the situation, compiling and organizing laws proved to be a
this was... accesible to most lawyers in remote areas. a tour de force in the way justice worked across the nation.
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gargantuan task, because the legislation encompassed hundreds of thousands of documents that could not fit on a single CD. My work here was as tedious as they come, a dance with compression technologies, self contained search engines and intrincate organizational navigation. We decided to divide the information into “legal systems� or a set of legislation for each industry. In this fashion, every set could fit on a single CD. Production was an epic in itself. The databases were malfunctioning due to the excess of information and my extensive use of compression technologies. To fix this, I came up with a new indexing system that dynamically selected just the most relevant records per page. All this was performed in Javascript without the aid of convensional database systems like Oracle or SQL Server. This was, the only dynamic data source of its kind accesible to most lawyers in remote areas. A tour deforce in the way justice worked accross the nation.
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Replication was the next chapter of this project. Not simple replication, but large scale mass production, with a prevision of five CDs per lawyer in the country. Plus special reserves for Funglode, Serigraf, and the Presidency. Since every CD has to be tested, replication was a massive project in itself. The datastore was bigger than Wikipedia is today, the search facilities where more sophisticated and everything worked in realtime. To this day I have no knowledge of any encyclopedic project as ambitious and useful as INFOLED in all of Latin America. Information Providers is now preparing the next iteration of INFOLED, an online system
that can be downloaded at home and used offline with table and smartphone sidekicks. As the first version, these new releases will provide the legislature
This was an outstanding job. Thanks for your service, said in his own words by the president of the dominican republic. from 1844 to 2014, almost two centuries of information accesible with a couple of clicks to anyone in the country. Curating the legal body of our
country, empowering the justice system to be better informed and more efficient has been a great success for this collaboration. As we finished, I received the highest salutation a professional can aspire to: “This was an outstanding job. Thanks for your service.� said in his own words by the President of the Dominican Republic. *ip went on to collaborate with the presidency in other projects but the impact of the first time always remains.
Jordhy Ledesma
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
*IP EMBRACES THE SOCIAL MEDIA REVOLUTION E VE NT M ANAG E ME NT Social media helps event organizers keep track of attendants before, during and after major gatherings
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WE B 2 .0 CON S UL TING
The web doesn’t have to be a one way communication tool. Allowing self expression within institutional sites helps raise engagement and builds a brand
We make organizations embrace a system of communication that happens across many different forums and social dynamics
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*IP PORTALS USE SOCIAL MEDIA And all our newly produced portals embrace social media
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G LO BAL RE AC H Social media has the potential to connect the whole world regardless of computer savyness or geography. This revolution is an opportunity to grow close as humans
INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
100%
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OF NEW SITES USE SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS
For every site we build, we register it in the Facebook graph and engineer social loops for its consumption and discovery
TWI T TER L E ADERS HIP We have exclusive tools to monitor the Latin American Twitter space in real-time
OR GANI C G R OWT H By creating brand pages in social media and posting compelling content, users will discover your brand organically
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MORE S P EC IAL IS T S We leverage partnerships with social media experts across the globe. Segmented by industry, region and topic, our associates can help you reach new audiences and markets
G RE ATER RE AC H Social media helps reach people that don’t consume mainstream media or watch TV. It is also a good opportunity to reach global audiences
LO C AL EX P ER TISE Even if you run a local business, social media can help in targeting your market with great precision
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS FOR TWELVE YEARS WE HAVE SERVICED THE CARIBBEAN AND LATIN AMERICA
INTERNATIONAL CLIENTS A review of some projects crafted for our international clientele
HOWEVER, OUR WORK HAS IMPACTED PEOPLE IN EVERY CORNER OF THE PLANET. HERE’S HOW WE DID IT.
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Soon after, the firm became the most visited in online media and a prominent result in Google when...
