Friday, July 22, 2011

Aidmatrix COO Keith Thode's Trip Through Europe

Launching some of our new European investments, I had an amazing trip through Europe meeting with our existing partners and exploring new opportunities with them and with some new relationships.

In Bratislava, Slovakia, I met with Pavel Hrica and team from Pontis Foundation – one of our key clients in Central & Eastern Europe. Pontis is the leading nonprofit organization in Slovakia and went live with The Aidmatrix Network™ to manage their In-Kind/Corporate relationships. AT&T Professional Services and financial support was vital to launching this partnership. Please visit Pontis’ Aidmatrix portal at: http://www.aidmatrixnetwork.org/SCMPublicPortal/States.aspx?ST=Pontis

Below is a picture of Pavel and me in the offices in Bratislava – planning the next steps of our partnership.



In Geneva, I had the pleasure of meeting several current and former partners. Below is a picture of Loic Cohen from CARE’s international logistics unit. Loic and I were First Responders together for Haiti. It certainly was a pleasure to spend time planning how to leverage those lessons from Haiti and other recent disasters to be even more effective next time.



The International Federation for Red Cross and Red Crescent societies is, by many measures, the world’s largest disaster relief organization. Aidmatrix has played instrumental roles with IFRC through the years, helping them and some of their national societies with technology strategy, logistics systems and fundraising. We look forward to supporting them in their next round of humanitarian supply chain innovations.



International Organization for Migration is a vital initiative dealing with relocating people stricken by disaster, war and other conflict. Mario Malanca leads the Preparedness and Response Division. He continues to push the organization towards innovative approaches to raise the impact of his organization for some of our world’s most vulnerable populations.



Oxfam International, headquartered in Oxford, UK – is one of the world’s most well-respected organizations. Below, Aidmatrix’ Shari Temple prepares for us to visit with some of the Oxfam leadership to exchange ideas and strategies for leveraging technology to help those in need around the globe.



I rounded my trip out with a visit to UK’s national foodbank network, Farehare. The group leverages Aidmatrix Warehouse Management solutions to manage the tracking and delivery of food throughout the country. We look forward to the expansion of the partnership with Fareshare and their highly professional staff into automating further elements of their supply chain. From there we plan on leveraging our combined platform to new and exciting applications for those in need.




While not part of Europe, upon my landing back in Dallas, Texas, I was able to participate in a “Welcome Home The Troops” event – something Aidmatrix has done in the past – among our other veterans’ initiatives here in the USA.

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