CTE Blog

Internship and classes

2009-02-26T23:58:00.000-08:00

As I anticipated in my other post, I am conducting an internship at Funambol (www.funambol.com), a software start-up based in Redwood City, who is a supplier of push email and mobile synchronization solutions for billions of mobile phones. Funambol is also the largest mobile open source project in the world, tapping into a global community of 50,000 developers and project participants. The company distributes its open source software for free to end users and sells a commercial version to mobile device manufacturers, portals, independent software vendors, mobile operators and service providers. The internship focuses on marketing, and I work closely with Hal Steger, VP Marketing, and remotely with Stefano Maffulli, Community Manager, based in Italy. In fact, about half of the employees and all R&D are based in Pavia, Italy. My involvement is 9am-5pm Tue-Fri (on Mondays, until 3:30pm), save when there are events or special lectures (e.g. SCLL) organized by the school. I spend over 90% of this time at the company headquarters. The marginal rest consists in working remotely from home, including Skype calls with Stefano in Italy.

Funambol focused since its beginning on the mantra: “BlackBerry-alternative for the mass market”. More recently, they have been promoting an open source Mobile'We' solution for the rest of us, which is a reference to Apple's MobileMe sync service, except that Funambol is open and works with billions of phones, not just iPhones. Their business relates to the “disruptive technology” in the categorization proposed by Prof Hendershott in class, as it incorporates both elements of ideas in that category: 1) Mobile phones are becoming the personal computing platform in the near future for their convenience, portability and cost, and 2) However, mobile phones as personal platforms face a long journey to general adoption due to skepticism of being “found” everywhere and because of the high prices of smartphones. Push email is a necessary component of mobile computing, and some people speculate that it may supplant short text messaging (SMS) in the mid term.

The strategy that Funambol has chosen to enter the market follows the principle of going after a limited set of market segments, as explained by Prof Bruno in his class. Funambol focuses on five segments: mobile device manufacturers, portals, service providers, independent software vendors and mobile operators. Leads from small and medium businesses, governmental agencies and large enterprises outside the mobile industry, and individuals, are redirected to partners or the Funambol community for assistance. This strategy enables Funambol to focus its R&D, sales and marketing resources on high value customers as well as meet the needs of its broader user base and community, a process the company refers to as 'Funambolism' (walking a tightrope).

Prof Griffith told us how to analyze the features of a product to clarify the marketing message, and how to make “intangible” features trigger more “tangible” motivations from the customer’s side. Funambol, as aforementioned, is the leading mobile open source project, which means that tens of thousands of developers worldwide contribute code to the Funambol project. Communicating the advantages of this approach to customers is not easy. Funambol’s marketing message verges on the concept of being able to work with “billions of mobile phones” worldwide, which is a large percentage of the estimated 3.5 billion mobile phones worldwide. This is because Funambol’s mobile client software is adapted by community developers for their handsets and then made available to the community. In this way, Funambol supports the broadest possible array of handsets, much more than competitors. The message about support for “billions of phones” makes this complex mechanism more immediate, easier to grasp, and more “tangible”.

Working in Funambol changed my perception a lot of what it would be like working in a start-up. I come from a career in public research, having spent three years in universities and five years in public research centers. I thought that working in a start-up would be much different but instead it is quite similar. In a start-up (as in a research lab) everybody works very closely with the “practical matter”, i.e. there is very little distance from the typical employee (or researcher) and the product (or research project) being pursued. This is true at all levels, from the marketing assistant (my role as an intern) to top management. It is a team effort, and the free and fast circulation of critical information is seen as an asset, exactly the same way it is perceived in a good research lab. Furthermore, developing and marketing a product in a start-up is very similar to starting a multi-year project in research: in both, you develop a long-term vision, attract funds (or grants, for research), stay focused and keep your team focused (something researchers tend not to do all the time), and efficiently communicate results (publications) to gain credit for your next product (research line) and attract the most valuable people to work with you. Ah, and I had forgotten how much I like foosball.

