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In 2013, Altamente sponsored ethnographic research into innovation and technology public policy in Puerto Rico. The study spans a decade of policies from 1998 to 2008, particularly the implementation stage of Arthur D. Little's Economic Development Plan (1990s), the Science and Technology Roadmap of 2002 and the Puerto Rico 2025 Initiative. The research methodology combines participant observation, interviews, source document and correspondence, aided by social, cultural and economic analysis in multitiered approach that articulates the voices of several levels of government as well as multinational and local corporate actors, non-profit organizations, individuals and academia. This project documents socio-cultural and economic patterns of behavior and perspectives that characterize diverse groups of actors in the Puerto Rico innovation eco-system. 

Findings from this research were shared in a paper entitled "Running to a Standstill: Developing a Hight Technology Sector in Puerto Rico" presented at the Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico (2014). Copies of the presentation are available upon request, using our contact form.

"Running to a Standstill: Developing a Hight Technology Sector in Puerto Rico"

Abstract

In the period of two decades the Government of Puerto Rico sponsored at least three economic development plans from global consulting firms such as Arther D. Little, McKinsey and A.T. Kearney. All plans coincide in recommending the Island invest in developing a high technology sector. This research offers an ethnographic look at economic development planning and obstacles met in the implementation of these plans. Fieldwork includes first hand experience as an invited private industry representative of small, technology firms during the intelligence gathering portion of the economic development planning, interviews of diverse groups of stakeholders in the economic development analyzes government and private sector technology purchasing patterns and an ethnographic look at the life of technology startups. The data gathered shows that the persistent belief that “knowledge” and “technology” come from “outside” fosters a zero-sum game where wealth in not generated but imported and managed resulting in what the investigator describes as “technological colonialism.”

In March 2013, Altamente started exploring technology alternatives that would enable non-profits to do more good works, optimizing their administrative processes and contributor relationship management.

In June, Altamente launched our first site using both CiviCRM and Drupal Solutions. In two weeks we saw this fundraising effort raise over $30,000. Campaign managers could derive custom reports on contributions by cities, zipcodes, gender, corporations, etc. Donors could become fundraisers themselves. This first hand experience witnessing the power of data driven campaign development led to the roll out of a new service: Kanpora.

Kanpora is an online platform that makes CiviCRM and Drupal solutions easy to use for fundraising campaigns and non-profits. This solution brings together the most competittive open source software in their class. Drupal is a robust content management system that is used in many high profile government sites and in a wide variedty of community based sites. CiviCRM is perhaps best known as the grassroots fundraising platform that was used by the Obama campaign in both the 2008 and 2012 elections. The criticism of both solutions is the high degree of complexity in setting them up, let alone integrating them. With Kanpora this is no longer a problem.

Kanpora is Basque verb phrase used to say "get out!" We at Altamente want to get the good news out and have help from outside to help you reach your goals.

After a decade of slow or negative economic growth the challenge of doing business in Puerto Rico is learning how to do more with less. The key in our books is open source. Altamente has been actively working with and contributing to Drupal projects for over a decade. Our goal is to enable people and businesses to do more!

Over the next few months we will be upgrading and migrating our customers to a new web service. For the same monthly fee* they will now have access to cloud storage and sharing of files as well as the ability to coordinate calendars with co-workers and share contacts. These new services all extend to apps on mobile devices.Have you factored in the cost of the myriad of "free" services?

At Altamente we periodically review with our clients the ownership and location of their corporate documents.  Laptops and home computers are secondary work places with lives outside of the office where letters, spreadsheets, proposals and reports are all furthered. As work teams and technology evolve free web services call out like sirens that promise greater efficiency and access. With the focus on what is next it is often the case that document ownership and placement are easily overlooked.Anybody who has ever had to deal with the challenge of communicating effectively a problem or presenting a service request to a huge free or low cost service provider knows that one of the hidden costs of the free service is tendered when needs change or you want to migrate your data or your service elsewhere.When you are ready to leave the "farm" and are looking for partners in growth, consider Altamente.

If you would like to know more about kanpora.altamente.com services or how Altamente can help your organization, feel free to contact us.

*Monthly fees vary from customer to customer and are based on annual service agreements.

Recently, Altamente was hired by Ciencia Puerto Rico as the technology solutions provider and consultant responsible for migrating a five year old social media platform in active use by over 5,000 scientists to a new more robust version. Ciencia Puerto Rico (CienciaPR) is a nonprofit organization composed of scientists, professionals, students and citizens committed to promoting science, research and science education in Puerto Rico.

Ciencia Puerto Rico was founded in 2004 by several Puerto Rican PhD students studying and working in various states. Their initial goal was to connect people working or studying science that had a connection to Puerto Rico as a topic or as a place of ethnic identity or origin, thus facilitating the sharing of information and facilitating mentorship opportunities. The original social platform Ciencia Puerto Rico ran on a legacy site ran on a web page publishing system that was developed in-house. As is typical after a few years, a small team finds it a challenge to maintain and add features. As such, it suffers what we refer to as bit rot, the tendency of legacy systems to become less and less functional over time. However, Cienciapr.org has developed an enormous amount of content in this legacy system and any change requires that all its user profile information, accounts, and posts continue to be available.

The new version of Cienciapr.org was required to include existing historic content, users, and user profiles to a new, stable, mature OpenSource (Software Libre) CMS with easy to use publishing tools, a flexible programming environment to extend capability, and key community features to aid its network of scientists in the promotion of the sciences in Puerto Rico. For this task, Altamente implemented and configured Drupal CMS using both MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. The task was completed within the three months period proposed, with additional training and support extending the engagement for nearly 6 months.

New features addded to the site included:

• search engine optimization, as well as
• improved onsite  searches for member and content
• broader integration of multimedia content,
• a mobile optimized theme,
• integration of calendaring, webforms and more robust forums, and
• a custom developed Google API tool for the display of scientists with different expertise. You can find visit

Upon completion, Altamente has remained a trusted partner and volunteer serving CienciaPR as advisor and supplier. Members of this science community have now grown, nearly doubling in size in less than a year.

This past October in Cartagena, Colombia, the British Council celebrated the first in a series of three annual policy conferences on the subject of English language education in the Americas. The policy dialogues are meant to stimulate frank discussion of challenges, opportunities and choices faced by policy-makers working with English language teaching and hence were not open to the general public but limited to ministers of education, regional education secretaries and their advisors. Altamente's principal research and policy advisor, Laura Gorbea was invited to the event in the capacity of  language policy advisor to the Puerto Rico Department of Education (PRDE). As a public service and at the request of the Puerto Rico Department of Education, Gorbea prepared a summary of key topics, debates and their relevance to the language education debate in Puerto Rico.

Some of the presenters and topics in this policy conference include:

• Greeting and introduction to the new English language education policy in Columbia by María Fernanda Campo Saavedra, Minister of Education
• "Education for the Future: 21st Century Skills"  - Charles Fadel
• "Education and English in teh Future" - Charles Graddol
• "English in the Early Years" - Janet Enever
• "English and Teacher Education" - John Knagg

If you would like a copy of the report on the Policy Dialogues (available only in Spanish, at present) please request it through our contact form.