Mobile revolution in Myanmar is on the cards, but too slow for many

YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar is on the cusp of a mobile revolution. Only it’s happening way too slowly for many locals.

Last week the government invited expressions of interest for two mobile phone licenses – a first step towards increasing mobile penetration from its current 5-10 percent to 80 percent in three years. That would lift it off the bottom of the world’s ladder of mobile use and put it on a par with neighbors like Bangladesh.

In the meantime, users are chafing at the pace and price of adding connections.

A year ago the informal technology conference Barcamp Yangon was buzzing with rumours of a SIM card that would cost about $ 6 – or 1 percent of its actual price at the time.

A year on, Barcamp is back but the talk is much less dramatic: whether the state-owned operator might this week release SIM cards costing between around $ 100. That would still be half of what the last tranche sold for, but it still leaves many unhappy.

“The clock is ticking,” says Ravi Chhabra, a local technology entrepreneur. “People are frustrated. There is lots of speculation and this creates anxiety.”

Nobody questions the need for more connections, and foreign operators have salivated at what amounts to one of the last major untapped markets.

President Thein Sein has made it clear that mobile telephony is a cornerstone of his policy, and has also vowed that mobile communications would be cheap – a promise he reiterated to a conference of donors on Saturday.

Still, getting it done is not proving easy.

The notice inviting expressions of interest in two licenses was a welcome sign that things were moving, but IT experts and sources close to the communications ministry said the timing was surprising, given that the revised telecommunications law which would define the nature of any investment had yet to be passed by the parliament.

The government said in an appendix to the notice that a new draft of the law – which had been quietly withdrawn last year after criticism about its contents – had been submitted to parliament and was expected to be passed by June.

“After the law is finished then there should be a clear policy before any expression of interest is sought,” said Zaw Min Oo, secretary general of the Myanmar Computer Federation.

On top of that, the next day Telecommunications Minister Thein Tun, who had overall responsibility for mobile licensing, resigned. No reason has been given, and officials declined to comment.

“BIT OF AN EARTHQUAKE”

Sources close to the ministry say his departure had been rumored for several months, but the timing was unexpected, and raises questions about what might happen next.

“It’s been a bit of an earthquake; now we need to sit back and watch, see which buildings fall down,” said one source close to the ministry who, like others interviewed, declined to be named for fear of jeopardizing business relationships with the ministry and its companies.

Not everyone is concerned. Romain Caillaud, a Yangon-based consultant with Vriens and Partners, says both the notice and the resignation “should accelerate the liberalization and growth of the telecom sector.”

Major foreign telecommunications companies are likely to submit expressions of interest ahead of the deadline of January 25, say experts.

Alessio Polastri, a lawyer who represents several such firms in Myanmar, says whatever delay in the process there has been will benefit the government.

“It’s almost an asset in that initial concerns about political stability have disappeared, so, most likely, not only more telecommunications companies will take part in the tender process but also the winners shall be more confident in committing higher investment,” he said.

More thorny for the government, however, may be assuaging local interests. By inviting expressions of interest for two licenses, the government appeared to be committing itself to offering four licenses – two for foreign companies, and two for local ones: state-owned Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications, or MPT, and Yatanarpon Teleport, an internet service provider which is 51 percent owned by MPT.

Some local businesspeople are questioning the wisdom of this, saying that MPT should not effectively own more than one license.

CHEAP SIM CARDS

Dozens of local IT entrepreneurs last November formed the Myanmar Technologies and Investment Corporation to bid for a license, and are currently lobbying parliament to merge the two local licenses, giving them a better chance of either winning one or setting up with a partner.

“So far the ministries have come back with positive responses and encouraged us,” said Thaung Su Nyein, who is also managing director of local media and IT company Information Matrix. “Even if we don’t get this license we’ve been led to understand we’ll get other business licenses.”

But more pressing is growing public frustration at the lack of progress on the ground.

