Sebo Gabor is with Lico Consulting. He shares with the listeners the exciting world of green  technology, how it has the potential to improve quality of life and place, improves air quality, looks  more aesthetic, and changes communities to the better. There are three parts to this interview.

Part 1 Transcript:

Suzanne Bowen: Welcome to DIDX podcast channel where we bring you the expertise of  technology leaders around the world. I’m your host Suzanne Bowen and today we have Gabor Sebo  from Lico Consulting. He was introduced to us by another editor of Techistan.net named Ali Memon so we do appreciate that. Hello Gabor.

Gabor Sebo: Hello Suzanne.

Suzanne Bowen: Really good to meet you and I appreciate you giving us this time. I know one thing, obviously we were attracted to what you do because Green Technology is very important for many reasons around the world. Your company as Lico Consulting. I was wondering if you could give a little background about it.

Gabor Sebo: It is a small consulting company that was established almost 20 years ago. I met friends from Belgium during an era of change the system of Hungary from the communism to the market economy. There was a huge demand that brought capital investments and knowledge technology investment in Hungary. It was time to make many business consulting services to match-making companies with investors from abroad to Hungary. Some mixtures of capital ventures…

After a certain period ,my Belgian partner withdrew from the business. I stayed on and made several task forces for different type of businesses. I gathered experts from business and from the universities to solve several problems emerging in technical or financial types in joint ventures or privatization process. The green projects I made first time in 2000th year. I met several experts, and I saw the Kyoto agreement and green technologies’ potential of big market, based on the technology needs for enterprises and the environment problem.

This was mostly in the densely urbanization cities in Europe and other parts of the globe … the desertification problem, I thought,  it could be oriented for Green Technologies. Green facades was the first and still is the main project we are doing now.

Suzanne Bowen: I do want to ask you something about that, but let me just summarize what you just said. It shows that you used good timing, good choices, you had mentors, you are quite aware of what’s important to the world taking note of the Kyoto situation and knowing that green technologies could save people money, improve societies, I mean everything you can imagine for that kind of goes right in to the next question that you just brought up. Green Façade, green wall project. Tell us about that please.

Gabor Sebo: The Green Façade project. You know in Hungary, there are plenty of so called block houses made in 60’s and 70’s. There was much need of medium quality for occupied flats for many people. There was some flow from the countryside to the industrialized cities. There were many families without any flat , so a new system was created called pre-fabricated block houses. This in general included 10 floor house with concrete banners and not the best solution from aesthetic, ecological or environment point of view.

There was a social decision by the government to have people living in the cities. But now many cities in Hungary and also much of Eastern Europe were using these type of houses. In Hungary there are 600,000 flats. The idea was this huge volume of flats cannot be destroyed within one year or ten years perspective. We can resolve the problem with some new quality. We give them a more socially and environmentally-friendly lifestyle. That was the idea… to find the best technology and adapt it. These concrete blocks… who can give an environment and condition that must be better.

Suzanne Bowen: Right, I can see the emotional implications, social, physical. There are so many different problems that it solves.

Gabor Sebo: Yes it is a very complicated process, and it is one of the greatest problem in Hungary. Do you know there was some privatization after the social system changed and all these block house are managed by thousands of small proprietors. This makes decision making very slow.

Suzanne Bowen: Oh, I can imagine.

Gabor Sebo: To make an investment. Because it is an investment and these come with decisions and approval by the proprietors.

Suzanne Bowen: Exactly and people are afraid to make radical changes. We all know that.

Part 2 transcript:

Suzanne Bowen: Welcome to DIDX podcast media channel where we bring you the expertise of technology leaders around the world. I’m your host Suzanne Bowen and today we have Gabor Sebo. He is involved in Green Technologies. You might have heard him in the first session. This is part two. Glad to have you back, Gabor.

Gabor Sebo: Yes. Good to see you again.

Suzanne Bowen: The last thing we were talking about itsthe Green Façade Green Wall project and the quality of life and the quality of place that it will bring to the residents and the change in the physical environment, the improvement in air quality and more. If you want to add more to that please feel free, but we would also like to know does the Hungarian government offer green incentives to tax payers?

