fluidIT solutions

About fluidIT Solutions
Learn more about Carole St. Laurent
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About fluidIT Solutions
fluidIT solutions provides concepts, creation and capacity building for strategic information and communication technology (ICT) projects, anywhere in the world. The founder and primary consultant, Carole St. Laurent, has implemented dozens of online projects in North America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Our portfolio ranges from custom corporate systems to non-profit solutions, creative projects and capacity building. A multimedia content producer and elearning expert, Carole's passion is using digital storytelling to build empathy, collaboration, and peace.
The foundation of all successful projects is a clear concept, which incorporates present realities while striving towards a future vision. With key strengths in defining requirements and designing solutions, our prescient insights will ensure you achieve your objectives, while avoiding hidden challenges.

Our conceptual portfolio includes:
- Designing an interactive storytelling project about racism before "web 2.0" was coined (earning a Paul D. Fleck Award for Innovation in the Arts, and inclusion in the juried CyberDocs festival)
- Analysing stakeholder needs and global software to recommend how UNDP Somalia could improve financial stability in a fragile context
- Developing an innovative strategy to create and distribute stories of forgiveness and reconcilation in Rwanda
To be honest, I didn’t think this project was possible. I don’t think it could have succeeded without you.
Ahmed Mohamed, Secretary General, Somali Financial Services Association
Once the concept has been developed, innumerable details must be managed to successfully implement the solution. fluidIT solutions excels at executing projects, from cutting-edge cellular-based storytelling projects, to $250 million corporate website redesigns. Experienced in programming to project management, we aptly guide staff to deliver superior results.

Our creation portfolio includes:
- Developing [murmur] Australia, adding the 12th country with a unique SMS-callback feature to the global mobile-phone based storytelling project, [murmur]
- Re-engineering a government website to reduce content updates from 41 days to 8 hours, saving multiple person-months and $25,000/year (earning a Showcase Ontario Merit Award)
- Designing an award-winning online investment application, unique in its customised portfolio recommendations and built-in fulfilment
- Managing quality assurance for World Vision International’s staff intranet, which empowers 33,000 global staff to aid children more effectively
The OBPG team has succeeded beyond our wildest expectations at taking the inherent capabilities that the OPSpedia platform provides and leveraging them to solve a real and pressing business management problem. They are the model we use to explain to Ministries just how effective a wiki-based workflow can be.
Darren Cartier, e-Government Branch, Ministry of Government Services
Conceptualising and creating solutions are just the first steps. To reap the benefits of innovative projects, people must be trained to effectively use them. That's where fluidIT solutions' capacity-building expertise comes in. We've trained hundreds of people in dozens of technologies, empowering grassroots activists and Executive Directors to harness ICTs' potential for change.

Our capacity building portfolio includes:
- Designing and facilitating the first hands-on multimedia component of the Communications for Development course at Coady International Institute – the most popular course among global international development practitioners
- Offering the first video production course at a Cisco Academy in Nigeria, enabling novice camera and computer users to create their own videos in three days
- Radically redesigning how World Vision International trains global staff to share knowledge, combining just-in-time elearning, online workshops, and in-person training for maximum impact
Concepts, creation and capacity building – FluidIT Solutions can successfully guide your innovative IT projects from initial concepts to end-user adoption.

"Thanks for doing such a good job with the class here. You taught VERY well - it seemed like you'd taught the class many times before. You were a very natural teacher."
Robert Orenstein, Founder, S7 Center
While innovative ICTs in any domain intrigue us, we are particularly excited by the power of personal stories to foster empathy, enable advocacy, and inspire change.

