SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. - TelAve -- 25 years ago, Brad Hampton was bringing Intel, HP and the USDOD into the internet age, and his book Creating Commercial Websites (Simon & Schuster/Sams, 1996) was known as the "Webmaster's Bible" for over a decade.  For the past 17, he's specialized in remote work technology and is now launching a company called QoWorks which aims to change how we work and to help save the planet in the process.

"We learned over COVID that many of us can work outside of the traditional office." says Hampton, "and companies are embracing that with flex working and coworking, but we've hit a problem."

The problem? In the suburbs, small towns and urban neighborhoods where people live, there aren't many flex or coworking facilities. This means that people who need to use an office space are forced to drive to city centers and business parks, so they're back on the freeways, sitting in traffic.  A recent poll showed 26% of workers would rather have a root canal than return to the office 5 days a week.

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"It's not the office, it's the commute," says Hampton, "and the commute is killing us!"  The self-described geek points to the numbers: "Every 1% reduction in the US commute equals planting over 180 million trees per year - that's a forest the size of Connecticut." Recently a critic used AI to try to contest his calculations. Their result? 217 million trees and a forest closer in size to Nebraska. "I like to keep my ideas progressive and my numbers conservative," replied Hampton.

His idea in this case is a disruptive approach to the US$19 billion coworking industry. "WeWork and the like need big commercial spaces to make economic sense - particularly when it comes to IT - but most of us live in places without big offices," says Hampton, who was recently Partnership Director for IWG, the world's largest coworking company. His solution was to create a simple all-in-one system that allows landlords to easily, inexpensively and immediately convert any space into coworking.

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"This is a disruptive technology - just like Ring was disruptive to home security," says Hampton about QoWorks (https://qoworks.com). The main component is a simple one-foot cube. The owner simply plugs it in, and the box does the rest. It provides state-of-the-art WiFi, reservations and billing, and enterprise-grade security. Users and operators alike can run it all from a phone app. The emphasis is on simplicity.

"I want everyone to be just a few minutes from their workplace, no matter where they are" says Hampton.