SILICON VALLEY ENTREPRENEURSHIP WORKSHOP

Thanks to our cooperation with YOUNOODLE.COM, the portal for entrepreneurs and competition organizers, Spark was happy to award a $2,500 tuition grant for a lucky Spark:Concept entrant. The Spark Jury chose a winner whose design, in their judgment, had good prospects for a business or NGO launch. Well–it turned out to be two!

The Entrepreneurship Immersion Summer Camp took place at Stanford University and in various hot Silicon Valley companies. For details check out Facebook: http://on.fb.me/l3eiv9

Rebeca Hwang, Younoodle CEO, is directing this exciting program, and we’re delighted to be able to follow the adventures of our prizewinners, Maria Pitallano and Kevin Cheng here at the Spark Blogs. Here’s their diary:

Hi Design Folks–Welcome to Entrepreneurial Boot Camp! This is a quick overview from Maria and I, an entry for our first class and some photos from the day.

Our month-long entrepreneur summer camp consists of roughly 30 or so attendees, many traveling from all over the world to attend, including South Korea, Mexico, and Singapore. The attendees (and their projects) vary – some with just pure concepts, others who have already started a business, and university students, majoring in everything from entrepreneurship to engineering: industrial, bio-medical, software.

Separated into 5-6 groups to work on business plans formed around a concept, the collaboration of this eclectic range of people make for a fascinating experience, especially for us industrial designers with no prior experiences in business.

The group concepts varied anywhere from website and mobile app services to new products, and we’re looking forward to seeing the progress that’s to come out of these groups by the end of the month.

Lecture Friday began with an international Skype conference with Jonas Kjellberg, who worked as VP head of sales at Skype helping lead it to its success today. He covered strategies, specifically how to maximize ”frequency”, “delight” and “business” in order to mature a healthy, innovative start up, and went into details of business make-up and team structures.

This was followed by a 6-person live Q&A session with founders of Silicon Valley start ups, including CruiseWise, Top Dish, and OVIA.  They discussed the hurdles of entrepeneurship, their failed attempts, and the benefits and drawbacks of starting up in Silicon Valley.

The last portion of class was made available for everyone to personally talk to these entrepreneurs allowing them to ask more personal questions involving start-ups of their own. Good stuff! 

Sunday, June 12:  The program hosted a barbeque-fueled hackathon event at YouNoodle HQ in South Park, where the class continued work on their projects and received feedback from VCs, founders, and tech experts in attendance.  Our group consisted of two designers (Kevin Cheng and Maria Pitallano), an engineering major, and three entrepreneurship majors.  Utilizing classic design methodolgies to assess each of the Spark:Concept entries, the group determined that Kevin’s 2P Portable Restroom would be the most viable to pursue within the short length of time allotted (less than a month!).

Monday, June 13:  Our morning began with Stanford professor Tom Kosnik compressing a 10-week course on business models into an hour-long presentation. Kosnik stressed the importance of customer development to validate business models, as well as the iterative nature of business models (no model survives first contact with customers).  We then spent the afternoon at Yammer,  an enterprise social network that facilitates and revolutionizes internal corporate communications (the Facebook of enterprises).  Adam Pisoni, co-founder and CTO, stressed the importance of product-driven engineers, that engineers should be as interested in product design as they are in technology.

Tuesday, June 14:
Stanford professor Tom Kosnik spent the morning lecturing on IP (intellectual property), discussing methods to protect our ideas and products that possess commercial value.  His presentation focused on how to find, then collaborate with lawyers in order to leverage and defend our IP.  The day was capped off with a company visit to the Founders Den, a shared office space for experienced entrepreneurs.  Two of the managing partners, Zack Bogue and Jonathan Abrams, emphasized the benefits of a shared working space – communal knowledge, energy, and general cameraderie.

Wednesday, June 15:
Drama!  New Directions! Late Tuesday night, our group mates from Tecnologico de Monterrey expressed concern about the viability of developing a business plan for a portable restroom in a three week period, so we met the following morning to discuss these issues.  The task of assessing costs, manufacturing, distribution, and identifying key partners was overwhelming to the teammates, and they wanted to focus on a concept that had a stronger technological component.

Maria led a 10 minute ideation exercise that proved to be fortuitous. The brief exercise generated 10 concepts that brought about a lot of excitement and energy to the group.  Through phases of voting, we were able to agree on the concept we were most excited about and move forward on a bike theft detection and deterrent device. We then celebrated at Axis Cafe, which oddly enough was playing Latin pop music.

At 5:30PM, our group met up with the rest of the class along with some MBA students from the University of San Francisco at Twitter HQ.  Over the last couple of years, the company has grown rapidly from a handful of employees to almost 600. We were led on an office tour, showing us their common area, equipped with a large projection screen, cafe, and DJ booth.