Last year’s talk of cheaper SIM cards was fuelled partly by MPT’s decision to press ahead with expanding its own network, promising to add 30 million GSM connections by 2016 – financed by allowing contractors building the towers to sell a certain number of SIM cards.

Since then, the rumor mill has been alive with chatter about when new tranches of SIM cards might be available, and how much they might cost. A few weeks before the tech meet up, a previously obscure businessman held a press conference at which he promised SIM cards costing only 5,000 kyat (around $ 6).

While the promise went unfulfilled and the businessman disappeared from view, it started a movement of sorts: stickers appeared demanding 5,000 kyat SIM cards and several people were arrested in small demonstrations, according to exile media.

Those hopes have been dashed, but the shortfall of SIM cards ensures interest in a steady stream of sometimes conflicting reports about another imminent sale. One local media report quoted officials as saying more than 1.5 million SIM cards would be sold on Monday for 100,000 kyat each, or about $ 112.

That would still be out of the reach of most people in Myanmar.

“People want to see faster progress,” said a source close to the ministry. “At least half the country want a phone, and they want it soon.”

(Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

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Manti Te’o to be interviewed by Katie Couric

NEW YORK (AP) — Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te‘o will be interviewed by Katie Couric, the first on-camera interview given by the All-American since news broke about the dead girlfriend hoax.

Te’o and his parents will appear on Couric’s syndicated talk show Thursday. ABC News announced the interview Sunday, but gave no details as to when it will take place and where.

Te’o gave an off-camera interview with ESPN on Friday night. He insists he was the victim of the hoax, not a participant. The Heisman Trophy runner-up said he had an online romance with a woman he never met and in September was informed that the woman died from leukemia.

Te’o told ESPN that the person suspected of being the mastermind of the hoax has contacted him and apologized.

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Well: Holly the Cat's Incredible Journey

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor housecat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.

Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in a backyard about a mile from the Richters’ house in West Palm Beach.

“Are you sure it’s the same cat?” wondered John Bradshaw, director of the University of Bristol’s Anthrozoology Institute. In other cases, he has suspected, “the cats are just strays, and the people have got kind of a mental justification for expecting it to be the same cat.”

But Holly not only had distinctive black-and-brown harlequin patterns on her fur, but also an implanted microchip to identify her.

“I really believe these stories, but they’re just hard to explain,” said Marc Bekoff, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Colorado. “Maybe being street-smart, maybe reading animal cues, maybe being able to read cars, maybe being a good hunter. I have no data for this.”

There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues, or orientation by the sun.

Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Dr. Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves’ ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it’s also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.

Cats navigate well around familiar landscapes, memorizing locations by sight and smell, and easily figuring out shortcuts, Dr. Bradshaw said.

Strange, faraway locations would seem problematic, although he and Patrick Bateson, a behavioral biologist at Cambridge University, say that cats can sense smells across long distances. “Let’s say they associate the smell of pine with wind coming from the north, so they move in a southerly direction,” Dr. Bateson said.

Peter Borchelt, a New York animal behaviorist, wondered if Holly followed the Florida coast by sight or sound, tracking Interstate 95 and deciding to “keep that to the right and keep the ocean to the left.”

But, he said, “nobody’s going to do an experiment and take a bunch of cats in different directions and see which ones get home.”

The closest, said Roger Tabor, a British cat biologist, may have been a 1954 study in Germany which cats placed in a covered circular maze with exits every 15 degrees most often exited in the direction of their homes, but more reliably if their homes were less than five kilometers away.

New research by the National Geographic and University of Georgia’s Kitty Cams Project, using video footage from 55 pet cats wearing video cameras on their collars, suggests cat behavior is exceedingly complex.

For example, the Kitty Cams study found that four of the cats were two-timing their owners, visiting other homes for food and affection. Not every cat, it seems, shares Holly’s loyalty.

