Will OCM be the next FACEBOOK?

EWN finds out in an exclusive interview with Ali Parandeh, founder of Urbytus, the creator of OCM.

ONLINE COMMUNITY MANAGER (OCM) is a state-of-the-art, interactive, multilingual, 100 per cent web-based community management system.

OCM has been created by Electronbox in consultation with home owners and committee members in communities to enable them to control their individual challenges. OCM combines these challenges to provide comprehensive tools and solutions to make the management of their community easier.

The software development started in 2005 to provide a solution that could be used by the president, committee, owners, tenants, contractors / suppliers and the administrator regardless of language barriers. The program supports 8 languages.

Ali Parandeh left Iran at 12 and moved to Spain with his family in 1985. He completed his O and A levels at the English International College in Marbella and continued with university and postgraduate studies in UK. Could he be the next Pierre Omidyar (Iranian Founder of eBay)?

Ali tells us, “I purchased my first Computer in 1986 and in 1994 I wrote my first commercial program for the English International College.  It was a very extensive program and had I had the time to market it and upgrade it, it could have become a winner, but at the time I was doing my PhD.

What made you think about creating a web portal like OCM?

I set up a small static website for our community even before I became president. I soon realised that if it were to become useful, we needed some sort of content management system.

OCM allows the community to keep in touch, discuss matters, vote and keep track of ongoing issues in an organised manner, as well as create tasks for jobs and flag them with different status from request to completion.  Everyone can monitor all that is happening.  It allows for AGM meetings to be filed and owners can send proxy votings that automatically notify the president and the administrator

How many communities are using it? We rolled out the beta version two years and since last year we have got some 30 to 40 communities using it.  Overall there are some six thousand users registered on the system from different communities along with some 500 businesses.

How has your community benefited from OCM? Communication. To say the least OCM has saved my community 95 per cent of its photocopying, paper and postage. Furthermore it has reduced the number of unnecessary phone calls.

Two Urbytus presentations will be held, one on September 20 between 11am and 2pm, it is a workshop on OCM for presidents and administrators alike and the second is a presentation is on September 22 at the NH Alanda Hotel for those who are interested in learning more about the company.  You will need to register for both, so best to reserve your place directly on 902 007 202 or by email admin@urbytus.com