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STUART GOLD
Stuart graduated from the North London Polytechnic with a BSc
honours degree
and diploma in Architecture and became a member of the
RIBA in 1980.
Early in his career he became fascinated by computers and the
completely illogical way they operate and mess with people's
minds.
In the early 1980's Stuart worked at Cusdin Burden & Howitt (CBH)
an architectural practice in London and soon began specializing
in Computer Aided Design (CAD). He handled the drawing
production of a number of large design projects including
King Faisal
Hospital in Saudi Arabia and
Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge using two Tektronix 4081
mini-computers. Initial work was done using the Tektronix GFM
software and subsequently CBH's drafting system which was
developed in-house.
After many years of developing and using CAD systems (and
especially after being reduced to tears waiting for Autocad to
render a drawing on an IBM XT) he left mainstream architecture
and CAD to found Info-Quest Ltd.
Info-Quest was primarily an information services company which
initially contracted with British Telecom as an information
provider for the Prestel Videotex system. At Info-Quest Stuart
spent five years developing various systems to do wonderful
things with Prestel which was an under-funded service and
ultimately somewhat of an embarrassment to BT. Info-Quest
clients included Datasolve, Securicor and the
Rover Group
as well as a number of marketing companies.
After seeing the writing on the wall, Stuart moved into the area
of Database development and joined The Graphics Technology Group
to work on applications with emphasis on database publishing. In
1989 he joined up with Julian Bauer to form Bauer Gold
Associates Ltd where he continued developing database
applications. Clients included
General
Portfolio, Thompsons,
Institute of
Brewing,
Joint Israel Appeal and
The
Burton Group.
In 1996 he turned to the Internet and began specializing in the
provision of data over the Web using back-end database
technology. His early work in that area resulted in an early
version of a Corporate Portal which he developed for the
Chamber of Shipping for use internally and by its membership
in the shipping industry.
Also in 1996 Stuart discovered Virtual Worlds technology, met
Bruce Damer
who was currently working on the Sherwood Forest project, and
began collaborating with him on various projects under the
umbrella of the
Contact Consortium including an international architecture
competition for
TheU, a concept for a virtual university. Joining Bruce
Damer's company Digitalspace in 1998, he worked on connecting
the
Activeworlds Virtual Worlds platform with a back-end
database and developed a concept for an automated 3-d online
conferencing system called the
Virtual
Discussion Room (VDR).
While working for
Digital Space he designed the
Avatars 98
virtual trade show world and developed an associated
semi-automated booth production system which was a forerunner of
the VDR. In 1999 he was involved in the design of
Avatars 99
and organized the conference design team.
Avatars 99
saw the introduction of the prototype
VDR
system that was used for all the speaker breakout sessions.
Also in 1999, together with Jeremy Smith, he designed a virtual
HQ (VHQ)
which was built by
DM3D Studios
for a Danish health insurance company which was featured on a CD
published by City Visions of Sydney Exhibition Space and also in
a college textbook
Digital Media: An Introduction.
In 2000 Stuart began development of one of
Digitalspace
Commons' main products,
MeetingPage which was renamed
Blobbber and which is now in the beta testing phase. This is
a unique tool for showing real-time presence on the Web, turning
a web page into a place for interaction with others, using
simple and effective technology with no download or firewall
issues. It also integrates Digitalspace's voice communication
product
TalkSpace™.
In 2006 Stuart moved to Ghana, West Africa
in order to be with his eight year old son Ryan and to work in a
completely different field. Stuart became a director of a
local NGO and later founded
GC Projects Ltd
(GCP). The company had
been manufacturing textile products, mainly bags and bedspreads,
for visiting foreigners and some limited export, in a small
workshop in the Madina area of Accra. Stuart realized that
there was great potential in selling these products online and
proceeded to create a web site and put in place all the
essential components of an online business.
Being an NGO the goal of
GCP is to provide
employment for underprivileged people in the local community and
to provide training. Also, being a non-profit company the
profits from sales are used to fund local projects such as
re-housing families currently in cramped and unhygienic
conditions, assisting people to start small businesses and to
supplement local schools with IT training.
In December 2006 Stuart, under
the umbrella of GC Projects, initiated
www.StopKillingUs.com
to campaign against climate change in Africa.
In July 2008 Stuart launched
Trashy Bags.
Trashy
Bags
is
an NGO and employs over 60 people at a combined office and
workshop in Dzorwulu in Accra. Trashy
Bags collects used plastic drinks sachets that litter the
streets of Ghana and after cleaning them, stitches them into
fashionable bags for both export and the local market.
Web Sites:
Trashy Bags
StopKillingUs
Blogs:
Trashy Bags
Blog
Stuart
Gold writings, interviews and articles, by Stuart Gold et al
Stuart's Blog from Ghana
Stuart's Personal Blog
My mother, Ruth Gold - In Memoriam
Now meet Lydia!