are is the day in which we don’t receive an international request of some sort. The world has gotten smaller and messages now seem to arrive from every possible country. But how did it get to be this way? We started with the natural geographic progression by taking clients from Puerto Rico and nearby islands. Then Miami, Cuba, Costa Rica and Chile became targets for our creations. WDALAW, our legal firm and client, hired us to creat the most sophisticated online presence for any legal firm in the region. Soon after, the firm became the most visited in online media and a prominent result in Google when people searched for such common terms as “collaborative divorce”, “adoption lawyer”, etc. A key social media strategy consisting of the distribution of legal guides thru Scribd (a social media site for documents) propelled the exposure of the firm to more than 300,000 visitors in three years. Putting the exposure of the firm right at the top of the heap for boutique law firms in America. WDALAW’s website
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is not the prettiest, but this is by design. The partners update the site themselves and always post the latest information. WDALAW’s client list includes Google, General Electric, Playboy Magazine, Stolichnaya Vodka, Microsoft and other big names. Thru our legal advisors we made a dent in America and started getting more international clients. Today, WDALAW is the most visited site of its kind and the brand has already expanded into real estate, virtual offices and prepackaged law services, making it more of a legal services conglomerate. The founding partners name us as one of their key cooperators in achieving this unprecedented level of success. All and all, WDALAW manages over 50 social media channels created by *ip, including YouTube, Scribd, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Google +, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, etc. Since their customers are distributed around the world and come by the hundreds of thousands to WDALAW’s sites, it follows that this boutique law firm is one of the most visited of America.
INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
AND GLOBAL BRANDS
and multinational corporations that have a major impact on the planet
M
ultinationals are a different kind of animal. They have their own rules and procedures. Selling to one does not mean understanding another. But, despite many obstacles we’ve sold to many multinational corporations across the years: AES Corporation, Verizon, Dale Carnegie Training, Carrefour, Pepsi, Microsoft, Productivity Point and Xerox among others.
values of their people.
Our work with Dale Carnegie Training Puerto Rico was specially significant because they trusted us to manage their
On a different note, as we began our consulting practice, Productivity Point became the first multinational to contract our services, which included training, design and development work for clients such as Tricom, The National Reserve Bank and the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic.
Which is exactly why brands such as The AES Corporation, thru their subsidiary ITABO, contracted our services. We understand global business and regional realities and made it our business to showcase their brand values across multiple projects in a manner in which the local audience could digest.
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Multinationals are a different kind of animal. They have their own rules and procedures.
All these multinational corporations and institutions have in turn amplified our reach and brought our technology to an even wider audience. Multinationals have also been very important in our practice because they demand such high standards of quality and hence have forced us to operate at an A1 level in all respects.
communication channels on a 360-degree basis. Which means that, at some point we were managing all of the brand’s messages accross a wide variety of channels: press, web, email, etc.
Our firm has grown stronger because of our interactions with big corporations and now, we are ready to serve even larger businesses in a wide arrange of geographies and industries.
Then came an avalanche of work for Miss Universe and UNESCO. Artistic work that highlighted our Latin American heritage and values. These projects were very hard but also very valuable because we understand how all these mosaics come together to paint an image of the culture of a continent and the 10TH ANNIVERSARY-JANUARY 2014-VISIT IP.DO >
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
RESPONSIVE DESIGN fresh conTENT for ALL DEVICES
Responsive design has been one of the fastest to implement changes in recent web history 28
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iewing web sites across devices is a very common experience nowadays. In other to maintain a consistent message, it is very important to present web pages adequately across a wide range of devices. Responsive design is a display and rendering technique that makes possible serving the same page across a wide array of devices. The first step involved in RD is page sniffing or having a program figure out the type of system the page is being displayed in. Afterwards, the page layout will have fluid options so it adapts to vaious screen sizes. However, sometimes toolbars and buttons won’t quite fit on small screens, so their
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presentation must be crafted in different formats and then code should be written to pick the best option. Having an adequate design is crucial to increase conversion and to decrease load times while saving on web hosting costs. HTML5, Javascript and CSS frameworks help in producing responsive websites. Testing and heatmap analysis can further guarantee that an implementation is fully functional and provides the needed level of performance. Some things, however are not possible and require additional tooling or testing.
For example, A/B testing (a form of statistical analysis used to determine the best possible web page layout) is not easy to perform in responsive designs. Web designers must test each webpage multiple times in different environments and usage scenarios. If your budget or staff are limited, is best to stick to proven templates and avoid complex new layouts. However a very well crafted responsive design can save the corporation millions if the traffic to its website is substantial. Having one interface to perform several tasks means less programmers, less support specialists, less documentation and a lesser load on database systems and web services. Responsive web design is a musthave in modern websites.
INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
In some instances, a responsive website can ease the production of an iPad app or make possible to forgo it all together. RD increases conversions by raising the familiarity of customers with your brand and establishing a consistent visual language that makes customers already know what to do.
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Althought, in time most sites will use responsive design, right now it is a competitive advantage that can save your company millions if well implemented.
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A faster loading site crafted with RD in mind allows your company to sell more products with the same capital expenditures in servers and telecom costs. Althought, in time most sites will use responsive design, right now it is a competitive advantage that can save your company millions if well implemented.