KittyCams also showed most of the cats engaging in risky behavior, including crossing roads and “eating and drinking substances away from home,” risks Holly undoubtedly experienced and seems lucky to have survived.

But there have been other cats who made unexpected comebacks.

“It’s actually happened to me,” said Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist who hosts “My Cat From Hell” on Animal Planet. While living in Boulder, Colo., he moved across town, whereupon his indoor cat, Rabbi, fled and appeared 10 days later at the previous house, “walking five miles through an area he had never been before,” Mr. Galaxy said.

Professor Tabor cited longer-distance reports he considered credible: Murka, a tortoiseshell in Russia, traveling about 325 miles home to Moscow from her owner’s mother’s house in Voronezh in 1989; Ninja, who returned to Farmington, Utah, in 1997, a year after her family moved from there to Mill Creek, Wash.; and Howie, an indoor Persian cat in Australia who in 1978 ran away from relatives his vacationing family left him with and eventually traveled 1,000 miles to his family’s home.

Professor Tabor also said a Siamese in the English village of Black Notley repeatedly hopped a train, disembarked at White Notley, and walked several miles back to Black Notley.

Still, explaining such journeys is not black and white.

In the Florida case, one glimpse through the factual fog comes on the little cat’s feet. While Dr. Bradshaw speculated Holly might have gotten a lift, perhaps sneaking under the hood of a truck heading down I-95, her paws suggest she was not driven all the way, nor did Holly go lightly.

“Her pads on her feet were bleeding,” Ms. Richter said. “Her claws are worn weird. The front ones are really sharp, the back ones worn down to nothing.”

Scientists say that is consistent with a long walk, since back feet provide propulsion, while front claws engage in activities like tearing. The Richters also said Holly had gone from 13.5 to 7 pounds.

Holly hardly seemed an adventurous wanderer, though her background might have given her a genetic advantage. Her mother was a feral cat roaming the Richters’ mobile home park, and Holly was born inside somebody’s air-conditioner, Ms. Richter said. When, at about six weeks old, Holly padded into their carport and jumped into the lap of Mr. Richter’s mother, there were “scars on her belly from when the air conditioner was turned on,” Ms. Richter said.

Scientists say that such early experience was too brief to explain how Holly might have been comfortable in the wild — after all, she spent most of her life as an indoor cat, except for occasionally running outside to chase lizards. But it might imply innate personality traits like nimbleness or toughness.

“You’ve got these real variations in temperament,” Dr. Bekoff said. “Fish can by shy or bold; there seem to be shy and bold spiders. This cat, it could be she has the personality of a survivor.”

He said being an indoor cat would not extinguish survivalist behaviors, like hunting mice or being aware of the sun’s orientation.

The Richters — Bonnie, 63, a retired nurse, and Jacob, 70, a retired airline mechanics’ supervisor and accomplished bowler — began traveling with Holly only last year, and she easily tolerated a hotel, a cabin or the R.V.

But during the Good Sam R.V. Rally in Daytona, when they were camping near the speedway with 3,000 other motor homes, Holly bolted when Ms. Richter’s mother opened the door one night. Fireworks the next day may have further spooked her, and, after searching for days, alerting animal agencies and posting fliers, the Richters returned home catless.

Two weeks later, an animal rescue worker called the Richters to say a cat resembling Holly had been spotted eating behind the Daytona franchise of Hooters, where employees put out food for feral cats.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, Barb Mazzola, a 52-year-old university executive assistant, noticed a cat “barely standing” in her backyard in West Palm Beach, struggling even to meow. Over six days, Ms. Mazzola and her children cared for the cat, putting out food, including special milk for cats, and eventually the cat came inside.

They named her Cosette after the orphan in Les Misérables, and took her to a veterinarian, Dr. Sara Beg at Paws2Help. Dr. Beg said the cat was underweight and dehydrated, had “back claws and nail beds worn down, probably from all that walking on pavement,” but was “bright and alert” and had no parasites, heartworm or viruses. “She was hesitant and scared around people she didn’t know, so I don’t think she went up to people and got a lift,” Dr. Beg said. “I think she made the journey on her own.”

