Edwin, can you tell us how your story with SWC began?
Before I learnt about uST technology, I was in the networking business. But then because of my inexperience I could not distinguish a fraudulent project from a reliable one. I had to take hard knocks on my own experience: I burned fingers working with fraudulent companies. The projects dissolved, but I was left with an established affiliate network. In December 2015, I met a partner from India who showed a video about Technopark of Anatoli Eduardovich Unitsky and offered to support this project.
I decided to participate at the moment of transition from stage five to stage six. I first did my own investigation on the prospects for fear of repeating a past negative scenario. During the study I realised that this is not a new project, the developers have been doing it and developing it for thirty to forty years, I saw a video with huge equipment, testing labs. The mission of the project was particularly appealing, aimed not only to the development of transport technologies, but also to the preservation of the environment of our planet. I had no doubt that uST was a serious project.
From the end of 2015 to April 2016 I had only five people in my affiliate network, then I was watching the development, taking such a wait-and-see attitude. In April 2016, a partner from Russia told me about the possibility of joining SWC, since it was more beneficial. That's when I moved to SWC and started inviting partners I knew. It was not difficult, I just told them about this project and its advantages, about the development of transport technology, that the type of string transport is more reliable, safe, eco-friendly, that the introduction of the technology will have a positive impact on our descendants. We may not see the effect of the investment now, but speaking of the long term, the project is great.
In 2017, representatives of the company travelled to Indonesia with the exhibition. We met Alexey Sukhodoev, I became even more convinced of the reliability of the project, and soon became the curator of Indonesia. In 2018-2019 I took part in EcoFest in Belarus, saw the technology with my own eyes and acted as a speaker. By that time, my structure worldwide consisted of twenty thousand people, twelve thousand of them are Indonesian citizens.
Have you faced any challenges while promoting the technology?
One of the main difficulties is that partners do not understand the nature of venture capital investment. Many are all out for quick profits, they want guarantees with precise timelines for dividends, IPO and so on. We, as curators and partners, understanding the nature of venture capital investment, cannot give a clear timeline for the implementation of the technology. The project is complex, revolutionary and commercial implementation takes time. Because of this, some partners decide to get involved in other projects.
The second difficulty is that Indonesians are generally wary of supporting foreign companies. They constantly ask if the company has licences, necessary documents and so on. I have to explain that this type of investment does not require a licence, but nevertheless they still have some concerns and doubts.
These are the two main factors that are slowing down our work into Indonesia a bit. But we continue and are pleased that SWC has begun to deploy NPOs in countries of operation and take other legal steps to obtain the necessary documents to operate freely in specific territories.
Edwin, we know that due to your partners' unsustainable work that went against the recommendations of the SWC, you faced oppression from law enforcement agencies and were even detained. Please tell us what led up to this.
Lack of knowledge of investment principles and irresponsibility of partners who were involved in several projects at the same time led to this situation. The person who made the statement for the police was involved in three projects, let's call them A, B, C. Project A was SWC. B and C were fraudulent. The investor felt deceived and sued all three projects. And since two of them were fraudulent, there was no trace of them remained, all the focus was on SWC. When the investigation began, it turned out that many had not followed promotional guidelines and had violated image regulations, making the situation worse. So I would like to emphasise once again, this is the final 15th stage, and it is very important not to yield to temptations and promises made by other projects and companies. Clearly follow the image regulations - and then both you and your financial support for the project, will be completely safe.
We spent two months in detention. Of course it was stressful. Surprisingly, I managed to gain weight there because I was mostly eating and sleeping. In this environment, faith in the project implementation became one of the supports. While under administrative detention I was able to talk to a potential investor for a targeted project. I even left the writing on the wall with the company name and contact details (laughs). We never doubted for a moment that the case would end favourably. We are very grateful to the SWC management — Eugeny Kudryashov, Alexey Sukhodoev and the SWC Public Relations Department for their support and assistance.
After the release, we told about our experience and conveyed the information to the current partners so that they understood all the risks of cooperation with dubious organisations. The partners themselves will be held liable for working with fraudulent companies.
How do you assess the changes that have recently taken place in SWC in working with partners?
I think the idea of creation of SWC (online) University of Professions of the Future is a very good one. We are looking forward to the training courses being translated into Indonesian because not all partners speak English. I think we will all benefit from this educational project.
What do you think brings people in our community together?
Globally, all of us — partners and investors around the world — are united by a common vision of project implementation with Anatoli Eduardovich Unitsky. We are talking about fundamentally new modes of transport, the number of vehicles is growing, traffic problems are becoming more acute around the world. The desire to find a solution unites all investors around the world. And, of course, we also shouldn't forget about environment, that transport should become more eco-friendly, to keep up with the times.
Is it safe to say that every investor in our community can influence, through the community, the world we want to live in?
One soldier does not make a battle Together we can create the future, make our world a better place for ourselves, our children and our surroundings.
How do you see our community evolving in 5, 10 years?
I think we are all proud to be involved in the development of string transport, that we are supporting a project that will fundamentally change the future and make people's movement safer.
I still remember seeing with my own eyes in 2019 the uST high-speed transport capable of gaining speeds of up to 500 kilometres per hour. Already then I understood that people in five to ten years would use this transport in different countries, that they would even prefer this transport over airplanes. And I will be the first person to promote the technology of the future in Indonesia.
I'm sure that within fifty years, we'll have realised all our most ambitious plans. I am particularly proud to realise that Indonesia could be the first country in South East Asia to implement the use of uST technology.