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
FEATURED INTERNATIONAL CLIENTS
The biggest telecommunications company of the region received our services when building the ePymes portal
We produced dominicancrafts. com and several interactive CDs for UNESCO
Several Xerox’s web properties in the Caribbean were hosted by *ip
We managed Dale Carnegie’s portals in D.R. and Puerto Rico
We host Occidental Hotels web properties in our datacenter
One of our first customers from Spain. We manage Codespa’s web presence
Corporate training, consulting and web development
Now part of AES, Itabo hired us to craft their web presence and intranet
For three years we were the official digital agency and co-sponsor of the National Miss Universe Pageant
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
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FEATURED CARIBBEAN CLIENTS
The Superintendence of Banks for which we did web site producction, hosting and custom programming
The biggest pizzeria chain in the nation hired us for web site development, e-promotion, custom programming and hosting
The biggest pharmacy chain of the D.R. hired us to produce their official web site
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The National Treasury for Social Security hired us for extensive web development work
We crafted the web presence of the largest cooperative credit union of the nation
Ageport, the third largest maritime transporter of the Caribbean
Petroquim Industries had us create their web presence and coordinate their online marketing efforts
One of the largest communication companies of the D.R. secured our services for web promotion and web site development
The EU in its program PROEMPRESA helped thousands of small businesses using the web development services of our firm
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
O D . M O C . R E P U S AL
E
TIV A V O
THE
INN T S MO
> CONVENIENCE FOR EVERYONE
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Now the biggest e-commerce website of the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean, alsuper. com.do is redifining the way a whole nation lives. Originally programmed by Jordhy Ledesma, alsuper. com.do now serves tens of thousands of shoppers and delivers groceries to thousands of subscribing families on a weekly basis. With a very simple interface, real-time, inventory management and search facilities more sophisticated than those of Amazon and Google, right from the start we knew alsuper was going to be a winner. But we never anticipated the impact it would have on the lifes of so many working mothers and families. Now customers can save time and money, live a richer life and eat healthier without giving up convenience. Alsuper has become a platform for healthy and organized living that has helped our clientele enjoy live at least a little bit more. Not bad for a single website!
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
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R. . D HE T F ET O K R MA R E SUP E N LI N O EST G R LA THE A FRESH CATALOG With over 100,000 items, alsuper.com.do is the largest e-commerce site of the Caribbean. We refresh this catalog daily and dynamically update inventory conditions and current pricing. This gives visitors an unprecedented experience, the convenience of an Amazon-like catalog with the freshness of realtime sale prices.
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> ENDING THE SEARCH We tag all the items with several keywords: is the item on sale, how fresh is it, availability, storage unit, etc. By adding complimentary information we give customers the products that they want with the fewest search effort possible. Every week, we analyze search queries and further optimize our listings to showcase whatever customers a looking for in a particular season of location.
> HEALTHY REMINDERS Wish-lists, shop-lists, previous orders, premade supermarket orders, etc. We use them all to provide a new kind of experience for shoppers: list-based shopping means less travels to the supermarket, more savings, a healthier family and a more orderly life. As a bonus, now everyone in the family can shop for groceries! 12TH ANNIVERSARY-APRIL 2014-VISIT IP.DO >
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
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3
The first website that we developed was Fondomicro, an ONG sponsored by USAID.
In the first year we worked in online insurance systems. After recognizing the high demand for web development, we adjusted.
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4
20
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INNOVATION
Our first development machine only had 512MB of RAM!
FACTS
5 We pioneered the development of multilingual websites by suscribing a partnership with Hot Banana Software, now part of Lyris.
We relive the story of Information Providers by listing 20 facts about our history, team and clients.
The building where most of our clients do business is Acropolis Tower at the very heart of the Capital.
Our slogan, “Hello Future”, is an invitation to celebrate the dawn of new technologies.
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The website for the Latin American Symposium of Psyquiatry was our first international client.
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We started our datacenter with only eight machines but now have over 500.
9 We’ve done nine major e-government sites and 50% of them have received awards or important nominations.
INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
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Our second office only had ten chairs, because we believed we would never need anything more than that!
In 2005 Jordhy Ledesma, our producer, was nominated for best e-government website of the planet by his work in siv.gov.do.
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Our work has been displayed in several Golden @ exhibitions. The Golden @ is the most prestigious prize for Latin American websites.
