12 October 2006
Millions of personal computers sit idly on desks and in homes worldwide. During this idle time, the mysteries of science and space continue to elude us. What if each of the world's estimated 650 million PCs could be linked to focus on humanity's most pressing issues?
To make this vision a reality, Island Spirit® Australia has become a partner of World Community Grid, joining the IBM Corporation and a group of more than 225 companies, associations, foundations, nonprofits and academic institutions. Island Spirit® Australia is encouraging the community to contribute their idle PC time to assist humanitarian research by joining their team at World Community Grid. Please click here to join our team
World Community Grid is a free programme that uses grid technology to establish a permanent, flexible infrastructure to help researchers solve problems plaguing humanity. Grid technology joins together many individual computers, creating a large system with massive computational power that far exceeds the power of a few supercomputers. Most importantly, World Community Grid is easy and safe to use.
To join, individuals should go to www.worldcommunitygrid.org and simply download and install a free, small software program on their computers. When idle, your computers request data from World Community Grid's server. Computers then perform computations using this data, send the results back to the server and prompt it for a new piece of work.
"World Community Grid is a fantastic way that anyone can donate their resources for the good of humanity,” said Co-Founder Jason Andrew “We are asking individuals to join World Community Grid as part of our mission to create a happy and respectful planet."
In its first year, World Community Grid ran the Human Proteome Folding Project, which provided scientists with data on how individual proteins within the human body affect human health, enabling them to develop new cures for diseases like lyme disease, malaria and tuberculosis. Scientists now have descriptions of 120,000 protein domains that are critical to human well-being; without the benefit of this free grid technology, it would have taken 5 years to get these results, compared with just 12 months on World Community Grid.
On November 21, 2005 World Community Grid launched FightAIDS@Home. FightAIDS@Home, which is sponsored by The Scripps Research Institute, is using computational methods to identify new candidate drugs to block HIV protease, a key molecular structure that when blocked, stops the virus from maturing and thus is a way of avoiding the onset of AIDS and prolonging life.
On July 20, 2006, World Community Grid launched a new effort that will assist in cancer research using the massive computational power of World Community Grid. The Help Defeat Cancer project will use World Community Grid to analyze tissue microarrays (TMA) – a new investigative tool that will ultimately help doctors select proper treatments and provide accurate prognosis for cancer patients.
Please join our team at World Community Grid. Please click here to join our team
If you experience difficulties joining our team, then please contact us here
Join World Community Grid as part of the Island Spirit® Australia team today!
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A noni a day really does keep the doctor away.
17 August 2006
Thought to have originated in India and the surrounding subcontinent, such was the value of noni fruit that ancient Polynesians are believed to have hauled the plants along with them on discovery voyages throughout the South Pacific.
Arriving in Samoa about 2,000 years ago, the morinda citrifolia – or noni – plant was so respected by early explorers for its nutritional and medicinal properties that it was considered an essential asset for any long journey and soon became a cornerstone of traditional Samoan healing.
Most commonly consumed in the form of juice, the unusual fruit has a long list of purported benefits.
Co-founder of Island Spirit ® Australia, Jason Andrew is leading the push for noni juice to be included in the balanced diets of Aussie consumers.
"The first thing you'll notice is that it will detox your system," he says. "It has 150 vitamins, minerals and trace elements and lots of antioxidants to boost your immune system."
In fact, modern research has suggested that along with increased energy and metabolism, noni may also assist in purifying the blood, stimulating the immune system, regulating cell function and even help in the regeneration of damaged cells. Add to this the antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties of the plant as well as its positive effect on cholesterol and high blood pressure and we start to get a powerful picture of this humble healer.
About the size of a potato, noni fruit turns from green to white as it ripens. The hardy plant grows to between three and six metres and thrives in sandy and rocky conditions but can also be found in volcanic terrain. While the ripe fruit has a pungent odour – unfortunately often described as being similar to decaying cheese – its resistance to drought has made it a valuable famine food and the fruit was actually used by soldiers based on the Polynesian islands during World War II to supplement their poor diets.
While the smell and flavour of noni improves with the fermentation of the juice, traditional Samoan healers used all parts of the plant to cure a variety of health disorders. The fruit itself was used to treat everything from eye infections to tuberculosis, and an oil made from noni seeds was used as an effective insecticide in early agriculture. Jason Andrew, who spent his early years in a Samoan village, remembers noni being used as a home remedy when he was growing up.
"I was brought up in a village near the water where there were a lot of sharp rock pools and I remember running around a lot," he says. "My grandmother used noni on me as a kid, when I would fall over she would make the noni leaves into a paste and put it on all my wounds and then bandage it."
And there could be even bigger things in store for noni in the scientific world. A 1999 study by Hawaiian researchers found that a certain compound in noni juice improved the survival time of laboratory mice with a specific type of cancer. While the research failed to prove that noni has an anti-cancer effect, it was suggested that it is capable of suppressing tumour growth by activating the immune system.