Employees, working on laptops, lounged on white couches lining walls where large windows allowed for a bright, sunlit environment. The other side of the building consisted of more sunlit work spaces filled with many desks and computers occupied by busy employees.  Our class then gathered into a conference room where a quick Q&A session was held about Twitter’s origins, where it’s at today, and where it plans to be in 20 years.
— All Best, from Maria & Kevin, following the yellow brick road!

 

 

 

 

June 20-23:
Kevin was in France for a wedding, while I was away due to a family emergency.  But the Track-It team had a successful first run of the presentation that was presented to a panel of VCs.  The idea of a GPS-enabled theft deterrent device for bikes was extremely well-received – the VCs were puzzled why it hadn’t been already developed.

June 24:
We were treated to a moving and inspiring panel on careers in social entrepreneurship.  Social entrepreneurs are realists w/ innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems.  They seek to enact wide scale change through new ideas.  The panel consisted of Tobias Rose-Stockwell of Human Translation, Eve Blossom of Lulan Artisans, and Claire Herminjard of Mindful Meats.

Here’s their story:

Tobias founded Human Translation in 2004, a nonprofit that has developed programs focused on the microeconomics of poverty alleviation, helping several thousand farmers in rural Cambodia double their agricultural income. While traveling in Cambodia in 2004, he came across a group that initially asked him to raise $20,000 for an irrigation system.  Essentially the price of a car, he didn’t think it was an unreasonable request.  It ended up taking five years and $250,000, but the results were immeasurable.  Tobias and his group mobilized a community torn apart by war to help build a dam and irrigation system that now helps them yield two crops of rice.  When asked to explain the key difference between an entrepreneur and a social entrepreneur, he said, “You have this metric for success that isn’t just profit.  I’m interested in building something scalable that isn’t just charity.”

Eve, trained as an architect, uses design for social change through Lulan.  She created a for-profit social venture that utilizes the talents of artisans in South East Asia. How she became involved was through a life-changing experience that led her to what she refers to as “disruptive entrepreneurship.”  At a dinner party in Vietnam, she overheard a male guest boasting to an acquaintance that he had arranged to have sex with a six-year old girl.  Despite contacting the local authorities, she was unable to stop him; the sexual predator had managed to double bribe the police and he even physically threatened Eve. At this point she realized that combating human trafficking on an emotional level would only lead to more failure; she needed to create a business that could compete with it, disrupt it.  Through her work with Lulan, she has not only employed weavers, dyers, and spinners, she has also assisted in benefits, such as education and housing, to improve quality of life in the villages, towns and communities. ” How many times do you turn your back on need?  There is always one day, one point in your life where you can’t turn your back on something.  That becomes your passion.”

Claire founded Mindful Meats, which is focused on making local, sustainably and humanely raised, meat more accessible. Claire views social entrepreneurs as “impact drivers,” explaining, “I’m coming to hate the term social entrepreneurship.  It doesn’t adequately describe the work, resourcefulness, scrappy nature of people in this space.”  Combining her public policy background with the skills gained working in tech, she began researching a market need and model for her own food business, to which she developed a curiosity and concern over the meat she consumed.  This led to the marriage of her belief in expanding consumers’ awareness and choice of meat with her career goal of being part of a business with a mission of tracking impact beyond profit.

Monday, June 27
The entire class boarded a shuttle to Stanford to visit the campus.  The hour-long ride was a great opportunity for our team to regroup and hammer out next steps to prep for the final presentation, as well as talk to other classmates about their projects.  Some of the feedback from the VCs was that 1) we needed to explain the obstacles that have prevented others from developing a GPS-enabled anti-theft device 2) articulate the benefits and delights of the device, and 3) identify what makes the product different from products/services out there.

Tuesday, June 28
Crunch time!  Tuesday was a working day, with all of the groups meeting separately to work on their final presentations.  We met at USF to finalize the device’s features, decide on whether to market to directly to bike manufacturers or to bike shops (bike shops won; our cyclist interviewees unanimously chose wanting to have this as a stand alone device rather than something pre-installed), and further assess current and future competition.  Kevin also made revisions to the device, lengthening the device, adding the technology, and materials changes.
–MP

June 29 – Final presentations were Friday!  In our last formal class, we presented our  concepts and business plans to not only our instructors, but several guest entrepreneurs and venture capitalists as well.  Our 10 minute presentations included a sports sponsorship app, a social advertising website, vaccine stabilizers for farm life, individually-tailored children books, a bike theft device, and a mobile image recognition app with each presentation followed by a Q&A.  Everyone did a great job and not one group came out of the program empty handed. To celebrate, everyone convened at Starbelly restaurant (16th and Market St.) where we shared dinner and had drinks. Many people gave speeches about what they’ve learned over this last month while toasting the program.