We decided to celebrate our 12th aniversary instead of our first decade in other to wait for our Founder, Mr. Ledesma , which was absent due to his graduate studies.
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The firm has completed 216 sites, the largest portfolio of the region!
We now employ over 50 contractors and five full-time staff, serve customers in 15 countries and have website visitors that come from over 116 different nationalities.
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Verizon is the firm that has requested the greatest amount of changes to a project (the e-Pymes portal) this number was 1710 changes!
We only use Apple computers in our office. All of our hardward is Apple, including tablets, iPhones, etc.
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The website we have redesigned the most is Pizzarelli’s. Every new edition has been more succesful than the last.
17 We have attended over 20 launch parties for the websites for our customers.
20 Our main goal for our 20th birthday is to open offices in other countries to serve even more international clients and enroll more artists to our freelance staff!
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
A History of Achievement
> Our first office was rented for a hundred dollars
The
*ip Story
per month. Those were the days! Every new project was harder to get than the rest until we built a reputation. And this reputation is what we are now, what we’ll always be: the most dependable ally, the pioneers in new technological endeavors, the leaders in hypercompetitive environments. We grew and won against big consulting and PR firms because we understood early on that web development was a new business altogether. And now, our comprehension of dozens of industries and geographies along with state of the art technology make us even more relevant than in previous years. Our history of achievement is summarized in just one sentence: People first and profits later. A mantra that has served us well in these past 12 years!
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Leslor The “Leslor” Information Providers brand will be our business name abroad starting in 2015. Leslor is a short name that will instantly bring brand recognition to the firm. Locally, the Information Providers logo and name will remain untouched.
Internet Marketing The shift to Internet Marketing came when we realized
one of the local leaders in traffic delivery. We are trusted by the
customers need traffic to their websites as much as they needed
biggest corporations and by senior professionals who depend on
their sites developed! A new wave of services followed and
our traffic delivery solutions to bolster their units performance.
little by little, we started packaging growth systems and traffic delivery solutions. Internet Marketing has turned into our most attractive competitive advantage. Now Information Providers is
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
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Web Design Our initial services only included web design, hosting and domain registration. We started with a team of three people: a designer, a developer and our producer. Later, we added more services, moved to bigger offices and now our firm offers consulting, custom application programming, grid technology, cryptocurrency and cloud solutions.
carefully testing each and every framework that has gained relevant traction and then obsesively trained our specialists to maintain solutions and expand on the work performed by our producer. The future looks very promising indeed. IP is already a leader in cryptocurrency mining and development and we have now deployed a special task force to prepare package solutions so our clients can capitalize on the Internet of Things. Although we are ahead of the
Application Development We pioneered .Net development in 2003. Then Macromedia MX development in 2004. Actionscript, CMS development, Java, Rails, Multilingual CMSs, Coldfusion, Advanced CSS, PHP, HTML 5, Open GL and Hadoop came after. Now we’re programming in Node. js, MongoDB, Cassandra and Objective C. Our practice
market by at least 4 to 5 years, this is what’s required of a leading technical consulting firm to deliver real competitive advantages to its clients. We take that
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... the only way to keep at the forefront of innovation is to be current on the latest tools and...
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maintains that the only way to keep at the forefront of innovation is to be current on the latest tools and become an expert on them. In this respect, our founder directly produces most of the critical code and design
compromise very seriously and are constantly fetching
of the firm, still to this day. Having such a senior expert
for new solutions that can bring more value and profits
craft the core of a system dramatically increases its
to our customers.
security, cohesiveness and speed of delivery. We have become leaders in Application Development by
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
DIA
Along with the marketing team, we explore the conversion path, usually named sales funnel, of the website. The result of this analysis is a realistic marketing plan that drives traffic to the online property in the best possible way.
ME IAL SOC
FUNNEL ANAYSIS
M+
Sometimes, adjacent properties have to be built to promote the main site: landing pages, social accounts, etc. We craft this web and proceed to market the solution using agreed upon channels. From hereon a maintenance process starts and we keep monitoring the growth and performance of the web properties. Usually the full source code is released to the client and his workforce trained to maintain time-sensitive areas of the product.
, SE SEO
WEB BUILDING AND MARKETING
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A/B TESTING
The site is migrated into servers that are comparable to production units. Here performace testing happens as we verify the integrity of the code and the new system as a separate unit. In parallel, client meetings are taking place and multiple versions and adjustments are being applied. At this point, all the key client stakeholders have direct access to the test server and can browse the live site.