Gabor Sebo: There are two types of decisions of methods that government has in this process. First is financial. This is most the important. This seems could be more efficient to make some tax repayment or direct support for investment to resolves some problem of environment. The green project is not and individual project, unfortunately. I think, but we have some chance for energy saving project because our technology’s one aspect is energy saving! It is much more, but we can connect with this energy saving project where the structure of houses can be insulated with a new insulation system, the Green Façade. It can pass over the so-called traditional insulation systems. The tax payer can get at 30% pay back from the state or local government. There is so called common finance method because the European Union is supporting this process. There is a central budget government support. There is local government budget support as well. And all other than 70% the proprietor of the building can invest.

I see. And the second is the regulation. This is the regulatory system of building. There is a law by government or by the ministry of urbanization that gets that the percentage of the plot should be green. Downtown is different as urban areas naturally ,but in every building region or building categories there is a concrete percentage of green surface that should be maintained or re-established. At that calculation, the new regulation system can be calculated as the green roof and green façade as well. That means it is more interesting for investment for the investors to make approval. Green Façade is approved with green roofs and that means that there will be more surfaces to built at the given plot. This makes it where investment return could better or sooner.

Suzanne Bowen: I see. When I realized that I was going to interview you, it pushed me and drove me to do some research. So I researched topics such as green roofs, green façade, green wall, and I discovered that many people around the world are involved in indoor and outdoor greening. I was surprised to see a whole wall in a kitchen covered with a garden of herbs and vegetables.

Gabor Sebo: Why not? The world has plenty of ideas and I think it’s the future and we have to use any source of nature as much as we can. Our technology only has some pieces to help to resolve some technical problems, to help people use the energy of the nature, that means the nature is the sun, the wind, water and  so on.

Suzanne Bowen: Right. So you know I noted the idea for consumers, and then it is going as far as  a project that would help the sub-Saharan reduce its continuous desertification. I don’t think it’s been started yet ,but there is a group of countries that has been involved in planning that so you know it’s really… Do you have any information about that type of thing?

Gabor Sebo: We can do something.. there are limits if there is no rain or no precipitation in a certain area, there is no water and no life. It would be very difficult to give transport of water. Without water, there is no life and, but we can guard or reserve or guard the waters in some technologies. Green technologies could be one solution because the mass, the biomass, is the reserve of water and some other substance as well. If there is some region where there is no rain or very rarely foinds the rain, the gardening and why not in the urban area the green façade and roof gardening should have more reserve in water mass. Keep in mind the the water that comes evaporation of water. There is some temperature regulation effect also. It was in the high temperature areas that the green roofs and facades make it less hot inside. There will be less need for air condition ing and so on and there will be more livable areas in the houses.

Suzanne Bowen: Yeah, I think it’s pretty convincing.

Part 3 transcript:

Ericsson’s CEO is doing some shuffling up the order, which has paved way for a Canadian national Rima Qureshi.

Rima will become the Senior Vice President at the Swedish Ericsson. She will lead the CDMA Mobile Systems, besides joining the Group Management team.

Rima’s association with Ericsson is almost two decades old- precisely, seventeen years. Being at helm she has worked in the TDMA, R&D and Customer Support departments. She also heads the division that contributes telecom equipment to disaster-stricken regions.

Rima is confident about her new responsibility. “I feel that I could work anywhere,” Qureshi says. “More R&D resources have to be put into CDMA. There are over 500 million subscribers and now we are taking CDMA to the next generation mobile system, 4G”.

Rima completed her education from McGill University, Canada in 1996. Before joining Ericsson she worked as a Programmer and Consultant. Rima joined Ericsson as a System Analyst in 1994.

Suzanne Bowen: Welcome to DIDX podcast media channel where we bring you the expertise of technology leaders around the world. I’m your host Suzanne Bowen and we have with us Gabor Sebo for part 3, on green technologies, green façade, green wall, Hungarian involvement, green incentives to tax payers, and different types of greening around the world.