The financial benefits of Western interest in noni are two-fold for the people of Samoa. Island Spirit ® Australia sources all of its noni in Samoa, even purchasing the hand-picked fruit directly from local villagers. Andrew also ensures some of the profits from Island Spirit ® Australia's Pure Samoan Noni Juice goes back to the island communities.
"During colonialism, a lot of our traditional medicines got lost, but they're making a resurgence and noni is now Samoa's largest export," he says.
Andrew says noni is even being used to promote the importance of good health and nutrition among the Samoan villagers themselves.
"We want to get people eating more natural foods. We want to start a dental care program," he says.
"You wouldn't believe it, but many people in Samoa would rather eat canned corned beef than fresh fish. That is why there are a lot of obesity and diabetes problems at the moment and we want to help try to change that."
Well, it sounds like a freshly squeezed home-grown Samoan noni juice is perfect for the job. Drink up.
By Shane Conroy 2006.
8 July 2006
Noni juice is having a real impact for Jason Andrew and helping his Samoan homeland, writes DANIEL HOY.
A PERFORMANCE review with a manager three years ago was the catalyst for Jason Andrew to take his career and life in a new direction. He was working at MLC as a practice development manager, looking after financial planners and doing some business coaching.
"My manager asked me what I wanted to do and I said I wanted to be part of the NAB executive team,'' Andrew says. "He looked at me and said, `No you don't', which was refreshing. "He made me go away and really look at what I wanted to achieve personally and professionally."
Reflecting on what he wanted to achieve with his working life, an idea came back to him again and again. He wanted to do something to help the country in which he was raised, Samoa. "Throughout that process I realised that being Samoan, I really wanted to do something with Samoa,'' he says. "And Katrina my wife was the same. She is not Samoan, but wanted to help.'' His first idea was to use his financial background and set up a managed fund in Samoa, which is a tax haven.
After several meetings with the Samoan finance minister, it became obvious his first idea would struggle to get off the ground. It was then he remembered something from his childhood: noni juice. This is the liquid derived from the noni plant, a tropical fruit commonly found in the South Pacific that contains more than 150 nutrients.
"I had always known about noni, because when we lived there my parents and grandparents used it on me,'' he says. "Last year the industry sold more than $500 million of noni juice globally. And the biggest company supplying noni juice is the fastest-growing company ever. "Within the first seven years they did more than $2.5 billion in sales, so I knew there were good sales behind it. In Australia it had not been marketed very well and I saw it as an opportunity,'' he says.
ANDREW and his wife worked on their new business, Pure Samoan Noni Juice, for three years before Andrew felt comfortable enough to leave his job. "Part of the reason for starting my own business was because I wanted to be a bit healthier, have more time with my family, and that led to noni juice,'' he says.
"We had some meetings with suppliers and, finally, I resigned at the end of last year. "It was not that hard because I had thought it through. Because we had taken little steps I felt comfortable.'' The more he learnt about noni juice and the way it is produced, the happier he felt with his decision.
When he started looking for a business, Andrew was determined to find something that would benefit his family and Samoa as a whole, but he had no idea how much the industry he was dipping his toe into actually benefits the community.
"The way it works is pretty cool,'' he says. "The truck leaves from the factory and goes around to every village on the main island and because the noni plant grows wild all the locals just pick it. "The driver buys all the fruit from the villagers, then takes it back and processess it, so everyone benefits. "I didn't know that at the time, but that is one of the reasons it made it easier for me to have a crack.''
By Daniel Hoy, The Herald Sun, July 8, 2006.
7May 2006
Pure Samoan Noni Juice featured with some of the worlds best known brands including, Johnny Walker Black Label, Makers Mark, Baileys and Garnier when it formed part of the exclusive gift bag given to all TV Week Logies presenters and nominees.
"This is more than just a cult product" says Jason Andrew, "Each year over $500million worth of noni juice is sold around the world and every 1.8 seconds someone buys a bottle!"
Island Spirit ® Australia™ provided some of Australia's top entertainment personalities with Pure Samoan Noni Juice to help boost their immune system for winter and give them energy to keep producing quality Australian television.
Noni juice, derived from the noni plant, is available all over the world. Traditional uses for noni are extremely varied and include using it for, asthma, fever, cuts and bruises, pain relief and arthritis, many Hollywood celebrities are known to be regular uses of noni for weight loss and general wellbeing.
20 April 2006
"Creating a lifestyle where people get to live the life that they want to live is the goal of Club Spirit" said Katrina Andrew. "Each year millions of new years resolutions, diets, holidays and other lifestyle plans get cancelled because people are just either too busy or don't have the discipline to stick to their goal"
With Club Spirit, consumers don't need to worry, not only will they receive their monthly supply of Pure Samoan Noni Juice, delivered to their nominated address, but they will also receive a magazine subscription to FitnessLife and membership to Goals Unlimited.
Goals Unlimited is like having access to your own personal success coach and is designed specifically to help people take more control of their life, work and financial position. It is an internet based programme that is very easy to use and a fantastic tool to helping people understand what they really want to do in life and making sure they actually achieve it.
