| | Oct 19th, 2004
| | | China trip pays off for Saint John businessman
| | | SJ Telegraph-Journal | Greater Saint John
As published on page A4 on October 16, 2004
HIGH-TECH FAIR
China trip pays off for Saint John businessman
BY SANDRA DAVIS
Telegraph-Journal
A trip to a high-tech fair in Shenzhen, China by a Saint John businessman has netted his software company 44 agreements and contracts in just three days.
Brian Flood, founder and chief executive officer of Votemail Express, is part of a New Brunswick delegation brought together by Canadian-Chinese expert Mike Tilley of Canlink Global.
Darryl Daigle, Votemail Express sales consultant, was ecstatic to see an on-line edition of the Shenzhen Daily on Friday morning trumpeting Mr. Flood's success.
Votemail Express is an on-line polling and survey program that allows corporations and universities to get real-time opinions and results from their people.
"The Chinese market is exploding," said Mr. Daigle. "They've opened their doors to the world and they've got a lot of catching up to do. We want to be there and anything we can do to help, we will."
Nineteen of the 44 signed agreements are with Chinese universities. The rest are with various enterprises.
Mr. Flood's 44th agreement is with Francis Pang, chairman of Beijing Concord College, which started its first high-school placement program in New Brunswick eight years ago. Mr. Pang, a Toronto businessman, is Canadian chairman of the Chinese private school that includes university and technical school.
The University of New Brunswick Saint John's involvement with Beijing Concord has helped to internationalize the campus and the city since the college started sending students here.
"This is very exciting," said Mr. Daigle. "We've only been in operation for a few months. To go over and get out of the starting blocks in China after just a few days, with this many customers, we've got some work to do. This is going to be fun," he said.
Last year, the fair brought in $12-billion in business. This year, 450,000 people are expected to walk through the gates for the five-day event.
Mr. Daigle said the company's development jobs will stay here and staff will continue to work on new features for the product.
Innovation and Risk Capital Strategies are two other New Brunswick companies in China for the fair. |
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