Ahead of the Curve

Full Steam Ahead

New Software Puts Railways on a Better Track

 

Rail transportation is getting a lot of attention in North America. With the price of gas continuing to rise, residents of cities with established train systems are flocking to passenger rail in large numbers. Is this a passing trend or the way of the future?

At Transoft Solutions, we believe it’s the way of the future. To support this belief, we’re about to release our latest passenger rail design software. 
 As railways become a more prevalent mode of transportation for goods and people, more infrastructure will be needed to handle this demand. Around the world, we’re known for AutoTURN, the leading vehicle turning simulation software. We’ve taken our knowledge and experience when it comes to vehicle movements and have applied what we’ve learned over the past 20 years to the design and construction of efficient railways.

Premier Unveiling Event: Register Today! 

 

Join Transoft Solutions for the live global launch of our newest software innovation for the light rail design sector. During the presentation, a product specialist will guide you through all the features and functionality of this technologically leading railway software package.

As light rail transit is becoming more prevalent, this software will be sure to give designers the confidence to build better transportation options today and in the future. Come aboard and be the first to see what we have in store!

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The Americas | 10:00 am (Pacific) |  12:00 pm (Central) | 1:00 pm (Eastern)

• Click here to register for the Americas event

Europe, Middle East, Africa | 10:00 am (London) | 11:00 am  (Amsterdam) | 1:00 pm (Abu Dhabi)

• Click here to register for the EMEA event

Asia Pacific | 9:00 am (Mumbai) | 11:30 am (Beijing) | 1:30 pm (Sydney) 

• Click here to register for the APAC event

 

We’re giving you just a glimpse into what the new rail software from Transoft Solutions can do. There are more videos to come, so come back soon for additional features and functions of the software. 

Be sure to visit the new website for more information at http://designlightrail.com

The Transoft Solutions Success Story: Inspiration, Intrigue, Innovation- Seeding the Market

As a practicing civil engineer, Milton knew the challenges he faced and used them as the basis for his software solution.

As Milton explains, “Having intimate knowledge of your market/industry makes it extremely easy to identify needs and hence build solutions.  Even more importantly, you are fully aware of the marketing channels and what approaches work best.  To everyone outside of this space, it tends to be a longer learning curve and overall a less effective process.  My familiarity with the transportation engineering profession made it easy to find solutions that might succeed within this primary target market.  Everything else was connected to this market or was secondary in both size and revenue volume.  In addition, from a marketing perspective, my knowledge gave us a head start in this department!”

The Internet was still relatively new, however the use of computers in engineering was growing rapidly and many applications had been developed by the early to mid-1990s.  So the market was fertile for Transoft’s new products...Click here to read the full story!

The Transoft Solutions Success Story: Inspiration, Intrigue, Innovation- Heading West. The Road Less Traveled.

Milton arrived in Calgary at a time when the province of Alberta was experiencing an oil boom.  Whether the Middle East oil embargo was a primary motivator or not, Alberta’s oil companies were primed to capitalize on the U.S need for a reliable source of oil. Money from oil royalties was pouring into government coffers, migration was in full swing and as a result infrastructure projects were plentiful. 

Within two weeks of arriving in Calgary, Milton began working with UMA Engineering where he got his first exposure to transportation engineering, despite having an inclination towards structural design.   The city was a buzz with roadway projects and one in particular; the Deerfoot Trail freeway project caught his attention. Click here to read the rest of this story!

The Transoft Solutions Success Story: Inspiration, Intrigue, Innovation- From the U.K. to Toronto

With an honours degree in Civil Engineering in his back pocket, Milton now had his future ahead of him. Things looked bleak when his family was deported from Uganda, but he made the best of it.  In fact, he left all of the wonderful memories of his beloved land behind, except of one – the most important one of all!

Milton came to know his future wife, Val, when they were both toddlers in Uganda. Their respective families were friends and so they became platonic friends. When Idi Amin deported Asians in 1972, they went their separate ways with Val heading to Montreal while Milton went to the UK. “I did not think I would see her again, until one fine day in December 1973 Val called me to say she was coming to London.  It was a December to remember.  Even as the UK was in the grips of a major energy crisis, we made the most of her visit, even taking in an Elton John concert, one of my favorite musicians, at the Hammersmith Odeon.  You see Val had worked hard since arriving in Canada and saved her money to make this trip and also paid for the concert! We rekindled our relationship and, I guess in hindsight, we took it to the next level,” remembered Milton fondly.

Val told him how beautiful Canada was and after a visit in the summer of 1974, he started contemplating a life in the Great White North...Click here to read the rest of the story!

 

 

The Toy Designed to Inspire Future Female Engineers

Debra Sterling is an engineering product design graduate from Stanford University. At the age of 30 she is now the CEO of GoldieBlox Inc., a firm she founded in 2012 in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Debra discovered the need for toys catered to girls to teach them about tech-heavy disciplines like engineering as the majority of toys out there for these industries are catered to boys. Girls are given toys like Barbie dolls and kitchen sets while boys have Bob the Builder, Lego Man and construction sets. Engineering would be much more interesting for girls if it was contextualized for their brains, which usually process information differently from their male counterparts. Unfortunately only 10% of engineers in the U.S. are women. Sterling wants to see this number increase and to change the way of thinking towards the field for women from the get-go.

Sterling started the company out of her apartment using the crowd-funding online platform Kickstarter to gain $280,000 in pledges in about one month. She developed a toy called Goldie Blox and The Spinning Machine, targeted to girls ages 5-9 years old. The toy includes a storybook or iOS app, 5 character figurines (including the main character, Goldie), a pegboard, 5 wheels, 10 axles, 5 blocks, 5 washers, a crank, and a ribbon to allow girls to build what the story calls for.