At Paws2Help, Ms. Mazzola said, “I almost didn’t want to ask, because I wanted to keep her, but I said, ‘Just check and make sure she doesn’t have a microchip.’” When told the cat did, “I just cried.”

The Richters cried, too upon seeing Holly, who instantly relaxed when placed on Mr. Richter’s shoulder. Re-entry is proceeding well, but the mystery persists.

“We haven’t the slightest idea how they do this,” Mr. Galaxy said. “Anybody who says they do is lying, and, if you find it, please God, tell me what it is.”

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Media Decoder: News Outlets Take to Washington for Inauguration Coverage

If he squints hard enough, President Obama will be able to see CNN from his perch on the inaugural podium on Monday.

The cable news channel has set up an elaborate studio on the National Mall — one of the four locations where its anchors will be leading coverage of Mr. Obama’s second inaugural celebration.

“The goal is to put our anchors in the middle of all the activity,” said Sam Feist, CNN’s Washington bureau chief. So in the morning, Wolf Blitzer will start out by the Capitol building and Anderson Cooper by the Mall, moving to new spots along the parade route in the afternoon. Other anchors will be at the inaugural balls at night.

The coverage might seem more subdued on other major television networks, reflecting the fact that there is generally less enthusiasm for presidential inaugurations the second time around. Still, the ceremony and the spectacle that accompanies it will take over the networks and news channels beginning with their morning shows, some of which are relocating to Washington for the day.

CBS has built a studio on the Mall beside CNN’s. Its one-year-old morning show, “CBS This Morning,” will be broadcast from there and expand to three hours for the day. NBC’s “Today” show will have all of its hosts in Washington, as well.

ABC’s “Good Morning America” is doing it a bit differently, sending George Stephanopoulos and Josh Elliott to Washington and having the show’s other hosts stay in New York.

The bulk of the festivities will be anchored by the same correspondents who handled election night for their networks. There has been a last-minute change at PBS, though: Judy Woodruff is away from Washington because of a family illness, a spokeswoman said, so the senior correspondent Jeffrey Brown will anchor with Gwen Ifill, instead.

Most Americans will watch the inauguration on television, just as they did in 2009, the first time Mr. Obama was inaugurated. But there will also be a panoply of Web sites live-streaming the event, including that of the Presidential Inauguration Committee.

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Stan Musial dies at 92; Cardinals' Hall of Fame hitter

To generations of baseball fans, he was simply "Stan the Man."

Stan Musial, a legendary slugger for the St. Louis Cardinals who came to embody one of the sport's most successful franchises, died Saturday. He was 92.

Musial, who had Alzheimer's disease, died at his home in the St. Louis suburb of Ladue, the Cardinals announced.

During his 22 seasons, all with the Cardinals, Musial won seven National League batting titles and three most valuable player awards. A career .331 hitter, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1969, becoming only the fourth player chosen in his first year of eligibility.

"Stan Musial was the greatest player in Cardinals history and one of the best players in the history of baseball," William DeWitt Jr., the Cardinals' chairman, said Saturday in a statement.

Musial's nickname was inspired by Brooklyn Dodger fans who marveled at his mastery of the Dodgers at Ebbets Field and complained, "Here comes the man again."

Don Newcombe, a star pitcher for the Dodgers, told Sports Illustrated in 2010: "I could have rolled the ball up there against Musial, and he would have pulled out a golf club and hit it out."

Stanley Frank Musial was born Nov. 21, 1920, in Donora, Pa., to Lukasz and Mary Lancos Musial, the fifth of their six children.

In high school, Musial was a two-sport star. He could have played college basketball on scholarship but signed with the Cardinals as a pitcher in 1938.

