Season’s Greetings from Comptel!

Posted: December 16th, 2013 | Author: Leila Heijola | Filed under: Events | Tags: , , , | No Comments »

As 2013 comes to a close, it’s always good to take some time to reflect on everything that has happened this year. At Comptel, we’ve been very busy. During the first six months of 2013, we attended Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and Management World in Nice. We hosted our first regional Focus Group meeting in Bangkok for our customers in the Asia-Pacific region, and travelled with Finpro around the world to locations such as Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand.

For the past few years, Comptel has been sending season’s greetings cards electronically and donating the money saved from the traditional, printed cards to a charitable fund. This year, Comptel has selected UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, to support victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

Last year, we started a project with Kiva, a non-profit organisation with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Our contribution to date has generated 23 loans in 17 countries. In 2011, our focus was on Plan International, one of the oldest and largest children’s development organisations in the world, which works to promote child rights and bring millions out of poverty. And, our donation for 2010 went to the Kileva Foundation. Since being established, the Kileva Foundation has seeded a plantation, and constructed a school and a medical dispensary. Our donation went toward the Kileva Eastfield Primary School to assist the building of a fifth classroom.

Now is also the time to look ahead for 2014! We’re already hitting full speed for Mobile World Congress, and during the first quarter, we’ll host a Focus Group event for Comptel’s customers in EMEA and CALA in Finland. It’s bound to be another action-packed year, and we’re excited to get things going.

From all of us at Comptel, we wish you a happy holiday!


Working with the Kileva Foundation

Posted: December 30th, 2010 | Author: Cliff Evans | Filed under: Around the World | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments »

During the day, I work as a Global Alliance Director for Comptel Corporation, but as Olivier noted in a previous blog post, I run a charity called the Kileva Foundation in my spare time.

It all started back in 2001 when my wife and I met a man called Kilele whilst we were on holiday in southern Kenya. Kilele and I remained in touch, and over the next two years, the bond between us grew strong. Although I’d never visited his home in the remote Sagalla Mountain, I felt that I was beginning to get to know his extended family and friends through his letters. It was with great delight that I heard early in 2004 that his wife Grace was pregnant, but it was with complete astonishment that, when his son was born, that he named him Cliff after me!

By the end of 2005, I was speaking to Kilele on a regular basis (he had a mobile phone but no electricity or running water at his house) about the life of his family and the entire Sagalla community. It was during one of those conversations that Kilele announced that he was going to get “properly” married, i.e. have a full religious ceremony. He explained the traditions of such a marriage, including that as many as 2,000 people might attend and that he wanted Jane and I to be best lady and best man!

We of course were honoured and travelled to their home village of Kizumanzi in Kenya to attend the wedding on 14 February 2006. This was probably the most incredible week of our lives! People came from villages all over the remote Sagalla Mountain (the high region) and from those at the foot of the mountain (the low region). The celebrations went on for three days, and we were treated as honoured (and unusual) guests.

When I returned to England, I was determined to do as much as I could for the Sagallan people, and by September, the Kileva Foundation (the name was derived by combining the first three letters of Kilele’s name with the first three letters of my surname – Evans) was formally registered with the Charity Commission of England & Wales.

Since then, the charity has initiated and run the following projects:

  • Education: Building and running the Kileva Foundation Primary School in the village of Mwakoma. So far, a pre-school, four classrooms, two toilet blocks and a school house have been completed.
  • Health: Building the Kileva Foundation Medical Dispensary and Community Centre in the village of Kirumbi.
  • Farming:
    • Bees: In cooperation with the Save The Elephants organization, the Kileva Foundation has built two test bee hive fences to deter crop-raiding elephants.
    • Plantation: The Kileva Plantation Nursery (managed by the Kileva Scout Group) has grown many thousands of seedlings for re-planting throughout the region.
    • Poultry: The Kileva Poultry Business currently has 600 broilers and 50 layers.
    • Dairy: The Kileva Dairy Farm consists of two cows and one bull. A number of calves have been reared along with many goats.

If you would like to learn more about the work of the charity (and thank you to Comptel for recently making a donation instead of buying and sending printed Christmas cards), please visit www.kilevafoundation.com.


Season’s Greetings from Comptel

Posted: December 20th, 2010 | Author: Olivier Suard | Filed under: Around the World | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment »

2010 was quite a busy year for Comptel—we attended tradeshows all over the world, hosted our annual User Group event and first-ever analyst day, and expanded our Comptel Dynamic OSS portfolio with Comptel Control and Charge and Comptel Dynamic SIM Management.

For the past couple of years, Comptel has been sending season’s greeting cards electronically and donating the money saved from the traditional, printed cards to a charitable fund.  This year, Comptel has selected the Kileva Foundation.

The Kileva Foundation was started by Godwin Kilele and Comptel’s Cliff Evans.  All of the Kileva Foundation’s funds support various projects in villages located outside Kenya, including Mwakoma and Kirumbi.  Since its establishment, the Kileva Foundation has seeded a plantation, constructed a school and a medical dispensary, and is now in the planning process of building a community centre.

Comptel’s donation will go towards the Kileva Eastfield Primary School to assist the building of a fifth classroom.  We are pleased to be involved with this thoughtful organization.  For those who would like to learn more about the Kileva Foundation, check out its blog at http://kileva.wordpress.com/.

We wish all of our customers, partners, investors and friends a safe, healthy and happy holiday season, and look forward to what 2011 will bring!