alain’s dance blog

On May 31st 2008, I’m riding a bicycle from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico.

There are two goals to this 3000 km, 7 week ride. I’m raising $3000 for the AOC micro-credit fund, and I’m promoting micro-credit as a tool to fight poverty and empower women. All the money you donate will go directly to people in need, without overhead. So support me by donating today.

Standout Jobs is matching the first thousand dollars in donations, so if you donate $100, it means I will get $200 to fight global poverty. You will also get a tax receipt if you are a Canadian citizen.

If you wish to help me with my personal expenses such as bike equipment and plane ticket, please contact me at alainkinwong@gmail.com. As I will fly from Montreal to Vancouver to start the trip, your donation of AirMiles or other travel points is welcome.

For further information on microcredit, check some of the following sources:

• KIVA (also check out my Kiva lender’s page)
• United Nations International Year of Microcredit
• Microcredit Summit Campaign
• Grameen Bank
• Microfinance Alliance
• ACCION International

Feb 22, 2008

Thank you Ann, Sylwia, Alain and Sandra for being the first donors.

Feb 25, 2008 update

Thank you Gary for donating a bike for my trip.

Mar 1, 2008 update

Thank you Rik for posting on the frontpage of Yehoodi. Thank you to all you anonymous donors - fundraising total has reached $750. Yay!

I’ve been following the US elections a fair bit, and I have to say, the Barack Obama campaign has quite some viral Youtube videos supporting it. Here are my favorites:

• Yes We Can - song & video, featuring a star cast, by Will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas. Inspired by Barack Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ speech.
• Obama Girl by barelypolitical

I’m not picking sides on the election, but immensely enjoy Obama’s speaking skills. He has the gift to inspire.

Over the last two months, fellow dancers have repeatedly asked me about my new job and what I did there. And unfortunately, because Standout Jobs was still in stealth mode, I could not give an answer - until today.

We’ve launched. Check it out at http://standoutjobs.com

Standout Jobs powers your online recruiting efforts. Focusing initially on small and medium-sized high tech companies, we help them promote their employer brand and build one-on-one relationships with potential candidates. This is done with an easy-to-build interactive career site (think Wordpress), a one-stop job distribution system to post on multiple job boards, an applicant tracking system to manage candidates, and a bookmarklet to source and hunt down potential hires.

Think of Standout Jobs as Basecamp for recruiting. If your business is hiring, Standout Jobs can help you with relationship-based recruiting.

As for my official title, here’s my newly printed business card:

I’m in Palm Desert California with Fred and Ben preparing for our DEMO launch. Wish us luck!

We’ve also announced $2 million in new financing today from the great folks at iNovia Capital.

To read press coverage on our launch, check out VentureBeat, Mashable, GigaOm, TechCrunch, CenterNetworks and MontrealTechWatch.

I went back to work on January 2nd, and it’s a sprint until launch at the end of this month. The good folks at Standout are flying me out to DEMO where we’ll be announcing our product to the world. California here I come!

Until then, this is what we’ve been doing to relieve stress.

Pictures courtesy of Francis Wu’s Flickr.

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
Ans so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong
And so happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red ones
Let’s stop all the fight
A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

And so this is Christmas
And what have we done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear
War is over over
If you want it
War is over
Now…

John Lennon - Happy Christmas (War Is Over)