About Me

Steve

From Mathematics to Computers, I walked a long and winding road of education in two countries. I fell into computers while at Horsted College in Chatham, England. And decided that it would be a good idea to study this field further as opposed to mathematics; I saw no future in mathematics apart from teaching or research.

My first year of University landed me at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. If you are not familiar with the Canterbury Tales, then it behooves you to know that Canterbury is well known by literati due to the famous author who wrote this collection of stories: Geoffrey Chaucer who lived from 1342 to 1400, who traveled on diplomatic errands throughout Europe as a knight of the shire for Kent. University of Kent My days at the University of Kent were filled with study and the wonder of a unique and historically significant city. Today, the University of Kent is known for computer science as well as a major mirror for software distribution. Students have ranked the University of Kent as the top university in the south-east according to the first National Student Survey (NSS) of over 285,000 students across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Close to the end of my first year in Canterbury, I came home one day on my usual train ride to Strood, Kent, and was told that we were headed to Canada. My mother, God bless her soul, had been in cahoots with my elder brother in Canada, who had convinced her that we should move to Canada for a better future. So we were off to Canada.

University of WaterlooAfter losing six months during the transition to Canada, I landed in the second year of my Computer Science degree at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Unbeknownst to me, this was indeed a wise choice. The University of Waterloo appeared to be well respected, especially in the Computer Science and Engineering disciplines. I graduated from the University of Waterloo with an Honours Degree in Computer Science.

Over the years, I have taken many professional courses to complement my degree. I also wrote a book – you can check it out at:

Building Websites with XOOPS : A step-by-step tutorial

I also write, on occasion, for the University of British Columbia e-Strategy newsletter.

My focus these days is Internet Marketing. I help organizations young and old to market their products and services online. I also manage several groups in Vancouver, namely:

  • Vancouver IT Professionals: A growing group of over 100 professionals working in the IT industry in the greater Vancouver area. We try to meet once a month to network and share information about products and services in the IT field.
  • Healthy Lifestyle Club: this is my healthy living group of about 200 health conscious people in Vancouver that I try to get together once a month.

If you want to sponsor my groups and get some good publicity, contact me. Benefits to you of sponsorship will be:

  • your company logo or information will be posted clearly where my group members can see it.
  • your company will be given full credit for sponsoring the group(s) at our monthly group meetings for every month you provide sponsorship
  • your company and product information will also be mentioned in eMail correspondence related to upcoming meetings. There are currently about 400 members in my meetup groups, and these are real live people living in Vancouver, Canada.

Becoming a sponsor is easy. There are several ways to sponsor each group:

  • you can provide private space for our meetings. This space will be different for the Vancouver eBusiness Network than the social groups. For example, we need venues such as private restaurant/club space reserved for our functions – which will allow me to invite even more people, and thus provide even more exposure for your company or organization. We also need a computer lab, with a minimum of 20 computers that are Internet connected, for my Vancouver eBusiness Network.
  • you can provide products and services that would be relevant to my groups.
  • last, but not least, monetary donations are always accepted to help out with funding group meetings.

You can also connect with me and see what I am doing by adding me to your Twitter follow list @ http://www.twitter.com/steveatwal

Stay in touch!
Steve