Other – Manoj Ranaweera

#ManojRanaweera is looking for a job

Published by Manoj Ranaweera on March 28, 2017

Change is good. Change nourishes your mind. It takes you out of your comfort zone and challenges you to function in less familiar surroundings. So they say… Background It all started at the back-end of 2014 when I left Livestax and Causeway with the blessings of Phil Brown, the majority shareholder and then CEO of Causeway and Livestax to setup UnifiedVU with the aim of commercialising the framework built by Livestax. At the same time, Accusoft approached me to acquire edocr, which meant the journey of UnifiedVU only really started formally on the 1st of July 2015. Since then we have explored many ways…

Ain’t that cool meeting the Queen at Buckingham Palace

Ain’t that cool meeting the Queen at Buckingham Palace

Published by Manoj Ranaweera on June 11, 2014

Who would have thought an ordinary guy from Gampaha (Sri Lanka) would one day be shaking the hand of Queen of Great Britain and the Commonwealth at Buckingham Palace, and be joking with Duke of Edinburgh and Duke of York. Well, that just happened to me on 9th June 2014. I was among number of leading figures in UK’s tech scene to be invited to Buckingham Palace for a reception held by the Queen. Those days when I first got involved with tech, it wasn’t sexy. Very few people recognised its potential. And many took years to recover from the…

Great quote on failure

Great quote on failure

Published by Manoj Ranaweera on January 26, 2014

“I do believe, though, that those who have tried and failed to build their own dream make for the finest startup employees, the best sergeants and lieutenants, as long as you can make them feel that the enterprise they are joining can in some small way become their own. I would always choose someone who has failed repeatedly over someone who has never really tried to achieve anything. If nothing else, failing again and again teaches you how to keep fighting; and while helping to build someone else’s dream isn’t anywhere near as rewarding as bringing life to your own,…

Idiot’s guide to switching iphones in the UK

Published by ManojRanaweera on January 21, 2011

I have been wanting to replace my iphone3 with an iphone4 for sometime since my 18 months contract ran out in October 2010. Today, I walked in to Tesco and bought an iPhone4. Before you switch, its worth thinking about the process, and hopefully my experience will help someone. Eventhough my O2 contract has run out months ago, they still need 1 month notice. To issue a PAC code it could take up to 14 days To unlock the phone (as I want to pass my old iphone3 to my daughter), it could take up to 14 days. You should…

Mini Seedcamp London – Where are the northerners?

Published by ManojRanaweera on July 26, 2010

I will be attending my third Seedcamp event tomorrow as a mentor. Seedcamp is without a doubt the main event for any budding tech entrepreneur team in Europe, and it is getting bigger each year attracting companies from all over the world. For those who are not familiar with Seedcamp, it was first introduced in 2007 by none other than Saul Klien. Reshma Sohoni joined from 3i to run the day to day operations. In 2008, Mini Seedcamps were introduced in four cities to short list companies. The number of Mini Seedcamp events have gradually increased to 9 with Johannesburg…

Splitting Movies

Published by ManojRanaweera on March 7, 2010

Have you ever tried to upload a movie file longer than 10 minutes to Youtube only to find out that they would reject it after upload is completed? Well I have. You cannot really blame Youtube for thier decision given that it is a free service. So the answer is to split the movie to files, each shorter than 10 minutes and upload. If you are looking for a tool to split your movie, suggest you try SimpleMovieX for Mac. I downloaded the trial version, and it works.

Is the environment right for venture capital in the north west?

Published by ManojRanaweera on November 17, 2009

Michael Taylor, the Editor of the Insider Magazine, just ran another successful Deal Makers 2009 Award ceremony, which clashed with my own, Managing Growth – Tech Entrepreneur Series held at eOffice on 12th November 2009. Michael in his weekly column argues that private equity needs to get back to its venture capital roots. The Good news is that LDC is making a change in their investment criteria by wanting to invest into early stage businesses. So Michael thinks this is a good ground for celebration, especially as LDC won one of the awards he gave them. Disclaimer 1: I am…

Insider Dealmakers Awards 2009

Published by ManojRanaweera on November 13, 2009

Last night (12th Nov 2009), Manchester hosted the Insider Dealmakers Awards 2009, which I could not attend due to clashing with Northern StartUp 2.0 – Managing Growth event I hosted. Below is a list of the winners taken from Insidernews without any amendment. Daisy scoops Deal of the Year The reverse takeover and AIM flotation of Nelson-based Daisy Communications was last night named Deal of the Year at the Insider Dealmakers Awards 2009 held at Manchester Central. The Lancashire company also took home the AIM Deal of the Year award for the £204m reverse takeover of Freedom4 Group in July.…

Top 10 Speakers I would like to see at RAWNW2010

Published by ManojRanaweera on November 11, 2009

This is a strange blog post, so please bear with me until I get going. RAW2010, brain child of Mike Perls, the man known simply as “Perls of Wisdom” or the man who would bare all for a publicity stunt, or simply the CEO of MC2, was interested in adding few more speakers of my choice to his celebrity A-list to be heard by the North West’s top 350 entrepreneurs on 20th January 2010. Further to my ramblings on Twitter today, I thought of blogging my top 10 choices. Before that, here is a brief about the event. 20 January…

StartUp of the Week 2: Vidiactive – Bringing Web Video to TV

Published by ManojRanaweera on November 10, 2009

On behalf of Northern StartUp 2.0‘s StartUpOftheWeek programme, I caught up with Ben Hookway, CEO of Vidiactive to find out about his latest tech startup. Manoj: What made you launch your company? Briefly, tell us about the company history and the management team. Ben: EV Group (previously Enterprise Ventures) were already looking at the Vidiactive project before I came on board. EV had invested in Next Device, a company I had co-founded and sold to Mentor Graphics. I had kept in touch with EV and talked about a few ideas when Vidiactive came up. Having been primarily involved in the…

Category: Other