Full immersion

2009-02-08T22:18:00.000-08:00

printf("Hello world!\n");

This is Paolo, I am an Electric Electronic engineer (a "double E", as they say here in the Valley) who left hardware for software for a PhD in Computer Vision. That is more coherent that it may seem, as my specialization as a EE is in laser optics. So "light" is a constant in my life, as it is its speed in the physical world.

Let's make one point since the very beginning: The experience in the Valley is awesome! Before applying for the Certificate in Technology Entrepreneurship I was a bit skeptical. After 5 years of professional R&D and consulting it seemed bizarre to go back to school. Spending hours on books and abroad could actually slow my plans to start a technological company in Italy, so I took my time to decide whether applying for the program.

Now that I am here, I feel stupid I doubted coming. I find that the faculty at Santa Clara University has done a great job in putting together a course focused on entrepreneurship for scientific and technical people. Although there are for certain some things that can be proved in the course (and I understand that they will be improved next year), being at Santa Clara has advantages not limited to the academic curriculum...

There is a whole world out there! I am grasping the opportunity to participate in as many events as possible around the Valley. Earlier this week I have attended a VC TaskForce event (www.vctaskforce.com) where entrepreneurs were pitching for money in front of angel investors. Last week I listened to a talk by Guy Kawasaki, an "icon" of the Silicon Valley, as it has been said. He may be, for his own admittance, a failure as a venture capitalist, but he is endowed with exceptional communication and motivation skills that he directs at encouraging new entrepreneurs to get started. It was a very energetic experience indeed.

And these are only two examples. In the Valley there are entrepreneurs meetups almost every week, new and aspiring entrepreneurs can find infinite possibilities to test their ideas against opinions of other entrepreneurs and knowledgeable professionals. I have met so many entrepreneurs in these months that I cannot count them (my collected business cards stand for over 2 inches thick!).

Another important part of this experience is the internship. I chose to intern in marketing, something every good engineer considers as smoke in the eyes. I am changing my mind, marketing is essential to business and... not that easy either. I work with Hal Steger, Vice President of Marketing at Funambol (www.funambol.com) - a startup doing open source push mail (they are The largest open source project for mobiles worldwide). Funambol has been founded by an Italian entrepreneur, Fabrizio Capobianco (www.funambol.com/blog/capo/), and has a development center in Italy. It is impressive how Fabrizio created such an effective and capable team, and how he runs the business from here and the R&D in Italy. There is a lot to learn in Funambol, apart from marketing...

for(i=0;i<100000;i++) {
printf("Take care!\n";}

IST - integrated surface technology

2009-01-30T17:08:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-30T12:19:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-25T10:58:00.000-08:00

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

Among the Redwoods..

2007-05-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

Hello guys!

Long time not talk to you…life here is so busy and now I finally understand what they meant when, the first week spent in Silicon Valley, a guy from BAIA told us: Trust me, you will forget to eat and you won’t have enough time to sleep! Gaetano, did you remember? It was Giorgio and we were in the Redwood Room of one of the nicest hotel in San Francisco! Ok, he was right, but when I think to the future and to how I will remember this wonderful experience, I realize the importance of this blog…it will be great to read again these notes and the comments left by people met here. We’ll be missing all of them and this blog will be a way to retrace moments spent together and to keep in touch! Sometimes I love technology!!!

Inside a tree..

So, coming back to our daily activities…at present I am working as an Intern in the Business Development Unit of CoMentis (formerly Athenagen), a private held biotech company located in South San Francisco.

http://www.athenagen.com/

Every day I commute from San Jose, it takes about 50 minutes…it’s a long trip, but fortunately I don’t travel alone but I do carpool with my dear flat-mate Valentina, cause she works in the city as well, so we can talk during the trip and also take advantage of the carpool lane in the freeway (it goes much faster and it‘s funny to overtake other cars!). Btw, my daily schedule is from 8.30 to 3.30, because later I have to be in Santa Clara for our evening classes starting at 5 pm. So far, I have enjoyed very much my working activity at CoMentis: I mean, everything is pretty new for me…I have never worked before in the business field, dealing with finance and accounting stuff…but is so interesting to learn new things and in activities like competitive intelligence analysis or companies evaluation, I have the chance to use my scientific background to better understand the commercial landscape and to monitor competitors. What I hope is to keep on in this job and to learn as much as possible!