July 1 – A wrap-up class where we had a chance to give feedback on the course and discuss what we should do next with our concepts. The course instructors gave an overview of the future of entrepreneurship and gave guidance on what to expect on the route to success. 

Onwards and upwards now. Class is over, learned a lot. Time for the 4th of July and some Summertime fun!

All Best from Maria and Kevin

LETTERS FROM THE RING OF FIRE

Harrowing and heroic stories are reaching us from our Spark friends in Asia. We’ve posted several below. The first two are from Leimei Julia Chiu. Julia is the Executive Director of Japan’s Good Design Awards, and President-Elect of the ICOGRADA organization.

Julia—
I hope you and your loved ones are well.  Please—when it is convenient—send Spark an update on the Japanese design community and the latest efforts regarding the calamities.
—Peter

4/15/11
Hello Peter and the Spark Community—

At times like this, one can not help feel very different perspectives about how we can reposition design so that the profession can really be of service to the weak, the poor and those in need.

It will be a long-term commitment and we will need to learn how to combine and share our expertise.

We really need to bring people from different disciplines to start thinking about how we could work together- to help communities rebuild their lives at transitional shelters and afterward.

We will need everyone to help with this huge task.

At JIDPO, we have shifted all our projects towards how design can help with community-rebuilding in the northeastern areas.

Please see: “How can designers support relief efforts in Japan?”
http://www.jidpo.or.jp/en/news/2011/0401.html
http://www.jidpo.or.jp/en/news/2011/0401_2.html

I am contacting major design awards from around the world to collect good case studies/products/services/systems that could be of use to the reconstruction efforts.

INDEX (Copenhagen), Design Forum Finland (Helsinki) will be working with us for this project as part of the collaboration and AIGA (U.S.A.) has been helping with this effort. Both are promoting design/architecture in all disciplines.

Israel Community of Designers has created a facebook page which permits designers to express solidarity:
http://www.facebook.com/designers4japan

Another idea is as follows:
I will be working with Niigata Prefecture which has also experienced an earthquake several years back. The government has a project to integrate craft industries, manufacturers and designers to develop new products each year.
Here’s the website:
http://www.nico.or.jp/hyaku/english/

This year, I will be the design manager to direct this initiative and I am thinking of setting the theme as follows: How can we design products and systems for a better living environment, where people have been displaced, and are trying to reorient themselves to build a new life from scratch?

We need ideas. The companies in Niigata will realize these ideas into real products/systems after one year.

with warmest regards
—Julia

3/17/2011
Subject: deepest gratitude from julia/ tokyo, japan

Dear everyone–
Thank you so much for all the encouragement and offer to help the design communities in Japan.

I am deeply, deeply touched and will try to answer all your messages individually.

I will stay put in Tokyo for now and try to work out some plans for how design associations in Japan can help with the long term reconstruction efforts in the areas heavily hit by the earthquake/Tsunami.

We will probably need support from the international design community. I will keep you updated as we progress with the planning.

We are having rolling blackouts in Tokyo area to cope with the energy shortage so it might take me some time to respond.

with warmest thoughts and a big, big hug from Tokyo
–julia

And we have this reflective note from teacher, reporter, Reverend and friend Jaime, currently across the Sea of Japan in Northern China

3/16/11
Jaime R. Vergara
Special to the Saipan Tribune

Channel NewsAsia out of Singapore, along with CCTV 9 of Beijing, is following the unfolding crisis in Japan after the 9. Richter scale tremor, the strongest quake ever to shake the nation, and the subsequent tsunami that sent 10-meter-high waves 10 kilometers inland in Honshu, leaving the tarmac of the Sendai International Airport underwater, a local hospital still standing as the only refuge for some 300 persons in an area of collapsed structures, and 10,000 people from one village still remaining unaccounted for. The predictable aftershocks add damage and discomfort, but it is the threat of the nuclear meltdown of six reactors that is sending chills down everyone’s spine.

Not unlike humankind’s previous relationship to “flat earth,” which we now know to be spherical, and calling the experience of sundown as “sunset” when the earth actually turns, we never really consider land mass as floating tectonic plates on magma, but to appreciate how strong the earthquake in Japan was, the whole archipelago moved by a couple of meters and the axis of the planet itself shifted by a few centimeters!

Zen Japan is showing a remarkable face of solid calmness. News reports portray a nation intentionally going through the motions of a rehearsed drill in the midst of the surprising destruction that trails the wake of this disaster. The vaunted train system, one of the most sophisticated rails in the world that connects Kagoshima in south Kyushu to Wakkanai of north Hokkaido, shut down momentarily, along with its metro systems, at least in the urban centers of Honshu. Undaunted, people bought bicycles and pedaled home, while some just trudged and walked in the cold.