He was so wild in Williamson, W.Va., the lowest level of the Cardinals' minor league system, that his manager suggested he be released. But another player's injury gave him a chance to play outfield, and he saved his career by hitting .352. The next season in Daytona Beach, Fla., Musial hurt his left shoulder diving for a ball in center field, ending his pitching career.

"My arm never did get better," he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2002. "I couldn't throw hard from then on. But it never bothered my hitting."

In 1941, he reached the majors despite starting the season on a lowly minor league team in Springfield, Mo. He hit .426 in 12 games late in the season for St. Louis, and the Cardinals finished second to the Dodgers. Musial had a remarkable season, hitting a combined .364 after jumping through the St. Louis minor league system. "Facing oblivion in the spring, he reached stardom," according to the 2001 book "Musial: From Stash to Stan the Man."

With Musial in the lineup beginning in 1942, the Cardinals reached the World Series in three consecutive seasons, winning in 1942 and 1944.

"The '42 Cardinal club was the best I was with. If the war hadn't come along, I feel we could have won maybe six or seven pennants in a row," St. Louis outfielder Terry Moore said in the 1994 book "Stan the Man Musial: Born to Be a Ballplayer."

In 1943, Musial won his first batting title and MVP award when the Cardinals lost the series to the New York Yankees.

Musial said he "memorized the speed at which every pitcher in the league threw his fastball, curve and slider. Then I'd pick up the speed and rotation of the ball in the first 30 feet of its flight and knew how it would move once it approached the plate."

Leo Durocher, who faced Musial as a player and manager, once said the only way to pitch him was "under the plate."

Musial's signature feature was a distinct batting stance that Chicago White Sox pitcher Ted Lyons once said made him look like "a kid peeking around the corner to see if the cops are coming." Former St. Louis Manager Whitey Herzog had told Musial, "I tried to have your stance and I was in the minors for eight years."

After spending 1945 in the Navy, Musial again led the Cardinals to the World Series in 1946, when they defeated the Boston Red Sox in seven games. Musial and Red Sox star Ted Williams struggled in the series, each hitting only .222. It was Musial's last World Series.

His best season may have been 1948, when he was named the league's most valuable player for the third time. Healthy after having appendicitis in 1947, Musial led the league in almost every offensive category, including his .376 batting average and 131 runs batted in. He just missed winning the triple crown with 39 home runs, one short of the league lead.

He hit five home runs during a doubleheader in 1954 and reached a career milestone in 1958 with his 3,000th hit.

Musial retired after the 1963 season and spent a year as the Cardinals' general manager. He remained a celebrity in St. Louis, running Stan Musial & Biggie's Restaurant, which he opened in 1949.

At baseball's 2009 All-Star game in St. Louis, Musial received a standing ovation when he was driven onto the field before the game. He handed a ball to President Obama, who threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

When Musial received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 2011, Obama noted that "his brilliance could come in blinding bursts" and said he "remains to this day an icon, untarnished … a gentleman you'd want your kids to emulate."

Musial's wife of 72 years, Lillian, died in May. He is survived by their son, Richard; daughters, Gerry Ashley, Janet Schwarze and Jean Edmonds; 11 grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren.

"He had greatness and warmth and affection and appreciation," sportscaster Bob Costas, whose career started in St. Louis, told Scripps Howard News Service in 2003. "But there wasn't a specific thing for people to hang their hat on — other than those who really followed him and saw him play.... All he was was incredibly good for an incredibly long time and an unbelievably nice guy."

Thursby is a former Times staff writer.

news.obits@latimes.com

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Timeline: Kim Dotcom’s year, from Megaupload to Mega

AUCKLAND (Reuters) – Here are the milestones in the past year for Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom. Dotcom plans to launch on January 20 a new online file storage system, known as Mega.