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DEP LOY MEN
TESTING AND WEB HOSTING
T AN
DT
EST ING
We direct traffic to the test site and perform multivariate statistical analysis on the production to show whether it converts better than the previous version. It all goes according to plan we might proceed to a release. If not, then adjustments are made and A/B testing is repeated. Statistical analysis is also used to estimate server loads and telecom demands on the clients facilities.
DES IGN AND
DEV E
LOP MEN
T
INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
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DISCOVERY PROCESS We start with a series of discovery meetings, surveys and social processes that allows our designers and developers to accurately discover your most pressing technical needs and , as we build an adequate RFP, every production detailed is mapped to your company’s requirements and needs. We then validate the results of our analysis with internal senior leadership.
PROTOTYPING A “gray site” is a mockup of the whole web production, crafted in detail so key stake holders can appreciate information flow, screen real estate distribution, navigation characteristics, etc. This prototype is clickable and incorporates the point of view of our producer and the project lead on the client side. Typically, three weeks elapse from the initial meeting to the first version of the gray site.
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SOFT PRODUCTION
AND NG
I AMM
GR PRO
Designers then draw the whole site according to specifications and branding guidelines. Soft production means that, at this point, the website is still a drawing and doesn’t yet contain dynamic code or database connections. However, this iteration reflects the final look and feel of the web property.
ONLINE PRODUCTION
S
/OP DEV
We add interactivity, code, revise W3C standards, turn images into sprites, animate links, revice CSS code, perform any programming related to responsive design instrumentation, add Javascript and integrate any applicable legacy system. This is by far the most tedious process in the chain and can take anywhere from one week to two months of dedicated production.
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
ONAPI VIRTUAL How Web Design Accelerated National Development
PROJECT BRIEF FULL WEB PRODUCTION LOCATION SANTO DOMINGO COMPANY ONAPI STANDARDS OPTIC W3C, 508 E-GOV
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TECHNOLOGY STACK COLDFUSION 7 FARCRY CMS ASP.NET WINDOWS SERvER SQL SERVER FUSETALK SERVER
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Onapi is the National Patent and Intellectual Property Registration Office of the D.R. We created the first version of Onapi Virtual in 2005 and the second version in 2007. The success of this portal was such that more than 45% of the registrations are now performed online and take less than 20 days to process. This means that companies can incorporate 60 days faster as a direct result of our efforts. Onapi went to win the Presidential Medal of Quality twice and the site was nominated for an Arroba de Oro Award and exhibited to Latin America and the world via multiple online showcases.
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The volume of information managed by this site on a daily basis, the social good it brings and the amazing managerial work performed by senior and mid-level leadership make this project a national pride. Since then, the media has heavily reported on the launch and the merits of this website. Not only can Dominicans register their intellectual property online, but now international constituents, like managers of Fortune 500 firms or multinational companies can register or query the registration of their company’s IP in the Dominican Nation. The site is compliant with W3C, OPTIC and WIPO guidelines. Home page of Onapi’s website circa 2008. The site was extremely modern for its time.
INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
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Onapi was the first national e-government property to include online forums to help the community start a conversation around intellectual property management and registration.
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Intellectual property registration time is a key economic indicator Onapi’s website is a production of major significance in the history of the Dominican Republic. It is the only website that every other nation must access in order to legally conduct business in the region. Onapi Virtual is the most intenational of all national government websites and is indeed one of the most sophisticated.
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To put things into perspective, Onapi Virtual houses all the patents, logos, company incorporations, trademarks, and name registrations ever issued by the national government.
Our work in this project had multiple stages and included the creation of the institutional CMS, the web design of the whole interface, the database connection to legacy systems, online forums, online request forms, departamental websites, transparency forum, web statistics engine and e-government systems implementation as required by law. The complexity of this project was only shadowed by its great success and the positive impact that it had in the Dominican Nation. The merits of the website were
chronicled by the media in many articles and also by the President himself when delivering the Presidential Medal of Quality to Onapi. Creating this project had another major impact in the lives of Information Providers’ staff. Now we were the creators of the top entertainment, commercial and governmental websites of the country. It was at this point where we realised that, as developers, we could become more than simple technicians. We realised we could become a key part of the social fabric of our nation.
Designers, developers and producers that lift culture, business and government for the betterment of nations. In this context, the impact of our work was clear, we were no longer building pages but crafting a better future for our country by identyfing the most critical projects and tools we could build. Onapi is a clear example of the key task of every designer: choosing the next project wisely can maximize our societal impact and makes us more relevant in the long term.