In 2002, we took a week-long retreat in late January before the cherry blossoms, taking the train from Narita to Sapporo in Hokkaido on the eastern corridor through Sendai, and returning on the western route through Akita and Niigata to West Tokyo. The cultivated and manicured countryside was a scene to behold, the tidiness of the trains and orderliness of its people a welcome respite from the hustle of crowd and mass humanity.

Although signs of juvenile vandalism-mainly graffiti-were evident in metro structures, the orderly Japan of our previous acquaintance, of nature both physical and societal disciplined into the level of art on terrain and population, was still very much and unmistakably alive! Majestic Mt. Fuji reigned as Hokusai’s rowers navigate the towering waves off Kanagawa in my sea of tranquility!

It is with deep appreciation that I recall that solitary week almost a decade ago, but as I watch today the deluge of painful unraveling that characterizes the Land of the Rising Sun, only the sound of silence is appropriate to express our profound sorrow of the innocent suffering unleashed.

A people’s tragedy, however, has awakened humanity’s empathy. Though its economy is one where its GNP far exceeds its GDP, showing barely any economic growth though ascending into international eminence, it has shown an economic arrangement where the concern for humanness matters. Japan projected a country with a human face.

Its virtues of simple elegance in cuisine and decor, lifestyle and landscape, custom and technology, its thrust toward moderation on all things in its post-WWII demeanor, has endeared it in many parts of the world; though it was saddled with the cruel memories of militarism, it also lived through the mushroom cloud brunt of Little Boy and Fat Man over the skies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The nation took this nuclear kamikaze and domesticated it for peaceful use. Now, the ice and the fire, the heat and the water, Mother Nature’s yin-yang elemental force comes calling on Nippon’s door again.

Presbyter and poet Ellie Stock wrote the following not too long ago:

What do I call what calls from the deeps,
that pulses through stars and quickens heart’s beat,
that surges through waves and cleanses with fire,
emerges from dust and breathes soul’s desire?
What do I name what mocks human pride,
that bends the tree of life, sustaining being’s tide?

It is with Zen calmness that we join Japan and the rest of the world in daring to give a name to that which emerges from the deeps, whether from the bowels of the earth, or from the deep abyss of the battered human soul.

The world joins that call of the deep as its K9s head for Tokyo to locate survivors. There is solidarity afoot in a world already grieved by the Gaddafis and the Tehrar Squares. But the ebb and flow of global reconciliation fills the air, and I, in my archaic season of Lent, smell the scent of transformation, in faith, hope and love. With T.S. Elliot and Zen calmness, I sing:

Quick now, here, now, always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well…
———————————————————–

Then, wham, we were slammed with all the pre-Spark deadline publicity–well, you probably experienced a bit of it. The Spark Jury finally convened in late October, and we all had a swell time. The Jury was Monday. The Awards Celebration and exhibition of winners was the following Friday. In between, all of the staff came down with a vicious bout of food poisoning. So things were a little out of sorts! Anyway we made it happen, the Spark party was fun and 2010 was a wrap.

Well, almost. For our final act, Spark Director Clark Kellogg and I went on a whirlwind tour of Korea, Taipei and Guangzhou. The Guangdong Industrial Design Association graciously invited Spark to mount an exhibition of the 2010 winners. The occasion was the GD Industrial Design Week. So this was both an honor and a pleasure.

The GDDW Themes were Talent, Fusion, Industry and Cooperation. We were part of the Fusion Pavilion.

And the finished Pavilion glowed with your winning Sparks.

A pioneer of Chinese design, Prof. Tong Huimin, Director of the Guangzhou Academy of Art, came by to welcome us to GZ. Prof. Tong is a great friend of Spark and we always enjoy seeing him again.

Next stop, Seoul, Korea– at a hot spot in a cold town. DesignKorea 2010 Expo was a lovely show, honoring design from the G20 Summit nations. We were delighted to meet with Nara Suh and Song Hyo-sik from the KIDP, the producers of the event.

A very interesting final stop on this tour brought us to the Taiwan Design Expo in Taipei. This was a show with lots of great student work, some incredible fabric and fashion design and some nifty electronics. Taiwan Design Center’s Vivian Wu and team filled us in on next October’s International Design Alliance Congress, and Spark’s contribution–hoping for something fresh and… Sparkly, please! (This show will be a doozy of a networking event. Don’t miss it.)

So ended a momentous year–and we lived through it! Back home we gave thanks, shoveled snow and rested up for the next round. All Best!