January 20, 2012 – Seventy armed New Zealand police raid Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom’s mansion outside Auckland, acting on a request from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Dotcom and his colleagues Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk are served extradition and search warrants, arrested, and taken into custody. As operators of the website, they are charged with online piracy, fraud and money laundering, and their computers and files are seized. Megaupload is closed down. The raid occurs on the same day U.S. lawmakers axe anti-piracy legislation following heavy public opposition.

February 22 – Dotcom is released on bail, but his movements are restricted and he is prohibited from leaving New Zealand. His bail conditions are eventually relaxed to allow him free movement within the country, while the millionaire is given some access to his frozen funds to pay his legal team and living costs.

June 28 – A New Zealand court rules that search warrants used by local police to raid the Dotcom mansion were illegal, and moves by the FBI to copy data from Dotcom’s computers to take offshore were also unlawful. The court’s action is seen by many as weakening the extradition case against Megaupload.

August 16 – U.S. efforts to extradite Dotcom are dealt another blow as a New Zealand court rules that prosecutors must show evidence to support charges of internet piracy and copyright breaches. The judge in the case says withholding evidence from Dotcom would give Washington a significant advantage in the extradition hearing. She also rules that the document used to order his extradition was illegal.

September 27 – New Zealand’s Prime Minister admits that the country’s spy agency illegally carried out surveillance on Dotcom, a resident of the country, despite a law which prohibits monitoring citizens and residents.

October 10 – A U.S. federal judge rules that the U.S. government’s criminal case against Megaupload will proceed, while leaving open the option of dismissing the case at a later date on grounds including the possibility that delays in proceedings have denied Megaupload to its right to due process.

January 20, 2013 – Dotcom is due to launch his new cyberlocker, Mega.co.nz, whose encryption system is designed to offer water-tight privacy protection of user files. The launch comes as Dotcom and his colleagues await their extradition hearing, which has been delayed until August.

(Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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“Beasts of Southern Wild,” “Les Miz” among Costume Designer Award nominees

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Films as diverse as “Beast of the Southern Wild” and “Les Miserables” were among the nominees for the 15th annual Costume Designers Guild Awards announced Thursday by the organization.

Stephani Lewis was nominated for “Beasts” in the contemporary film category, along with Louise Stjernsward for “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” Mark Bridges for “Silver Linings Playbook,” Jany Temime for “Skyfall” and George L. Little for “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Paco Delgado was nominated in the period film group, along with Jacqueline West for “Argo,” Jacqueline Durran for “Anna Karenina,” Joanna Johnston for “Lincoln” and Kasia Walicka-Maimone for “Moonrise Kingdom.”

The winners of the seven competitive awards will be announced at a gala on Tuesday, February 19, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

A special Lacoste Spotlight Award will be presented to Anne Hathaway. Producer, writer, comedian and creator of “Saturday Night Live” Lorne Michaels will receive the Distinguished Collaborator Award. Honorary Career Achievement Awards will be presented to costume designers Judianna Makovsky and Eduardo Castro for their outstanding work in film and television.

The other nominees:

Fantasy Film

“Cloud Atlas,” Kym Barret, Pierre-Yves Gayraud;

“The Hunger Games,” Judianna Makovsky;

“Mirror Mirror,” Eiko Ishioka;

“Snow White and the Huntsman,” Colleen Atwood

Contemporary TV Series

“Girls,” Jennifer Rogien;

“Nashville,” Susie DeSanto;

“Revenge,” Jill Ohanneson;

“Smash,” Molly Maginnis;

“Treme,” Alonzo Wilson, Ann Walters

Period/fantasy TV Series

“Boardwalk Empire,” John Dunn, Lisa Padovani;

“Downton Abbey,” Caroline McCall;

“Game of Thrones,” Michele Clapton;

Made for TV Movie or Mini Series

“American Horror Story: Asylum, Season 2,” Lou Eyrich;

“Hatfields & McCoys,” Karri Hutchinson;

“Hemingway & Gellhorn,” Ruth Myers

Commercials

Capital One: Couture, Roseanne Fiedler;

Captain Morgan Black, Judianna Makovsky;

Dos Equis: Most Interesting Man in the World, Julie Vogel

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The Boss: New Leaders Inc. C.E.O. on Giving Children a Chance

I AM the youngest of 10 children in my family, and the only one born in the United States. My father was a municipal judge who fled Haiti during the Duvalier regime. He and my mother settled in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, but could not initially afford to bring over my four brothers and five sisters, who stayed in Haiti with relatives.