It was Goals Unlimited that first planted the seed in Jason and Katrina's minds that they wanted to start their own business and do something for Samoa. The approach to life that they learnt helped to give Jason the confidence to resign from a comfortable and very well paid corporate role to running their own show in a totally new and foreign environment. "We highly recommend this programme" said Jason "so much so that we are paying the subscription fees for Club Spirit members ourselves"
Each new member also receives automatic entry into the draw to win a trip for 2 to Samoa staying 7 nights at the famous Aggie Greys Hotel.
13 April 2006
Fernwood Womens Health Club boasts over 69 outlets and 85,000 members. Personal trainers in their top 25 gyms have been drinking Pure Samoan Noni Juice to see if they feel a difference.
"Pure Samoan Noni Juice is a perfect supplement for personal trainers" said Managing Director Jason Andrew "It's packed with over 150 vitamins, minerals and trace elements, contains 17 amino acids and 47% of your recommended daily intake of vitamin C". The initiative was the idea of their PR Consultant, UnderTow Media and was designed to help Island Spirit ® Australia™ launch their juice into a new market.
The idea has caught on, at Fitness Expo in Sydney in April Jason and Katrina signed on more personal trainers to their juice, some are using it for themselves and others are adding it to their training regimes, giving their clients a shot of noni after their training sessions.
Having traditionally only been available in health food stores, Jason and Katrina knew that a large sector of the Australia community were missing out on their juice. They are targeting the fitness industry as a first natural step and want to expand their super market distribution nationally by the end of 2006.
1 May 2006
Following their success at the Fitness Expo in Sydney, Island Spirit ® Australia™ went back to back the following weekend exhibiting at LivingNow Expo in Melbourne.
"Although there were 1/3 the number of people that went to Fitness Expo, we were equally as successful!" said General Manager, Katrina Andrew.
Island Spirit Australia™
at Fitness Expo in Sydney
1 January 2006
Over 16,000 people attended this year's Fitness Expo at Sydney's Exhibition
Centre in Darling Harbour, where Island Spirit ® Australia™ made their expo
debut.
"The show was a huge success, and we sold all our stock" said General Manager,
Katrina Andrew, "There was a real excitement about our product given it is 100%
pure noni juice containing an abundance of nutrients and vitamins. Being
committed to good health, those in the industry such as Personal Trainers can
handle the taste too".
Each year over $500 million worth of noni juice is sold in the world and every
1.8 seconds someone buys a bottle of noni juice. In Australia there has been
poor and sporadic marketing of product, leading to low mainstream awareness.
Island Spirit ® Australia™ plan to move noni juice out of being purely in the
domain of the health and well- being sector and want to make it available to
mainstream society.
The Fitness Expo was the first step to achieving this and they are currently in
conversations with a number of gyms and retail super markets. Already, trainers
at Fitness First and other gyms are using it to further benefit their clients.
20 Febuary 2006
In January 2006 Island Spirit ® Australia™ received NASAA organic certification. "This is a mile stone for our company" said Managing Director Jason Andrew, "Anyone can say that they have an organic product, but NASAA have strict guidelines to ensure that customers receive organic produce each time they buy our product".
Formed in 1986, The National Association for Sustainable Agriculture, Australia (NASAA) is the nation's leading organic certifier – its main focus is on "providing quality, cost efficient organic certification services".
Although achieving organic certification is a very involved process it was made easier by the partners that Island Spirit ® Australia have chosen to produce their juice. Their supplier in Samoa has organic certification from NASAA and is the 2nd largest producer of noni juice in the world. Their fruit grows wild and on a handful of small organic plantations, they also have a dedicated Organic Consultant to ensure that NASAA standards are met at every stage of the process.
The juice is then shipped to Australia in 1,000 litre containers where it is contract packaged by Nutrition Care Pharmaceuticals. "We love using Nutrition Care Pharmaceuticals" said Jason,"they have a fantastic reputation in the market place and pride themselves on delivering quality service. It's also of comfort knowing that their other 300 product lines have TGA Certification"
NASAA Certification will be displayed on the new label coming out in Island Spirit Australia's next batch – keep an eye out for it.
1 January 2006
After the successful bottling of their first shipment of pure Samoan noni, Jason and Katrina Andrew celebrated with friends and colleagues at the official launch of their Australian operation - Island Spirit ® NONI.
A bringing together of two cultures underpinned the business and the desire to bring to market a premium, but affordable version of this amazing juice.
Noni has been big news around the world in the last decade due mainly to its apparent ability to maintain optimal health, alleviate numerous illnesses and diseases and generally boost the body's own immune system.
Unlike the worlds leading brand that generates over $1 billion in annual sales, the Andrew's are proud to bring a totally pure and organic noni to market that's not associated or sold through a Multi level marketing scheme. Their aim is to bring this wonder juice from the tropics to all Australians and then who knows?!
Noni has been used by the people of the South Pacific for more than 2000 years and was first brought to the attention of the west after being discovered by Captain James Cook in the late 1700s*.
* Source http://altmed.creighton.edu/noni/history.htm