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
Clear industry
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ery few industrial operators get marketing right. PR and communications are such a challenge for industrials that very often they end up contracting the same project multiple times. This is a terrible scenario for society: citizens are left uninformed, unable to tell bad from good actors, and end up choosing inferior products and services. Hence society suffers and the best actors sometimes don’t get to survive. In contrast, an industrial group that communicates well, effects tremendous impact in its immediate surroundings. Therefore, Internet communications and online systems that deliver a clear message, can not only impact the bottom line of factories and companies but also better the life of a whole society. Take for example the situation of Petroquim, one of the largest petrochemical producers of the country. Most neighbors live in constant fear because they don’t know what to make
A New Face for industries and conglomerates so they grow closer to their audience and embrace social responsibility.
of Petroquim operations. But a website with open tours into Petroquim facilities brings peace of mind to a whole community, offers a new employment alternative and provides a communication device that
communications with the government and its immediate neighbors improved and its share of international business also increased. Industrials need to give their communication efforts a second look
As a result of a clear communication strategy, Petroquim’s communications with the government and its immediate neighbors improved and its share of international business also increased. makes the community and the company even more connected. As a result of a clear communication strategy, Petroquim’s
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because that is generally their weak spot. However a solid and clear PR and communication stategy will not only benefit the corporation, it will make government’s work far
easier and greatly benefit the immediate society of the industrial enterprise. Some best practices include: an open email rolodex with contact information to all the key managers, inventory of press releases, virtual tours, monthly newsletters, full product catalog, environmental care guidelines, governmental permits and other sensitive information posted on a transparency section, etc.
INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
key
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& CLEAR INFORMATION
H
igh hopes for the Internet were displayed by one of the very first industrials we consulted with, Ageport. Private stevedores that manage a sizabe share of the comodities shipments that put in motion our economy. In particular, Ageport transports 90% of the grain used to produce the country’s national beer. Our first mission with this group of great professionals was
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to create a digital culture in which email and web browsing were used on a daily basis. Next we set to produce a beautiful website that produdly represented the brand and clearly communicated the key messages of the firm. More importantly, we provided realtime tracking services to Ageport customers and downloadable procedures for its visitors. These simple tools make it easy for the company to do business, communicate effectively and bring in more business with almost no additional
effort. A clear and simple web presence helps Ageport focus the target of communications around business and shipments. However a more robust communication approach like the one we crafted includes historic information about the company, press releases, online tours and social responsability information.
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
FAMILYfoOD
FOR THE GOOD TIMES HOW WE COMPLETED 12 PROJECTS FOR THE LARGEST NATIONAL CHAIN OF PIZZERIAS
Founded in the 80s, Pizzarelli is a true Dominican icon. With twenty two fully equipped restaurants and presence in every major mall, this brand needed a solid online image that made justice to its impact on society. As our second client, we’ve been working with Pizzarelli for a long time and have enjoyed the pleasure of designing their menu, three websites, two intranet applications and several promotional campaigns.
DESIGN 44
CONTENT
ANIMATIONS
INTERACTIVE
Pizzarelli’s new website. This,
G
the whole menu in order to
C
U
united with a fresh and dynamic
describe each plate in a fresh
color motion and sound to
forms, web statistics and
design, gave the scents needed
and new way.
create an illusion of nature
dynamic search that interfaced
wrapping the food.
with Flash programs.
M
ore than 80% of the photos where taken exclusively for
for an exquisite digital creation.
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ood productions have great content. For this one, we revised
ounting on our Flash animation toolset, we created an
interactive menu that mixed
nder the hood, many programs very doing their jobs quietly.
Dynamic maps, suggestion
INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
PROGRAMMING
CRM
S
project. We made extensive
C
use of Actionscript, ASP and
every employee to understand
works despite intermitent
brand is highly respected on and
Coldfusion. Mixing all these
a customer’s preferences and
customer contact. The range
offline and the traffic has been
languages in a single interface
historic activity. We created
of animations and novel
increasing on a steady pace.
was a challenge but it was
a state of the art CRM for
communication procedures
important to deliver the site
Pizzarelli.
made our projects with
A delicious result for a very
in the shortest amount of time
Pizzarelli among the most
delicious brand!
possible.
innovative we’ve produced.
cripting and Flash programming where everywhere in this
INNOVATIONS lient relations are becoming more and more analytical. CRMs
help with the task and allow
D
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RESULTS
N
ata, patterns and historic activity allowed us to craft
a comprehensive CRM that
ight and day, visitors log in to the various Pizzarelli sites and
share them on social media, the
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
big
The
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Picture
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INSPIRATIONS FROM AROUND THE WORLD Picasso, Neruda and Parra, Latin American artists that inspire our craft and make us richer and more creative as designers. Their craft has made us stronger as artists and more disciplined as developers.
