Dr. Helen Sharman, is the first-ever British citizen in space
London. Helen Sharman, is the first-ever British citizen in space & the second woman to fly on a space station (Mir, May 1991) Prior to space training, she worked as a chemist at the Mars UK chocolate factory researching the properties of chocolate, because she liked chocolate & wanted to explore the flavours & scents of pure alpine chocolate. In November 1989 she responded to a radio ad for astronauts & was selected from more than 13,000 applicants to be part of Project Juno, a commercial British cosmonaut mission. She underwent 18 months of rigorous training at the Yury Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre at Star City, Russia. Sharman was just 27 years & 11 months old when she went into space, making her the fifth youngest of the 528 individuals who have flown in space. The second youngest, Valentina Tereshkova, became the first woman in space in 1963 at the age of 26 years and 3 months. Helen was the 15th woman in space. To date 59 women have now flown in space since Valentina Tereshkova’s historic maiden’s maiden flight. From Mars chocolate, to a flight path towards Mars the planet.
The first woman to have flown in space, Dr. Valentina Tereshkova
London. Dr Valentina Tereshkova (78), with Mobilium Global CEO, Ralph Simon - an amazing, fearless woman !
Dr Tereshkova was selected from more than 400 applicants and 5 finalists to pilot Vostok 6 in June 1963 & spent almost 3 days in space, orbiting Earth 48 times - her only trip into space. Before her recruitment as a cosmonaut, Tereshkova was a textile-factory assembly worker and an amateur skydiver, & although she did not have any experience as a pilot, she was accepted into the program because of her 126 parachute jumps. At the time, cosmonauts had to parachute from their capsules seconds before they hit the ground on returning to Earth.
Along with four other women, Tereshkova received 18 months of training, which included tests to determine how she would react to long periods of time being alone, to extreme gravity conditions and to zero-gravity conditions. Of the five women, only Tereshkova went into space.On her historic space flight, she spent nearly three days in orbit, photographing layers in the Earth’s atmosphere, the Moon, and monitoring the effects of spaceflight on the human body.
* Secret unveiled this week: The Soviet Space Agency had thought of most things, but had not remembered to pack her a toothbrush.
“Unfortunately it is a fact,” said Tereshkova, 78. “But I’m very resourceful as any woman would be. I had my toothpaste, and I had my hand, and I had water.”
She also revealed how after entering orbit she quickly realised that her spacecraft – the Vostok 6 – had an error in the control programme which would have seen it travelling further away from Earth on the journey home rather than descending. She sorted this out with Mission Control and came back safe and alive. In 2013 at age 76, she offered to go on a one-way trip to Mars if the opportunity arose. She is in London to launch a new exhibition ‘Cosmonauts - Birth of the Space Age’ at London’s Science Museum.
Wikipedia founder launches ‘The Peoples Operator’
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. l. to r. Mobilium Global CEO Ralph Simon & Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, chatting backstage at the 2015 CTIA Super Mobility convention keynote stage. Jimmy had just delivered a riveting keynote launching Wikipedia’s social action-oriented mobile telco service & MVNO in the USA. 'The People’s Operator', as the venture is known, is both a mobile phone service & an attempt at a new sort of social network centred around donations & community service. Jimmy also showed brilliant global examples of just why Wikipedia is one of top 5 websites on the web & why Wikia, their for-profit platform is so popular around the world. Mobilium played a key role in bringing Jimmy to the CTIA Super Mobility keynote stage.
Chewing the mobile cud
Las Vegas, USA: September 2015 l. to r. Rob Mesirow, Executive Director & organiser of North America’s biggest mobile convention, CTIA’s “Super Mobility Week”; Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Tom Wheeler, & Mobilium Global CEO Ralph Simon - meeting greeting & bleating just before Chairman Wheeler’s impressive keynote speech to the convention audience on opening day of the Super Mobility Week. Some 35,000 mobile professionals are in Vegas for this major annual mobile gathering.
The Mansion House, official residence of the Lord Mayor of London
The Rt. Hon. The Lord Mayor, Alderman Alan Yarrow flanked by (left) leading tech innovators Gerard Grech, CEO of Tech City & (right) Mobilium Global CEO, Ralph Simon. The Mayor introduced “A Technology Agenda for the Commonwealth”:, an exciting initiative from the UK government to substantially widen the digital reach between the UK and the 2.2bn Commonwealth citizens in 53 countries worldwide - the vast majority of whom love being ‘connected’. online and onmobile.
Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union, His Excellency Zhao Houlin Budapest
Hungary - October 2015. The Secretary-General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the United Nations' telecoms & wireless division, His Excellency Zhao Houlin, welcoming Mobilium Global CEO Ralph Simon to the ITU Congress in Budapest. Simon conducted a special session with Secretary-General Zhao, together with Mr Wen Ku, Director of China’s Ministry of Industry & Information Technology’s Telecoms Division, Dr (Ms) Fatima Barros, chair of the EU’s Body of European (Telecoms) Regulators and Huawei's President of Huawei's global Carrier Business Group, Mr Zou Zhilei. Key message from Budapest: "Mobile is all about video, video, video on phones & social media". Huawei is the global telecoms giant.
British Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. George Osborne MP
Manchester, UK: October 2015 r . to l. British Deputy Prime Minister & Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon. George Osborne MP chatting with Mobilium Global CEO Ralph Simon in Manchester this week. The Chancellor is a major "visioneer" and steward of the successful UK innovation economy.
Captains of the Creative Industries talk talent
Cote D’Azure, France - Captains of the Creative Industries
l. to r. Distinguished Atlanta-based entertainment lawyer, major dealmaker & strategic visionary Joel Katz; Chairman & CEO of Sony Music Entertainment Doug Morris; Mobilium Global CEO Ralph Simon & Chairman & CEO of Epic Records & discoverer of great artists & talent, LA Reid - he found Rihanna, Kanye West, Toni Braxton, Usher & many more. Seen at the special gathering to honour Doug Morris at the Billboard Midem Breakfast on June 7th. Doug has had a scintillating 50-year career as the consummate industry-leading music executive & entertainment business luminary.
Mobilium meets one of the world's top artist managers & talent finders - Johnny Wright
NEWS from Billboard Magazine
By Karen Bliss, Toronto | May 11, 2015 5:21 PM EDT
Johnny Wright
Johnny Wright, president/CEO of the Wright Entertainment Group (WEG) and No. 83 on The 2015 Billboard Power 100, spoke about a new chapter in his music career he's calling PopNation during Canadian Music Week in Toronto on Sat., May 9, where he was the day's celebrity interview. PopNation is envisioned by Wright as a sort of music factory set to include artist development, management, label and distribution deals, tours and web TV.
Wright's current WEG management roster includes Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, Akon, Incubus and a host of up-and-comers that are in development at “the compound,” a 16,000 square foot facility Wright has secured in Orlando, Florida.
Sitting down with Ralph Simon -- founder and CEO of Mobilium Global Ltd. and who has managed New Kids on the Block, the Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, the Jonas Brothers, Britney Spears and Janet Jackson, among others -- Wright spoke at length about what goes on inside the compound. “It’s almost like a school,” he said about the regimented classes from vocal and dance training to nighttime studio sessions.
“It’s not a new idea; it’s actually an old idea that I want to bring forth. Back in the day of Motown, Berry [Gordy] had a vision. He had Hitsville -- a location kind of what I have, where artists could go and train and be artists. They recorded, they wrote, they rehearsed; and what they used to do is they all used to pile up on a bus together and they had this thing called the Motown Revue, and The Supremes, Four Tops, Temptations, and everybody would go out on the road together. What they didn’t have was social networking."
“So PopNation is creating that same idea, where it’s one location, at the compound. They might be signed strictly under management; some will be signed to a record deal, because we’re doing independent distribution through Caroline and Universal. But when I sign an act into the record label, it’s not like I’m signing you and you now work for me -- we’re joining together in a joint venture, so you are the partner with me and we’re the label together. From that, we’re going to have other PopNation verticals," which will include radio, TV and tours, Wright continued.
Just this past December, Wright did a trial run of a PopNation Tour. Billed as “Johnny Wright presents PopNation On My Way Tour,” it featured performances by many of the acts signed under PopNation. "We did have a local radio station that was involved, but most of the fanbase that came to this was all through the social networking by the fans of the artists that were on tour. For me, it was kind of like a test to see how what kinks I might need to work out as we move to tour across the country and across the world and I’m glad to say it was a super success.”
The video arm of the ambitious project, PopNationTV, will create web series, specialty shows, and air music videos and other online content. Wright envisions it as “kind of what MTV used to be, where not only the artists that we have signed to PopNation but anybody that we feel are up-and-coming and relevant we’ll put their videos on PopNation.”
There will be PopNation tours -- “they’ll be three of them that will go out this year, and, like the Motown days, we’ll put all our acts together and we’ll take them on the road” -- and fans will also be connected through their socials and encouraged to participate in the artists’ development.
Wright outlined a plan for a web venture to gauge artists' popularity through online opinion casting. “They will perform it live at the compound and you can go on our web site and give us feedback on what you think of the song, what you think of the performance. This is one of the tools that we’re going to do for these talented artists to get themselves ready before they actually go on the road and put it in front of people that are paying money to see it.”
Of the acts on PopNation, the band Restless Road, put together by Simon Cowell on X Factor; is “about to sign” to a major country label. Round2Crew, which on their own attracted 2.5 million views of a video in six weeks and had a No. 11 single on iTunes, he said, now have a deal with Atlantic. Dylan Hyde is signed to Motown. 12-year-old Carson Lueders has 1.6 million followers online (“there’s a passion in this kid that I haven’t seen since Justin”); and Katelyn Jae -- who won a management deal with Wright after entering an online talent and songwriting competition -- is releasing her album, Finally, in September.