Richmond Times Dispatch Article Featuring Jonathan Koves

Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va., Technology Notes Column

Jul. 31--Jonathan Koves' resume is one of those that makes the "keeper" pile every time.

The 23-year-old recent James Madison University graduate is humble about his record, though.

Humble about the membership in American Mensa, which requires an IQ in the top 2 percent of the population.

Modest about his association with the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry, which demands an IQ in the top 0.1 percent of the populace.

He is also a part of the Mega Society, which basically requires an IQ that is less-comprehensible than pondering the depths of outer space.

"When I was a freshman in college I had to concern myself with paying my bills," Koves said last week. So out of his dorm room, he started a Web development company which eventually became Koves Technologies LLC.

"He's one of those uber-smart people," laughed Carrie Belt, assistant director at the Creative Change Center -- or C3 -- in Shockoe Bottom, which serves as a hub for the area's artistic and creative community.

As of this month, C3 is the new "worldwide headquarters" for Koves Technologies, which is actually a triangle-shaped office no bigger than a walk-in closet.

Koves Technologies has four employees in Richmond with a summer assistant and an intern. Through personal contacts, the well-spoken Koves (the man, not the company) established a small office in Romania and another in India, taking advantage of the cheap labor and highly-educated workers there as many technology firms have.

Koves Technologies (www.Koves.com) specializes in Web site design with Macromedia's Flash software, which gives pages rich movement and user interaction.

While Koves has background in advanced computer programming, over time the workload became overwhelming and he has since passed some of it on to his employees.

He likens the company to a dental office -- Koves being the dentist.

"When you go into the dentist's office, you have the technician that goes in and does the work, and the dentist goes in and polishes it up," he said. "I would like to defer that altogether and focus exclusively with working with clients and business development and marketing."

However, like the dentist, Koves still oversees all his firm's work.

In India, his technicians give support and can take care of basic Web-page programming languages, such as HTML and PHP. But all design is kept in-house in Richmond, and his clients' proprietary information and intellectual property remains secured in the U.S.

Having contacts overseas makes for a more cost-effective, 24/7 operation.

The company has in its portfolio clients such as General Electric Co. and Marriott International Inc. Koves designed an interactive control panel for turbine engineers at the power company and an online exit survey for the human resources department at the hotel chain.

Aside from creating his namesake company, Koves also has helped develop IraqiNews.com, a Web portal that has served as an online arena to automatically collect news out of the war zone.

The site is going through an expansive overhaul, and he plans to set it up to provide exclusive content through five IraqiNews.com correspondents -- two photographers and three reporters.

"These are Iraqi journalists indigenous to Iraq and Northern Iraq," he said, "to give the perspective through Iraqi eyes to America."

The Web site could also offer business opportunities for American firms to get involved in the ongoing reconstruction in war-torn Iraq, he said.

While his Web-development company has been profitable, he said he still needs to work out how to pay IraqiNews.com's journalists and make the site an income generator.

Can such an operation work?

"I'm cautiously optimistic."

Any ideas? Staff writer Jeffrey Kelley can be reached at (804) 649-6348 or jkelley@timesdispatch.com.

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Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch

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