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Picasso drew thousands of paintings that didn’t see the
Drinking from this lake of creation allows us to see the big picture
light of day. He went undiscovered for years. When he was
and understand Neruda, Parra and Picasso for what they are:
dying he told friend that he would be remembered by his
reflections of the Latino culture. By digesting their art we get to see
poetry? Poetry? Yes! Picasso was a poet, and a damn good one!
the big picture, we get to experience a new reality. Maybe a taste of Argentina or Chile.
The study of an artist’s life helps us cristallize our own. Latin American artists in particular have a rich production that can lift any artist to new heights. But the key to that grow is understanding the process. How did he come up with that idea? What is he trying to communicate?
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The big picture becomes apparent: we are all connected, their art becomes our art and our craft becomes a new lake of inspiration for the region. And that frame of mind drives us, the compromise to create art, to inspire thru design and development, a realization that our work can change lives and enrich their perception of reality.
INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
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Up Close & Personal WE DRAW OUR INSPIRATION FROM ARTISTS AROUND THE WORLD. ART IN EVERY FORMAT SERVES AS A CONDUIT FOR NEW IDEAS.
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Poetry, paintings, music and sculptures serve as sources of ideas and inspiration for designers and developers. They are like a lake of wisdom that enlightens the mind and breeds a fresh perspective with every glimpse.
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The study of an artist’s life helps us cristallize our own. Latin American artists in particular have a rich production that can lift any artist to new heights.
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INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
LATIN E-COMMERCE CREATIVE MARKETING AND PLANNING
WORLD-CLASS TECHNOLOGY
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WHAT MAKES AN *IP? When producing a site, we take into account over sixty key details and measurements.
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An *ip website must load fast, be 100% indexable by search engines and W3C compliant, however there are certain things that an *ip site has that very few other websites enjoy. For example, we use triple linking to get to each page, meaning that, in every website there are at least three distinct ways to get to each page. Furthermore, we use geometric grip spacings on most sites, this makes for a much more pleasant viewing experience. *ip color palettes are usually monotones derived from Pantone compositions and the typography is, not always but usually, a sans serif composition. These and many other details make an *ip website stand out and convey a sometimes imperceptible allure that sets it apart from other productions. Like luxury watch makers we take to heart the accuracy, durability and convenience of our creations. > 12TH ANNIVERSARY-APRIL 2014-VISIT IP.DO
INFORMATION PROVIDERS - 12 YEARS
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LATIN E-COMMERCE CREATIVE MARKETING AND PLANNING
GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS IS STATE OF THE ART Under the hood, an *ip site is very impressive, we take extensive measures to make our sites competitive and relevant in a global space.
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The dominicancrafts.com website displays the art of an entire nation for the enrichment of the world and to ease trade and communication among developed nations and the D.R. Sponsored by UNESCO this website makes use of extensive *ip technology to capture visitor intent and provide accurate statistics to the editors. By using detailed metrics, group by art segment, editors can pick the best styles and artisans to showcase thus, increasing traffic and visitor satisfaction. We take care of the internal details and always perform unit testing, injection analysis, we place anti-phising measures in many websites and accurately monitor copyright and intellectual property breaches, We’ve never had a security problem in twelve years but sites produced by *ip are online 24 hours per day, just like every other. This is our pride, being state of the art even in the things that don’t show but still matter.
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NG OI MP AC T
Seeing these projects grow represents both personal and social gains.
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OPTIMIZING THE DESIGN PORTFOLIO FOR IMPACT In finance, is common to talk about optimizing the portfolio for returns. However, we tend to think more in terms of optimizing our efforts to achieve the maximum societal impact. That makes the whole team grow.
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Over the years we have designed for several
shall make a compromise to keep helping these causes,
impactful NGOs: the IDDI, Codespa, Cigar
realising that they make us grow farther than we expect of
Family, UNESCO, ADOARH among others.
ourselves. Local NGOs deserve our attention because of
The social value created by these projects has been
the great work they have done for Haiti and the Dominican
surprinsing. To this day Cigar Family is still one of the
Republic. So let’s celebrate another decade of social
most succesful ONGs of the country, Codespa has
compromise together!
expanded operations and now serves Haiti, the IDDI is now managing thrice the amount of projects and the cultural compilations we’ve developed for UNESCO have doubled in visits since their creation. But the impact is not limited to numbers but also spans geographies. All of these projects have international impact and are browsed by dozens of foreing nations on a monthly basis. Seeing these projects grow represents both personal and societal gains. And we can now celebrate the magical way in which these projects have grown organically and beyond our wildests expectations.
