Realizing your Visions via

Entrepreneurship

British Chamber of Commerce, Luxembourg

25 October 2006
Candace Johnson
SES/ASTRA – SES/GLOBAL

• First private TV satellite in Europe ( 1983-1985 )

• Monopoly Breaking
• Happy Day ( Ann Glover)
• The Digital Revolution – Takeover (1993 – 1994)
• SES Global (1997/1998 – 2000 )
Being at the top is slippery and dangerous. You must constantly go
Forward and be smarter, quicker, more innovative. Or… you can
Sell out.
The Life of a Telecoms
Entrepreneur

• 25 years ago
• 15 years ago
• 5 years ago
• Today
I always stayed the same, but the perception of me,
Telecommunications and entrepreneurship changed !!
Seven steps to become an
Entrepreneur or an Entrepreneurial
Organization

• Take the freedom to believe, that if you work good and

hard, you will succeed.
• Think barrierless - “Why does this not exist?”, “Why don’t
we do this?”
• Set up a business plan - is it profitable?
• Bring the business plan to someone, who can help you.
• “Never accept no as an answer, never give up, never go
away, even if others want you to”
• Turner’s rule: “Lead, follow or get out of the way”
• The customer is always right
Fostering and Encouraging Creativity
and Innovation within yourself and
within an organization
• Two anecdotes
• 90% hard work and 10% genius
• Be in touch with your inner self and the inner self of others (concentration
not intuition)
• Being confident but not arrogant
• Being 100% open to all the stimuli around you, having a good memory and
connecting the data (object oriented technology)
• Being solution-oriented
• Personal Responsibility
• Seeking out and learning from others - being part of a brain trust.
• Mastering the subject so well the magic, the artistry takes place.
• Serving the idea and not vice versa
• If you have 2 or 3 good ideas in life that is a lot.
Knowledge, Innovation and
Entrepreneurship

• Flexible, lateral, fluid, quick thinking -

maximizing information and communication to
create knowledge.
• Collective intelligence.
• Multi-lateral, multi-stimuli games - chess
• Education, life-long learning - the Student is the
Teacher but the Values and Responsibilities
belong to us all as global citizens
 Some personal insights from my life
as an entrepreneur:

• Business plans for lemonade stands / Marketing plan for class officer elections / an
incorporating companies
• Vision of international peace through communication
• Just do it
• An extreme sense of responsibility
• Essentially lazy
• Long-term planning
• Lots of ideas but very careful about the ones I choose to implement because of a
100% commitment to the idea.
• “Never give up”. Never accept ‘no’ for an answer and never go away, even when
they want you to.
Entrepreneurship: Some Personal Case
Histories

- SES/ASTRA-SES Global
- Loral CyberStar-Teleport Europe
- Europe Online
- Iridium
- Global Telecom Women’s Network
- VATM
- Johnson Paradigm Ventures
- Social Entrepreneurship – Essential Entrepreneurship
- Festival of the Fourth Dimension
SES/ASTRA – SES/GLOBAL

• First private TV satellite in Europe ( 1983-1985 )

• Monopoly Breaking
• Happy Day ( Ann Glover)
• Prag and Mr. Werner
• The Digital Revolution – Takeover (1993 – 1994)
• SES Global (1997/1998 – 2000 ) (Arcelor-Mittal)
• Gave way to other companies as promised to Mr. Werner
• Angels – Count de Kergorlay, Jan Stenbeck, gave way to Banks all helping
(Skype – The Luxembourg Model)
You must constantly go forward and be smarter, quicker, more innovative.
Teleport Europe 1989/1991

• First private trans-border communications in Europe

• Monopoly Breaking
• 11 months profitable and biggest Sat Tel provider in Europe: Renault,
REWE, AmWay, VW, Hoyer, CitiBank,
• Big European companies sold out to Loral – I stayed (1996)
• Pillar of recovery for Loral
• Reunion every year of Russians, Poles, Germans, French, who got their
chance and went on.
• All installed networks are still in place – 15 years later !

It was more fun and I can still add value, hands-off

Europe Online 1994-1998-2002

• Started it three times! (But so was Astra!)