Our storytelling portfolio includes:
- [murmur], an international storytelling project in which listeners hear stories about their current location by cell phone
- CryRwanda, which screened Carole's visual poem, Cry, commemorating the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda
- CryPeace, our current project to share personal stories to build empathy and peace
You did a great job, YOU ARE AMAZING. Thank you so much for your heart for Rwanda. We must work together, you have a very good vision.
Jean Paul Samputu, Founder, Samputu Forgiveness Campaign
Learn more about Carole St. Laurent

Carole is an award-winning writer, videographer and specialist in information and communication strategies with over twenty years' experience launching projects in North America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. After 10 years in the corporate sector, Carole founded fluidIT solutions to explore how emerging technologies could improve international development and peace. Believing personal stories are one of the most powerful ways to build the empathy which nurtures peace, Carole traverses the globe to deepen her own and others' understanding of peace. She shares stories from over 20 countries on her award-winning blog, crypeace.org.

Key accomplishments include:
- Earning a Wilbur Award for her vlog, Motorcycle Diaries: Friday the 13th
- Serving on the board of Isis-WICCE, a Ugandan peacebuilding organisation, for 6 years
- Serving as Vice-President, North American Executive Committee, of the World Association for Christian Communication
- Facilitating international workshops and roundtables on ICTs, peace and storytelling
Carole holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Western Ontario, a Master's in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Development from York University, and a Certificate in Ministry from Tyndale Seminary.
- You’re the best implementer I’ve ever worked with.
  Alex Sirota, Team Lead
  Information Management, Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation
- To be honest, I didn’t think this project was possible. I don’t think it could have succeeded without you.
  Ahmed Mohamed, Secretary General
  Somali Financial Services Association
- You did a great job, YOU ARE AMAZING. Thank you so much for your heart for Rwanda. We must work together, you have a very good vision.
  Jean Paul Samputu, Founder
  Samputu Forgiveness Campaign
- Carole has a gift for building rapport across languages and cultures, and helping readers envision the realities people face in difficult situations...and the difference that World Vision is making.
  Linda Lloyd da Silva, Director, Shared Communications Services
  World Vision International
- I am so impressed with this course. I can develop different messages and present them through multimedia with images, sounds and video on different devices.
  Raj Bahadur Giri, Executive Director
  Kathmandu Training Center
- Thank you for spreading the message of peace more widely through multimedia. Your workshop also enabled participants to share their own important messages more effectively.
  Terry Mutuku, Communications Officer
  World Association for Christian Communication
- In 6 years and 90,000 kms of bike travel, that chance meeting over dinner with you in Port Dover has been in my top three most pleasant memories of people I've met on the road. Thank you for sharing their stories.
  Dave Colpitts, Canada (See their stories)
- You enter the heart without knocking first.
  Stranger-turned-friend, Jerusalem
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You know your mission.

We know technology.

Together, we can make

a bigger difference.
ICTs for Development
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ICTs for Development

While our expertise has benefited corporations, governments, global non-profits and rural telecentres, our passion is creative ICTs for development and peace.

Our ICTs for development and peace portfolio includes:
- Piloting CryRwanda, a storytelling project that was enthusiastically endorsed by Rwandan partners, but limited by funding challenges. We are honoured that our visual poem, Cry, was screened at a genocide commemoration event in Rwanda.
- Facilitating a roundtable on using technology to empower women and human rights defenders at the Nobel Women’s Initiative conference, Women Forging a New Security: Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict Conference, Canada, 2011
- Delivering a presentation on How Digital Technologies can enhance Empathy and Dialogue at the Religion Communication Congress, USA, 2010
- Leading a workshop on using free software to produce multimedia content at the WACC Communication is Peace Congress, South Africa, 2008
- Officially vlogging the WACC Communication is Peace Congress, South Africa, 2008
- Delivering a presentation on ICTs for Peace at the World Association for Christian Communications conference, USA, 2008
- Presenting our field research on Digitally Assisted Diffusion of Innovations at the Fourth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Distance Learning, Jamaica, 2006
Contact Us

We'd love to learn more about your own unique needs, programmes, and goals. We offer free initial consultations to explore ideas, and how we can help.

Please get in touch using the form below. From there we can arrange an online or in-person meeting.

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