IST - integrated surface technology

Ciao a tutti,

Mi chiamo Loren….mmhh…maybe I didn’t start with the right language.

I will start again.

Hi everybody,

Here is Lorenzo, one of the Fulbright BEST students (actually one of the “Tuscany-BEST”).

This is the first time I am writing in this Blog and I should have many things to write about me. But I don’t want to bore the tons of people who will read my post. So if you are interested about my bio this is my linkedIn page, and you can find there a lot of info: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenzocalabri

Well, in this post I just would like to talk about the place where I am interning: IST (integrated surface technology – www.insurftech.com). Integrated Surface Technologies is the provider of Repellix, a supermolecular ceramic coating which is used to watersafe electronic devices.

It is a “real” start-up, whatever it means. As a matter of fact they just start working on their project and they have no funding yet. So basically in the IST case “start-up” means “young and poor”, that is the best period of an entity’s life. It is actually a very nice place. The executives are all experienced, they basically all come from “Applied Materials” and they all have long years experience on the management side.

The company is quite small, with 5 executives and a bunch of other few employees which occasionally help the company in designing the product.

My role is to assist the VP in various activities, such as:

1. New market space analysis and business plan

• Marine electronics
• Toys
• New hybrid laptop/web PCs

2. Demonstration assistance - preparing demo samples

3. Competitive analysis

So far the experience is exciting and very challenging and I am sure that in the next 5 weeks it will be even more useful.

Well, That’s all for the moment. I invite everyone who is interested about this conversation to contact me, through my LinkedIn contact or via e-mail: Lorenzo.calabri@gmail.com

Ciao ciao, Lorenzo

Dotcom life

And now I guess it's my turn... I am Daniele, one of the Fulbright BEST fellows!

A brief introduction: I come from a small town near Alessandria, in Northern Italy. I have got a MS degree in Telecommunication Engineering from Politecnico di Torino. I am now attending the last year of PhD in Electronic Engineering, at Politecnico di Torino. My research field is in the optical fibers technology: fiber sensors and lasers, and optical devices in general. I have achieved most of my results for applying signal processing to optics.

But my business experience, that I am acquiring at Santa Clara University, is leading me somewhere else. I will keep this topic in stand-by for a new post...

I am working at Experience Project (www.experienceproject.com), the biggest online anonymous community in US. It is a startup company based in San Francisco, downtown; it takes me about two hours to get to work, and I commute almost everyday... During my internship I will work on strategic issues, for the expansion of community, basically for porting EP to the the smartphone market and entering non-US countries.

Working for a dotcom on market strategy means ranging from the very top level to the very bottom. In a startup, fewresources are allocated for market analysis, and workforce is more focused on programming and keeping the pace with the required rate of innovations. This means that decisions should be often taken in a while, on the basis of data but also of personal perceptions. I have been starting with financial data, market projections, trends and rumors, and following the way down, I have found myself browsing the EP website with an iPod Touch to get the feeling on how comfortable the website is for mobile access.

In the end, working for a community means to put a lot of yourself, your knowledge, your perspectives and your way to participate, in each decision. And keeping finger crossed, because you seldom know which are the real drivers.

Want to know more about Experience Project? Here's a TV show, on air two days ago on ABC television, and called "A view from the bay". Look at Armen, our CEO, interviewed at the show:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=view_from_the_bay/tech_gadgets&id=6629455

And then join us at EP, it's free and anonymous!

Stay tuned,

Daniele

Living in the Valley

Hi guys!
It's Riccardo from Silicon Valley, the best place to turn ideas into business! I am one of the Italian Fulbright-BEST (Business Exchange and Student Training) scholars studying entrepreneurship at the Santa Clara University during the 2008/09 a.y. Wow!
Let me give you a brief description of myself. One year ago, I got the Master Degree in Automation Engineering from the University of Padua, developing a navigation system for sailboats during the thesis. Afterward I came across the Fulbright scholarship, an opportunity to learn how to get a business from this idea and...here we are!
Since my arrival in September 2008, I have been attending classes on Finance, Business Planning, and Marketing Strategy at the Leavey School of Business, a very amazing place to study! Moreover, during the Winter quarter I am interning for MobClix (see www.mobclix.com), a company that helps iPhone app developers ramp their business up. Here I am analyzing all the forces that compete in the Apple Store marketplace, focusing on pricing issues and marketing strategies.
I will give you news and pictures about the fun I have in the Valley in the next posts.

Stay tuned,

Riccardo
www.linkedin.com/in/riccardomarcon