• World’s first Internet-based Online Service
• World’s first Satellite Broadband Internet in the
Sky Service – P-P, File Fetch, IP TV, VoD,
DMR, and VoIP
• Started the revolution in Europe but others took
advantage of it – Time
• Proud that EOL employees went on to AOL, T-
Online, MSN, Discovery, Amazon, Astra, etc.
• Europe Online still lives and is on three satellites
– so I am happy.
Global Telecom Women’s Network - 1993

• The changing culture of communications

• Women at the Top then and now – Janice Hughes, Bridget Cosgrave,
Ann Glover, Julie Meyer
• Best Business Practices across sectors and countries
• Networking, networking, and networking
• Vodafone sponsored 10th Anniversary at the ITU with 182 young
Telecom Women Entrepreneurs in 2003
At the 3GSM, Qualcomm-sponsored event with new global applications for
Africa and best practices from Asia - WOW
- At 3GSM Asia, the GTWN joined with the GSMA to rid the world of the
Digital Divide
VATM – Association of Private Telecom
Operators - 1992

• Fair Competition at a time competition did not exist!

• Codes of Conduct for a Market Economy
• Land-Breaking Ruling against the Deutsche Telekom and illegal
subsidies
• Interconnect Agreements

Today, the VATM is the keeper of the flame for consumers in

Germany for network inter-operability, number portability.
 IRIDIUM – 1994/1996, 2000 and Today

• World’s first Mobile Satellite Telephony

• Beautiful, global concept
• Greed
• Terrible Business Plan
• Went belly-up and I went back to help in 2000

For 9/11 and Katarina, the only communications that worked. Today is
profitable.
Johnson Paradigm Ventures –
Incubation, Venture Capital and MBO

• Sophia EuroLab – AXA, Caisse des Depots,

Bayerische Landesbank, Johnson Paradigm
• Ariadne Capital
• FMN/AlphaCom
• Blue H Group
Festival of the Fourth Dimension
Entrepreneurship – Blend of Art, Technology and
Science: :

• Transformation from an Idea to Reality

• Telecommunications were becoming too commercial, banal, and retail-
oriented
• Europe’s first Technology Park, Sophia Antipolis was resting on its
laurels and was becoming inward-instead of outward looking
• Telecommunications was becoming three-dimensional: content, form,
and destination – I wanted to give it a Fourth Dimension (transportation
of brain waves, new space which we would create where all dimensions
would meet and communicate amongst each other)
• True Cross Border of Dimensions – Fusion of Art, Science and
Technology
• Everyone thought I was one of three things: a) crazy, b) desiring self
glory, or c) rich.
• To a man, they thought it would not happen!
Festival of the Fourth Dimension

Well it did. 06.06.06 – 10.06.06 !

- Making the Magic Happen (In other words, getting prepared to

be lucky)
- The Sponsors and the French Government
- Everyone came together
- The Radio, TV and International Press came
- Everyone was thrilled with each other
- From one believer to many – Now they are all believers and we
are already planning for next year.
Festival of the Fourth Dimension Festival of
the Fourth Dimension – World Premieres

- First interactive map on mobile TV

- First META-tagged Art
- First RFID Art
- First Emotional Map of the Planet
- First instant 3D Creation and Discovery of Worlds
- World Scents
- Dial-Tone Concerto
- The Symphony of Machines
- Trip – Multi Media Opera
Festival of the Fourth Dimension : FFD –
New Ventures – Symphony of Machines

- Grid Computing
- Security
- Intra-network and Inter-networking
- All across Sophia Antipolis
- Mobile Phone and Vocal Server
- Aleatory communications
- France Telecom, Infineon, Philips, Eurecom, Alcatel Alenia
Space but also new start-ups

Next Year – SUN, Oracle, simultaneously in Silicone Valley and

Sophia Antipolis
You can change the world - DO IT!

• Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity in Business to save the

world and right wrongs? ABSOLUTELY
• Do your Business Plans and Make Money

• Believing in the Power of Creativity and Communication Bringing

people and ideas together and seeing what happens – it works every
single time – The Power of Networking
• HAVING THE GUTS TO COMMUNICATE CREATIVITY IN A
CORPORATE AND GOVERNMENTAL WORLD
• WORKING HARD
• Having a protector and a good team
• Personal responsibility
• Communications is also communicating with your inner self or your
organization and believing
• Cross-Border corporate culture

• BELIEVE and JUST DO IT!

Saving the World and Righting
Wrongs!

• Energy
• Environment
• Illness and Poverty
• Illiteracy
Saving the Planet and Saving the
Universe

• What are your ideas to Save the planet and the

universe?

• What is your business plan?

• What are the measurable value created?

You can Do IT!