Moreover, we are going on writing our business plan through Mr Decitre class: it is very challenging, but the more you put in it, the more you will get from this exercise and I really hope to be able to capitalize on this work once come back to Italy!

Before saying goodbye, I’d like you to enjoy this wonderful picture taken by Micol last week end (thanks Micol for this wonderful reportage!). We were just outside San Francisco (Point Reyes), but the countryside was so quiet and beautiful that we felt like being miles away!!

The Lighthouse and the Ocean..... wonderful...

Among the Redwoods....

See you later,

Yours,

elizabeth

2007-05-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

Hello folks,

Long time no write you…I am very sorry for it because this blog is going to be the diary of this amazing experience!!!

However, now we are in the middle of the second quarter and in the heart of the internship…and it lasts only 2 months before going back to Italy……….NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO….what a terrible thing to say…

Let me explain why we are so sad…it is not because we don’t want to go back to Italy (actually, we miss it a lot!!!) but because these months here were so exciting…and challenging…and busy…and funny…and…so on….that we haven’t really realized that the time was passing very fast and this program is going to end!!!!

By the way, today I am going to talk you about the company where I am performing my internship.

FivePrime Therapeutics, Inc. is a pre-clinical stage biotech company discovering and developing innovative protein and antibody therapeutics. FivePrime is using its world-class discovery platform to build a strong pipeline that currently includes products in development for cancer and diabetes and multiple leads in metabolic and immunologic diseases, oncology and regenerative medicine.

FivePrime is located in Mission Bay in San Francisco…

................yyyeeessss…it is exactly what now you are thinking….I

commute everyday from San Jose’ to the city…

.............fortunately, Elisabetta works in South San Francisco so we do carpool together and it makes the commute a little bit less heavy and boring!!!

I work with the business development team to figure out the potential market for a new protein the company is developing.

It is very interesting and stimulating working with the BDU team..I have always worked in the Academia and, in particular, in the lab, so you can image how everything is completely new and challenging for me!!!! I am really honoured and happy to have the possibility to join such a successful and competitive company!!!

Now, let me talk you about a party where we went a couple of weeks ago….the Yuri’s Night Party at the NASA research center…

Yuri Gagarin was the first human to go into space on April 12th, 1961. The US Space Shuttle first launched on April 12th, 1981. Yuri's Night is like the St Patricks Day or Cinco de Mayo for space. It is one day when all the world can come together and celebrate the power and beauty of space and what it means for each of us.

The BEST!!!!!!!

It was a really funny and amazing party and it lasted until late!!!

Ok…that’s enough for today…write to you soon

Besos

Vally

news fron California..

2007-04-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

Hello Folks!

How are you doing?

Here everything is going very well!

There are several stuff that I would like to share with you and the matter is that I don’t know exactly where to start!
Last time I wrote you was before the Spring Break (end of march, beginning of april).
For that period we had a week off and we planned to move toward the South of California! Angela, a friend of mine from Italy (one of my best friends who "lived" with me the years of University overcoming together small and huge difficulties!!), joined Emanuele (my Sardinian flat mate) and me in this adventure!
We drove all along the coast on the “highway 1”. What’s wonderful view!!
We did the “17miles drive” a nice private road among unbelievable mansions, beaches, woods and golf courses.

We stopped also in san Luis Obispo, Pismo Beach, Santa Barbara where we rented a funny bike for driving on the path near the beach!

Then we moved to Santa Monica (where we got lost in the middle of a film set on the Pier), and to LA, where we met Miguel, Spaniard Fulbright scholar, known in march at the Fulbright seminar in San Francisco (thanks Miguel, you have been a really professional guide!!!!).

