25 Jul 2012Lauren Denowitz
At Thomson Reuters, we strive to help our customers improve their productivity and enable them to deliver better client service. Over the past several months, we have advanced this objective by introducing and updating numerous mobile products and apps so our clients can access their legal information and tools anytime, anywhere.
As legal professionals’ workflow becomes increasingly mobile, it is important that we are able to provide our customers with best-in-class platforms that enable seamless computing regardless of whether they are in their office or on a portable device. (more…)
On Friday, June 29th, the Barbican Centre in London hosted the 2012 Apps For Good competition finals. The Apps For Good program teaches young people how to come up with and deliver mobile and Facebook applications that can make a real difference in the lives of us all. According to the Apps For Good team, there are currently 40 partner schools engaged across the UK, impacting over 1300 students. What’s more, over 100 schools and institutions are waiting to be involved!
05 Jul 2012Bob Schukai
I am unashamedly proud and thrilled to lead our Thomson Reuters efforts. This past year, we directly sponsored three schools in London financially and with tremendous mentors. We didn’t stop there. The kids use the Google AppInventor program to create prototype versions of their idea on Android, and when Google decided to sunset the program and transfer it to MIT, the handoff was not clean. In fact, the kids were going to come back from their Christmas holidays with a system that wasn’t ready. I suggested that we would have a go at standing up the platform, and one of my mobile team members, Kevin Zimmerman in San Francisco, made it happen. I personally wanted to do more, and I was very fortunate to be able to do 2 hour Skype calls each month with different schools across the UK – and even visited one that will always be near and dear to me – Nelson Thomlinson in Wigton, Cumbria.
At the end of the program, there is a wonderful competition that takes place. Teams submit their work to a panel that creates a short list in several sponsored categories. The short list consists of two teams that come to London to present in a “Dragon’s Den” style competition in front of 5 judges. Thomson Reuters sponsored the Information category, while other major companies involved in sponsorship included Dell, RIM, and Barclaycard. Some of the ideas are just amazing. The kids in the program range from 12-17 years old, and here is a sampling of some of the projects: an app that helps you build confidence and work through tough times with motivational messages and critical help if you really hit a low; an app that lets you personally and privately monitor with your teacher your reading progress in books to prevent feeling badly for not understanding what you’re reading; and an app that lets you create visual notecards for studying for exams along with a community where you can share and reuse those notecards with other students. (more…)