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All ourprojects are indexed by archive.org and we constantly help in the dissemination of public information thru the Internet. It establishes a culture of sharing as well as an opportunity for societal growth thru education. Being based in Latin America means sharing both a culture of rapid growth as well as a conection to the ever increasing inequality that is hurting us so much. Thankfully our work can be seen in even the most remote locations using the least sophisticated computers. However, we
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IP PLANS EXPANSION
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g
We’re considering expanding our practice to cities such as New York, Miami, Zurich and Madrid
Our founder and producer, Jordhy Ledesma
ive a man a fish and he’ll eat
for us to establish offices in this country and recruit local designers
for a day, but if you teach
and programmers that will, using our proven methodologies and
him... If we create tools that
research, deliver better solutions to the Latino demographic.
empower our customers to deploy their messages
This expansion represents an important conquest for our firm. In
on the web they’ll be able to make a bigger impact on society. *ip is
the coming years we will become one of the few Dominican brands
at a pivotal point in its history, we are transitioning into a product
with a direct international presence. This in turn will enrich our local
company of international impact.
practice with professionals from all over the world that will bring in a new perspective to our Latin American design mantra.
The success we had with the Portado brand and other *ip creations has opened our eyes to a new sea of opportunity in the consumer
As we prepare to grow we must look back and reflect on our values,
web sector. However, instead of solely focusing on this area, we’ll
our passions and core beliefs. Ours is a firm of hard-earned prestige
expand our consulting practice and open offices in potentially four
and a very respected brand in its key circles. But that comes at a
more cities across the globe.
price, because customers expect us to over deliver and be true to our promises every time. At *ip, excellence and achievement are
We are now a leader in institutional web development, employing
not random events but a way of life. Our design perspective, which
many professionals of distinguished track record and dedication.
is colorfur, lively, and culturarly rich, pretty much like the Latino
We’ll expand our reach by continuing to be a research-driven web
culture, is one of our key assets, and one we should maintain as we
development firm that provides targeted solutions to its customers.
compete in bigger lands. Good news is, not much will have to change,
Our international play will be to focus on the Latino market of key
as we’ve been competing against multinational agencies since our
geographies. The Hispanic market is growing as a faster rate than
inception, so this transition should be a smooth one.
any demography in the US for example, this creates a big opportunity
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This growth must come in an orderly and sustainable way
Same service, new locations
Expansion in datacenter capacity
These two trends... present us with an unprecedented
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opportunity to make a difference and build a legacy of utility.
utility that will provided us with a far more connected and far more fulfilling life. This means that boutique tecnology firms like ours will walk into
On a different note, new developments in the Internet make for an
a path of sustained growth and increased social relevance. Our
even more exciting future for us. Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency
technology, now used by millions, could possibly be used by hundreds
revolution will provide a fast, safe and cheap means to store and send
of millions and, as Latin America becomes more connected and
money to the Latino community. The new wave of innovation that this
Internet savvy, our solutions become more useful and relevant to
represents will mean that a new Internet will surface: The Internet of
the world at large. These two trends, increase in connectivity of
Money.
Latin America and the increase of the pervasiveness of the Internet present us with an unprecedented opportunity to make a difference
So, the next decade will be an exciting rollercoaster of technology
and build a legacy of utility.
with four Internets: Content, Social Connections, Things and Money. The Internet of Content will be primary consumed in tablet devices
And now, twelve years after its foundation, *ip emerges as a natural
via offline content-delivery techniques like apps, The Internet of
conduit for this new wave of innovation. Now, more than ever, we
Social Connections will welcome hyperlocal apps of greater utility
will help our customers embrace a new future, one of freedom,
and value, while the Internet of Things will connect every device that
convenience and relevant information. We invite you to join us in this
needs to be monitored by us. The Internet of Money will provide us
new ride, because the next twelve years will be much better than the
with smart contracts, decentralized and stable cryptocurrencies and
last.
a parallel financial system available to anyone, globally. What this means is that the next decade will be the most exciting in technology
Jordhy Ledesma
in all of human history. We’ll see an explosion of information and
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