Category — Media Coverage

Published in Connections by PUG (Polycom User Group) www.pug.com

Gabriel Biguria is the embodiment of the American Dream. A native Guatemalan, he immigrated to the United States to attend college, ultimately earning an MBA from Northwestern’s prestigious Kellogg University. He spent time in some of corporate America’s powerhouses and lent his talents to Sillicon Valley start-ups in the late 1990’s. As the dot-com era came to a close, Biguria was looking to start his own company, one that would combine his business experience and the latest in technology to address the needs of underserved segments of the population.

“Having grown up in Guatemala, I saw the sacrifices people had to make to come to the United States - it tears families apart,” says Biguria. “I needed to do something to help solve this problem, for Latinos family is the strongest bond there is, yet many family members are unable to physically see each other after five, 10, 15 years or more.

Biguria had experience with interactive video conferencing and decided it was the technology that it would take his concept from dream to reality. His first conference connected immigrants in San Francisco with their parents in Guatemala.

“What happened that day when those family members laid eyes on each other for the first time in five years was incredible. I knew I was on the right track”, recounts Biguria. And with that first conference AmigoLatino was born. The company offers video reunions, dubbed “Amigo Live”, for a low cost, and it now counts Chicago, Los Angeles, Rhode Island, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Mexico among its locations. Biguria has partnered with others offering similar services to reach additional countries. Read More (PDF File)

A new videoconferencing business brings immigrants in Rhode Island face-to-face with loved ones in Latin America.

BY KAREN LEE ZINER
Journal Staff Writer, The Providence Journal

PROVIDENCE — Otto Gonzales has not seen his parents or extended family in Guatemala for 16 years. But in a week or so, he expects to talk with them live, through a new videoconferencing service adapted for families from business use.

“If I can contain my tears,” Gonzales said through an interpreter on Friday, “then I will tell them a lot.”

Gonzales’ parents, seven brothers, and numerous nieces and nephews he barely remembers but is anxious to see will be visible and audible on a 60-inch screen at AmigoLatino, whose office opened Thursday at 754 Branch Ave.

Gabriel Biguria, 37, a Guatemalan native and chief executive officer of AmigoLatino, plans to tap Rhode Island’s rapidly expanding Hispanic population for his market base. That population includes Guatemalans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Colombians, Nicaraguans, Puerto Ricans, Peruvians, Salvadorans, Argentineans and others.

“This videoconferencing technology has been around for a while,” but primarily in corporate boardrooms, said Biguria. In fact, it was used at Hewlett-Packard and Proctor & Gamble, two companies where Biguria worked. He also worked for high-tech start-up companies in Silicon Valley. “Basically, we thought we could use it to do something good for families,” said Biguria. Recent technological advancements “finally make it accessible and affordable.” The service uses fiber-optic technology and high-speed Internet connections.

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By Kari Richardson, Kellogg World, Kellogg School of Management

Reaching the right audience
Though most 21st-century companies realize ethnic marketing is more complicated than casting an African-American in a commercial spot or posting a sign that says “se habla Espanol,” many still struggle to find the right way to reach their core audiences.

Focus groups can be an effective tool for getting inside the consumer’s head, but research methods must be sensitive to cultural variations. In-home visits can uncover insights that subjects are unwilling to share in larger groups, but Rodriguez says researchers must understand why, in some cultures, people are uncomfortable sharing personal information or buying habits with a researcher who is outside their ethnic group.

Building a racially inclusive workplace, he suggests, is a good way to start tapping into the multicultural marketplace: “You can’t reach multicultural consumers unless you have diversity in the workplace. It’s not about casting. It’s about cultural insights and cues.”

But even marketers with their feet firmly planted in one culture sometimes have to work to understand all of its nuances.

A first-hand witness to the dramatic family separations wrought by migration to the United States, Guatemalan-born Gabriel Biguria ‘96 founded AmigoLatino to connect Hispanics living in this country with their family back home. Customers, who pay $40 for a half-hour live videoconference, use their time to wish someone a happy birthday, gaze at an infant’s face for the first time, or say farewell to a relative who is seriously ill.

From the beginning, Biguria struggled to explain his service to a dubious, tech-wary clientele.

“My Kellogg friends didn’t even believe this type of videoconferencing was possible,” he says. “Imagine a family that comes from the countryside in Guatemala. I had to hit on the right wording to describe it to them.”

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Videoconference firms find market in Latin American immigrants

By Patricia Yollin, Chronicle Staff Writer, San Francisco Chronicle

Manuelito Juarez, a strong-minded boy of 5, wants burgers for dinner. But his brother Osberto lobbies for “the chicken place.” They bicker and balk until their father intervenes and tells them to arm-wrestle. The winner gets to choose.

It is the most ordinary of squabbles except for a few things: The boys are in Guatemala City, their father is in San Francisco, and they’re in the middle of a videoconference.

“People don’t believe it’s real,” said Gabriel Biguria, whose company, AmigoLatino, had arranged the session. “It’s like something out of a science fiction movie.”

Although videoconferencing has been around since the mid-’70s, mostly in corporate boardrooms, it’s a new medium for immigrants and those they left behind — especially in Latin America, where many families lack phones or computers. Businesses like Biguria’s also have surfaced recently in New Jersey, Florida and North Carolina.