Jean S. Desravines is the chief executive of New Leaders Inc. in New York.

AGE 41

FAVORITE PASTIMES Karate and taekwondo

MEMORABLE BOOK "How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character," by Paul Tough

Since he did not speak English fluently, my father worked as a janitor and had a second job as a hospital security guard. He later took a third job driving a taxi at night to pay for my tuition at Nazareth Regional High School, a Roman Catholic school in Brooklyn. My parents were determined that I was going to get a good education, and wanted to keep me away from local troubles, which did claim two of my childhood friends.

Working so many jobs overwhelmed my father. He had a heart attack and died at age 59 behind the wheel of his taxi. My mother found it difficult to cope without my father and moved back to Haiti in 1989 with two of my siblings. I thought I would have to leave school because I had no money for tuition, but Nazareth agreed to pay my way.

I wound up sleeping in my car for almost three months, showering at school after my track team’s practice. I also held down two jobs, both in retailing, and one of my sisters and I rented a basement apartment in East Flatbush.

After graduating from high school in 1990, I attended St. Francis College in Brooklyn, on athletic and academic scholarships. I worked first at the New York City Board of Education, where H. Carl McCall was president, then in his office after he became New York State comptroller. I later worked in the office of Ruth Messinger, then the Manhattan borough president.

I broadened my nonprofit organization experience at the Faith Center for Community Development while earning my master’s of public administration at New York University. I married my high school sweetheart, Melissa, and we now have two children.

In 2001, I began to work toward my original goal — improving educational opportunities for children — and joined the city’s Department of Education. I was later recruited under the new administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to help start a program as part of his Children First reforms.

In 2003, I became the Department of Education’s executive director for parent and community engagement, and, two years later, senior counselor to Joel I. Klein, then the school chancellor. He taught me a great deal about leadership and how to change the education system. But I began to realize public education could not be transformed without great principals who function like C.E.O.’s of their schools.

So in 2006 I returned to the nonprofit world, to New Leaders, a national organization founded in 2000 to recruit and develop leaders to turn around low-performing public schools. Initially, I managed city partnerships and expanded our program in areas like New Orleans and Charlotte, N.C.

In 2011, I became C.E.O., and revamped our program to produce even stronger student achievement results, streamlined our costs, diversified funding sources and forged new partnerships. We have an annual budget of $31.5 million, which comes from foundations, businesses, individuals and government grants, and a staff of about 200 people at a dozen locations.

We have a new partnership with Pearson Education to provide greater learning opportunities to public school principals. The goal of these efforts is to have a great principal in each of our nation’s public schools — to make sure that, just as I did, all kids get a chance at success.

As told to Elizabeth Olson.

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Obama loyalists are now Organizing for Action

WASHINGTON — Underscoring its potential to become a political heavyweight, a new advocacy group launched Friday to push President Obama's second-term agenda will be guided by his most-trusted strategists and have access to his reelection campaign's most-prized assets, including its intricately detailed voter databases.

In an email to supporters with the subject line "Say you're in," Obama vowed that the group, Organizing for Action, would be "an unparalleled force in American politics."

"It will work to turn our shared values into legislative action — and it'll empower the next generation of leaders in our movement," the president wrote.

Jim Messina, who managed Obama's 2012 campaign, will be chairman of the board, and longtime Obama advisor David Axelrod will serve as a consultant. David Plouffe, Obama's top political advisor, will also have a role when he leaves the White House, a move expected to happen soon.