Some of the strategies Sterling used to attract the young girls to want to build were to first engage them with a story with a relatable character, then introduce a challenge to build something which would help the character using materials that are warm or soft to touch and colorful with curved plastic edges without any metal. The book contains several stories challenging girls to build different projects that get more complex as the book progresses.  The first challenge is to build a spinning machine to help Goldie’s dog catch his tail, this shows the basic concept of what belt drives do.

The toy sells for $29.99 and can be purchased online at www.goldieblox.com. As the website says, “It’s 2013. It’s about time we opened our girls’ minds beyond the pink aisle at the toy store. It’s time to build a new story so our girls can help build our future.” Amen to that!

President Obama nominates Mayor Anthony Foxx as 17th Secretary of Transportation

This afternoon, it was my great pleasure to stand with President Obama as he nominated Charlotte, NC, Mayor Anthony Foxx to be the next U.S. Secretary of Transportation.

via fastlane.dot.gov

The Transoft Solutions Success Story: Inspiration, Intrigue, Innovation- University of Southampton

 

The cold, damp fall English weather and short winter nights were a stark change from the sunny, warm and highly social life he was used to in Uganda.  A sense of anxiety and depression soon set in amongst those at the camp.  What was going to be their fate? How would they get back on their feet, feed their families and care for their elderly?  For Milton it was different.  Not knowing the whereabouts or the well-being of his family still back in Uganda was disturbing.  “I knew that worrying unnecessarily was not a good thing.  I had to focus on the road ahead and the various opportunities a new life in the UK might offer,” he recalls.

Older brother Clifton was already in the UK, studying for his Masters in Industrial Engineering at Cranfield Institute of Technology.  And another brother had co-incidentally been sent on a Radio Engineering training course with the BBC.  This gave Milton some comfort, however distances and costs of travel didn’t make it much easier to keep in touch.  Both came to visit him once during the four weeks Milton was at camp. His first thought was to go out and get a job as soon as possible. However, his brother Clifton strongly encouraged him to continue the education he started in Uganda.

Click here to read the rest of the story!

The Transoft Solutions Success Story: Inspiration, Intrigue, Innovation- Refugee to Entrepreneur

From humble upbringings in Uganda to co-founding a leading, global CAD software company in Canada, Transoft Solutions’ President and CEO, Milton Carrasco, has come a long way, literally.

In August 1972, the President of Uganda, Idi Amin, ordered the expulsion of his country's Asian population, giving them 90 days to leave Uganda. While Milton’s family was part of this deportation order, many people thought that the regime would change its mind. When governments around the world realized that Amin was following through on his deplorable plan, countries like Canada and the United Kingdom rushed in planes to get people out, many of whom were essentially stateless.  

Milton was a naturalized citizen at the time and was one of those who were rendered stateless.  “I was the first to leave as my mother wanted to see her youngest safely out of the country – the usual motherly protection instinct, even though I was already of majority age,” recalls Milton...

Click here to read the rest of the story!

 

The Transoft Solutions Success Story: Inspiration, Intrigue, Innovation- Changing the World

How has Transoft’s culture been influenced by the spirit of innovation?

 

“At Transoft, we have been highly focused on this sense of innovation, with the primary goal of creating immense value to our customers.  This has resulted in productivity gains of 500% or more,” enthuses Milton. “A significant part of our energy and development budget is focused on innovation and as a result we have seen a direct impact on our success at least 70% of the time.  It can be extremely frightening to those on the front line of design production, just as computers were to defunct electric typewriters service technicians!”

As Transoft Solutions grew from a two-person company to a six-person company in the late nineties, both Milton and JD knew that innovation, and creative innovation at that, was a valuable characteristic of their success.  By this time, GuidSIGN had become a household name in the sign design industry.  Even at the beginning, Milton often encouraged his staff to put themselves in their customers’ shoes to create value.

 

“It wasn’t as if we were declaring ourselves as innovators,” quips Milton. “It seemed to be part of our DNA - we always look at a product idea in a way that will enhance the user’s productivity, be unique in the marketplace, yet logical in how it works. We want to create products that our users find easy to use and make them say... Click here to read the rest!

The Transoft Solutions Success Story: Inspiration, Intrigue, Innovation- The Transoft Way

Innovation is about a new idea that brings value to its users.

In most cases innovative ideas are born from experiencing a personal ‘pain’ and coming up with a viable and widely accepted solution. But that alone isn’t enough to guarantee success. What you need is a magical convergence of timing, finding a market ripe for disruption, and having a visionary pied-piper – someone capable of seeing what others don’t, possesses moxie in spades, and can cajole world-class talent into building something useful and practical.

In short, what you need is a miracle.

The advent of the smart phone is an example of technology meeting an idea just at the right time, driven by visionaries. The iPhone, a product by none other than the visionary Steve Jobs, became a hugely successful product when widespread WIFI access meant 3G networks could receive digital data at speeds that enabled real-time communication and produce a multi-fold increase in productivity.

It is likely that when the first gasoline-powered car left the plant in the 1870s, chances are the driver took a right-hand turn. Since the 1950s, engineers had been plotting vehicle movements using turning templates that oddly enough were produced showing vehicles turning right!  If we think about it, for over 130 years after the car was invented, transportation engineers still had a limited way of plotting how that vehicle turned. Engineers needed someone with an innovative idea to move their profession forward.

When Milton was working on transportation projects in the 1980s, he also used... Click here to read the rest!