Finally we drove to San Diego(is pretty drive in the LA nearby!!!) where we met Elisabetta e Valentina (I was missing them so much!!) and Chiara,a friend of Elisabetta from Italy.

On Saturday night we flew back to San Jose, on Sunday Angela left and on Monday our”normal life” started again! I don’t think that we could define a really normal life the experience we are living here in these six months!
Anyway, we started the spring quarter and we are attending three courses. These are very interesting and focused on the reason why we are here! In fact, among these course(strategic marketing and accounting) we are attending a Business Planning course customize just for us! It’s both interesting and very challenging! First of all because we are only five students, that is to say that the professor could really help each one of us in our specific project (and also it means that you have to pay attention every single second!!!??). Moreover the final aim of this course is to create the business plan of our scientific project and to prepare ourselves for the famous Elevator Pitch!!!!

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator)

Concerning my internship, they keep me pretty busy and everyday there are new stuff to learn!!! It’s so great!

I think I’ve done for this time, trying to bring you up to date!!

See you soon
Cheers!!!!
Micol

BOOTING A NEW QUARTER UP!

2007-04-05T12:57:00.000-07:00

Hi folks!

Good news from the Valley!

Spring Break has finished...

and the new quarter finally came and all of us are again fighting for the everyday life, while trying to meet all our commitments.

Moreover, compared to the previous quarter we are going deeper in our internships so it's getting harder and harder, guys!

But anyway we are pretty much happy with it because every day we can learn new things.

I'm getting to the hearth of my internship with BIOIDENT.

BIOIDENT Technologies is a technology leader in the development of printed semiconductor based photonic lab-on-a-chip solutions for the life science market. The company’s core technology utilizes the latest breakthroughs in science and nanotechnology to create the BIOIDENT PhotonicLab™ platform. The BIOIDENT platform is used to produce the world’s first disposable photonic lab-on-a-chip solution for next generation mobile analytics applications such as water and food analysis, chemical and biological agent detection, and point-of-care diagnostics.

Basically I'm asked to organize a business plan competition and to do market research in their field, namely organic semiconductor sensors.

How to Reduce Global Warming and Make Humans Omnipresent Using Virtual Worlds

2007-03-18T11:36:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody,

I’m back, sorry to not have written a lot lately,
but I have had to fight hard to find and choose the best internship and finally I made it.
Did I miss You?
I hope so…in any case I’m now back…
On Thursday I went to one of the most interesting conference I’ve attended since I’m here titled:
- How to Reduce Global Warming and Make Humans Omnipresent Using Virtual Worlds -

PARC Forum: George E. Pake Auditorium, Palo Alto, CA , USA

The Forum was focus on Virtual Worlds, past, present, and future, it began with a live demo of a virtual world application to illustrate concepts and capabilities. Than David discuss the history and current state of applications based on virtual world technology. The discussion of the future presented a vision of how virtual worlds may develop, including how interconnected virtual worlds could someday evolve into a 3D Internet that will allow people to make a quantum leap in how they communicate and collaborate and will fundamentally change the nature of society, redefining the norm for human interaction. The Forum concluded with a presentation of technical challenges that must be resolved for this vision to be realized.

The speaker Dave Rolston has more than 35 years of experience in high tech. His experience spans a broad spectrum of industries, applications, and technologies including simulation and training, graphics applications, imagery, gaming, artificial intelligence, entertainment, and the early Internet. During his career, Dave has performed in various roles, including technical, business, operational, and general management assignments. Before Forterra, Dave served as VP of Engineering for ATI, responsible for design of graphics chips that drive many of the world's PC's and game consoles. Prior to joining ATI, Dave was CEO of MultiGen-Paradigm, which produces foundational software and content development for the visual simulation industry. After MultiGen-Paradigm was acquired by Computer Associates, Dave served as a Senior VP, managing MultiGen-Paradigm, Viewpoint, and other content-development organizations. Before MultiGen-Paradigm, he worked for Silicon Graphics, starting as the Director of Marketing and later serving as GM of the Advanced Graphics Division. Prior to SGI Dave was a divisional GM of TRW subsidiary ESL, developing applications mostly for the defense and intelligence community. Earlier in Dave's career, he was a Honeywell, Inc., engineering fellow, responsible for corporate activity in artificial intelligence. Dave has a BS in civil engineering, MS in industrial engineering, and PhD in computer science with emphasis in simulation and artificial intelligence. Dave is a registered professional engineer and has taught engineering at several universities and served with several engineering industry consortiums. He holds several patents, has published a large number of technical papers and a best-selling book on artificial intelligence.