Suzanne Bowen: We have an interesting question for him that is a little bit out of his industry. We’re involved in IP communications that would be Internet protocol based communications. We’re actually using an IP PBX solution right now to talk, and I was just wondering what types of voIP solutions have you used and which are your favorite maybe? Tell us your experience.

Gabor Sebo: Well, Skype I know and use almost every day. But sometimes I use Windows Live Messenger as well. Most of my contacts use Skype, and that’s why it is my favorite channel. I can imagine many others will emerging or actually working on soon. I’m not an IP expert, I’m a user and very happy making technology and making contact around the world.

Suzanne Bowen: Definitely, it made our call and our interview with you much easier to complete. And in fact I was listening to your answers on the last call and I was wondering what is your background? What is your educational background or professional background, I will be really curious to know.

Gabor Sebo: I have a diploma of Macro Economics, and I made the position in the business as well as marketing and as an opinion director of some companies. After some experience I take this position consulting. But I’m not especially trained in technical expertise.

Suzanne Bowen: Yes, so you were discussing your background in education and in your career. Like you say, it’s not so much that you are an important person but that you paid attention to people in your life who you learned from and that’s exactly what I would love to do and this is why we want to deliver this kind of content with people like you because people are learning from you in turn. So I appreciate the comments that you made about yourself because it makes sense, you know all the way around.

Suzanne Bowen: Gabor, Ali my colleague had a couple of questions. We actually wrote them in the chat window. He asked, “What do you foresee as the actual materialization of the green façade, green wall project in the near future.?What needs to happen to see it materialize?”

Gabor Sebo: We have some effort to make to realize our technology and as soon as possible. Unfortunately there were some good projects with big hopes dropped in the past. It is a matter of addressing the new administration centre in Budapest. There was international competition and the plan of who would be the winner with a green plan with green façade and roofs. That was a plan to evolve this project, but all projects were dropped by teams because of financing problem and political as well. We were contacted by several investors and not only Hungary but neighboring countries Romania, Bucharest, and from Ukraine, Kiev. There was another project who was interested in adopting the green façade and green roofs. All these projects are only in preparation phase and all technologies have some details to have to be fine tuned. Mostly in the winter season it will help operate more efficiently and without any technical problems. But I hope in the near future in one or two years, I can show you. Not only in computer graphics but in the reality as well. The second is very difficult to make scientific or measurable effect, that is all positive changes that the bio mass on the whole would make and it is very difficult to modelize it. It would be very difficult to make mathematical model. That means the absorption of seeds to the flying dust on the air in the urban condition. There are several types of poisonous gases which can be absorbed by the leaves of creepers on the wall. If we have to say it should work, that is difficult to make a real act or it could be some experience and nobody wants to make an experience.

Suzanne Bowen: I know. Yeah I know but.

Gabor Sebo: We will start step by step I think. Not a big one project but small show people that works and it has very positive effects.

Suzanne Bowen: Exactly. I see some similarities in Green Technologies with the concept of social media and social networking online. Again it’s kind of a thing where it’s hard to measure mathematically but you know it works.

Gabor Sebo: Yes, of course.

Suzanne Bowen: You know I really wish you the best. I’m hoping that this podcast will drive more interest to you and others like you who are involved in greening, green technologies, green façade, green roof, green wall and bring us back to our roots in history… So how can people contact your company, how can they contact you? What are you looking for in partners, investment, clients? Just let us know because that’s what people are going ask me, and if we can just let you say it on the podcast interview, that will help quite a bit.

Gabor Sebo: Yes. Of course there is Internet. We have a web-page, Lico Art webpage. There are several special professional conferences or seminars I visit and make personal contacts with colleagues or potential investors as well. I am also open with any question, any inquiry, any demand for consultancy or give some idea as well. I think more and more people are looking for Green Technologies and we have future, I am very sure.

I can offer my email address, this is on the web-page as well: sebo@licoart.hu or phone number and fax number as well on the web-page. It’s called www.lico-art.hu

Suzanne Bowen: All right. Well ,thank you very much, Gabor.

Gabor Sebo: Thank you for interviewing me. Goodbye.