"If we can take the enthusiasm and passion that people showed throughout the campaign and channel it into the work ahead of us, we will be unstoppable," Messina wrote in an email to campaign donors.

To accomplish that, however, the organization must avoid the fate of a previous effort Obama officials made in 2009 to transform his first presidential campaign into a permanent advocacy force. That project, the similarly named Organizing for America, was criticized by many Democrats for failing to effectively harness the president's grass-roots supporters.

The new group, unlike its predecessor, will be independent of the Democratic National Committee. It is being run by Jon Carson, who most recently directed the White House Office of Public Engagement. Based in Chicago and Washington, the organization's board is stocked with veteran Obama aides Robert Gibbs, Stephanie Cutter, Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, Erik Smith and Julianna Smoot, as well as technology entrepreneur Frank White, a top campaign fundraiser.

Set up as an tax-exempt advocacy group, Organizing for Action will have freer rein to operate, as well as the ability to deploy the sophisticated databases and software developed for Obama's reelection campaign. The campaign will lease those valuable assets to the advocacy group, retaining control for the foreseeable future.

The arrangement gives Obama allies supervision over the campaign's voter files, technology and email lists, which are coveted by other Democratic candidates and interest groups. The campaign has not yet made any decisions about who else will get access to them.

The decision about how — and if — the campaign's infrastructure will be shared is one of the most pressing questions being raised in Democratic circles in the wake of the group's launch.

"We've never had a presidential campaign that created and retained the kind of information that the Obama 2012 campaign built," said Democratic strategist Steve Hildebrand, who served as a top Obama campaign official in 2008. "So it's going to take more than a few weeks to figure this new environment out and how it should apply to future elections."

Those assets could give other candidates a strong edge, and party strategists warn of a backlash if the Obama campaign does not share its resources. But deciding who would get to use them could be tricky — particularly in the fight for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, which could see Vice President Joe Biden competing against Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The current arrangement raises many questions, including whether the campaign will have the funds for the costly project of keeping the files current. "They are a hot commodity right now, but these lists quickly become like stinky cheese," said Steve Rosenthal, a veteran Democratic organizer. "If you don't keep updating them, they have pretty limited value."

Officials said Friday that Organizing for Action, which was set up under the tax code's section 501(c)4 as a nonprofit social welfare organization, will accept unlimited individual and corporate donations but not contributions from lobbyists, similar to the self-imposed rules governing the 2013 Presidential Inaugural Committee.

The organization plans to disclose its donors, as the inaugural committee does, even though tax-exempt advocacy groups are not required to do so. But it remains to be seen how frequently Organizing for Action will share that information and whether it will reveal the amount of the donations.

matea.gold@latimes.com

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Twitter co-founders move Obvious Corp into spacious new digs

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Evan Williams and Biz Stone, the co-founders of Twitter, have leased three sprawling floors in a historic downtown San Francisco tower for their low-profile start-up incubator, The Obvious Corporation.

Obvious said Friday it leased 75,000 square feet at the busy 760 Market Street location – known as the Phelan Building – in one of the city’s larger commercial real estate deals in recent months.

The downtown space will be able to hold roughly 500 employees and signals ambitions at Obvious, which was re-constituted when Williams and Stone both left Twitter in 2011.

The incubator, with no more than two dozen employees, has mostly stayed out of the press except when it unveiled two new blogging platforms called Medium and Branch last September.

Although still thinly staffed, Obvious’s new space is larger than start-up Pinterest’s recently inked lease in the city.

“We need the right space from which to grow the Medium team and position Obvious to focus on bringing our new ideas to life,” Obvious CEO Williams said in a statement Friday about the new lease.

The company will occupy the seventh, eighth and ninth floors of the triangular building, which wraps around a central courtyard, said Jenny Haeg, a real estate agent who has brokered leases for Square Inc, Dropbox, Airbnb and other large tech startups.

(Reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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