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AmigoLatino is happy to welcome our new affiliate in the City of Philadelphia, the Catholic Institute for Evangelization. Thanks to the initiative and generosity of Mr. Jim Delaney and his wife Jacki, Hispanic families and friends of the Philadelphia Archdiocese will now be able to enjoy AmigoLatino’s family video conferencing service to reunite live, with friends and family between the US and Latin America. Thank you very much for your kind support and below is an article by the Catholic Standard & Times:

(left to right, back) James Coffey, Jim Delaney, Mons. Hugh Shields, Abel Osorio. (left to right, al front) Theresa Scanlan, Sister Amelia Breton and Joselyn Martínez during a demonstration of the video conferences at the Catholic Institute for Evangelization on Wed the 5th of March.

By Sabrina Vourvoulias
CS&T Managing Editor

PHILADELPHIA — A Guatemalan woman in the United States converses with her mother half a continent away. Their hands fly with gestures, forming words of news, of love, of distance temporarily bridged. The conversation is possible only because they are visible to one another on-screen in a video conference.

The gift of technology makes possible what was once impossible, at least for those with the financial means and access to the technology. And now, thanks to the vision and commitment of a Catholic couple from St. John Vianney Parish in Gladwyne, Jim and Jacki Delaney, and the archdiocesan Office of the Vicar for Hispanic Catholics, access to technology in the form of videoconferencing will soon be available to all who might not otherwise be able to afford it.

“It is the Church reaching out,” Jim Delaney said during a demonstration of the technology on March 5 at the Catholic Institute for Evangelization, 4404 North 5th Street.

Delaney, a retired business executive, is a member of the Papal Foundation, a trustee of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and a Steward of St. John Neumann.

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At AmigoLatino we are constantly been asked by the majority of our mainly Hispanic customer base, who we think will be the best presidential candidate for the Hispanic population in the US. And although we think we have a good idea, it is still not clear if they will really be willing to “walk the talk” if given the opportunity. Therefore we are still evaluating what the candidates have to say about such an important topic.

Just right now, we heard from our good friend Juan Guillermo Tornoe, from Hispanic Trending, who just had the opportunity to interview Senator Barack Obama about his perspective on Hispanics in general:

Interview by Juan Guillermo Tornoe

A few days ago I had the privilege to receive Senator Obama’s answer to questions specifically regarding Latinos, their values, their culture, their importance to his candidacy. A very special thank you to all of you who made it possible.
Hispanic Trending: What similarities do you see between “Traditional” American Values and Hispanic Values?

Sen. Barack Obama: The challenges that Hispanics and all Americans face have been constant over the last twenty years – health, education, and economic insecurity. We need new leadership in Washington that understands the challenges working people and minorities face in this country.

I think most Americans share the same values, hopes, and aspirations, and the same struggles. Dr. King repeated often that our separate struggles – that of Latinos and African Americans – are really one. He would say that an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. It means that the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t just a movement of African-Americans, but Latino Americans, and white Americans, and every American who believes that equality and opportunity are not just words to be said but promises to be kept. (to read more follow the link to Hispanic Trending)

Reportaje de AmigoLatino en Telemundo:

Una tecnologia que esta uniendo a miles de familias por el mundo, vea como fue esa experiencia para una familia guatemalteca.

Ya sentados en las oficinas de AmigoLatino hasta un segundo era mucho esperar, y es que esta pareja guatemalteca estaba ansiosa de ver a sus cuatro hijas. Ellos dejaron Guatemala hace 7 meses y hoy por primera vez estan viendo a travez de esta pantalla no solo a sus hijas, sino a otros familiares que dejaron atras….

Reportaje de AmigoLatino en Univision

Y es una conección de amor de larga distancia esta vez desde Los Angeles hacia Guatemala, por un abrazo de mamá. Ustede no puede perderse estos emotivos reencuentros…

Mientras hay tantas personas, tantos niños, tantas madres, que no harian por darle un abrazo a su mamá? Pues sabe que ahora la distancia no es un problema porque aunque no podamos palpar ni siquiera la temperatura de nuestros seres queridos, por lo menos si podemos ver sus rostros y oirlos directamente, por lo menos para las familias Guatemaltecas de Los Angeles que gracias a la tecnología, pudieron despertar emociones intensas en una sala de video conferencias…(vea el video con la historia completa)

Elliot Gold’s
For over 25 years the authoritative source for teleconferencing news and analysis

TeleSpan’s Prediction #10:

AmigoLatino becomes dominant video carrier to Latin America by ’09.

Some of you are saying “AmigoWho?” Well, let me fill you in. AmigoLatino is the brainchild of Gabriel Biguria, who immigrated to the US over a decade ago, got his bachelor ’s degree, capped off by an MBA, and ended up at Compaq/HP in charge of sales of the Presario home computer for Latin America. While others at HP floundered around the Presario, Gabriel saw that the way to make a profit was to more closely manage inventory. Most of us know now that the shelf life of PCs is short, and therefore if you make too many of any particular model, and they get passed by faster PCs, the slower PCs die in inventory of writedown disease.

One day, Gabriel began thinking of home…actually, I’m sure he did that every day, every hour.

He felt that if he missed his relatives and friends in Latin America, so did hundreds, thousands, actually millions of others, who now lived in the United States, either legally or illegally. That’s when he came up with the idea of AmigoLatino, a videoconferencing service that now allows Latin Americans living in the United States to see (more accurately, visit with) relatives living in Latin America, using videoconferencing. He came up with the business plan for the service, but more importantly, I think he really came up with the network solution. Today, he has a thriving service that offers 30-minute videoconferences for $40, delivers cheers and tears among distant relatives, and delivers a profit to his company. TeleSpan, and its readers, gave AmigoLatino 3rd place in our Wild and Unexpected Teleconferencing contest last year. It’s that good.

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AmigoLatino video conferencing services allow Hispanic immigrants to see loved ones, some for the first time in years…(watch the video for full story)

from www.reuters.com