We also have had an interesting conversation at the end of the event!!

Me and Divid

Me and Steve

Next Week we will have the finals Exams so now I must go to study!

C U soon
Abramo

BTW: On the way back I also found a new road sign, never seen before!!!!
Have you ever seen it before?

You must "cross the chasm"

2007-03-05T01:06:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody!

Just wanted to say

to you all and to the old quarter that has almost gone away...

Now we have to cross the line and then, immediately we'll be starting a new competion, the next quarter!!!

We are going to attend three classes on the next quarter. Among these is a very customized (just five of us!) class that will be focused mainly on how to prepare an appealing business plan.

The classes will be taken by Mr. Guillaume Decitre.

He's French but he has been living in California together with his family in the next 9 years. He's a venture capitalist.

He's really a nice person. We had french/italian breakfast with him while going through the syllabus... Europe sweet Europe...

He suggested us that we should read the book "Crossing the chasm" [by Geoffrey Moore] before our classes start .

Moore's basic thesis works off this picture:

The area of each segment corresponds roughly to the number of people who fit its profile.

The technology enthusiasts are the sort of people who jigger the microwave so they can cook their hands to "see what it feels like". (I know someone who did that. He said it feels weird.)

Visionaries are less oriented to exploration, more to exploitation. They are people who see breakthrough potential in some technology and are willing to brave hell and high water to realize that potential. From the vendor's point of view, the nice thing about both groups is that they're not too bothered by the fact that the product doesn't work. They're willing to make it work.

Pragmatists want a product that works. They are not interested in debugging it. They want to be able to hire people who've used it. They want to find books about it in the bookstore. If there's customization that's needed, they want to find third parties who can do it. Better yet, they want to buy third-party packages written for people just like them. In short, they don't just want a product. They want a 100% solution to their business problem. If they get the 80% that delighted the visionary, they feel cheated, and they tell their pragmatist friends.

Conservatives buy products because they really have no choice. They want products that are cheap and do their job as unobtrusively as possible. They are not reassured by the existence of books about the product, because it implies the product isn't simple enough to use.
Skeptics are not going to buy, though they may talk other people out of buying.

Technology adoption is supposed to go from left to right. The technology enthusiasts fiddle with a technology to discover if it's real. If it is, they tell the visionaries. The visionaries then will pass the good word on to the pragmatists. When you're the market leader among the pragmatists, you're finally making the money you promised in your business plan. You also have enough volume and experience that your products are cheap enough and undemanding enough for the conservatives. The skeptics can remain in their cabins in the woods.
The problem dealt with in Crossing the Chasm is that the visionaries aren't in fact good references for the pragmatists. They provide tales of heroics - not stories of smooth, predictable adoption. Pragmatists want references from other pragmatists. (Think about it: if your goal in life, like mine, is to do as little lawn work as possible while avoiding the censure of your neighbors, who do you ask for advice? The person who's out there every weekend tending their gorgeous lawn, or the person you never see?) Pragmatists want a safe buy from the market leader - but there isn't one yet. Crossing the Chasm is about getting the first toehold in the pragmatist market.

Thanks Guillaume for such an interesting and stimulating reading!

See you on April 2nd!

Emanuele

my first week..

2007-03-04T22:18:00.000-08:00

Hello guys,

how are you doing?

I'm good and I'm going to tell you about.....

MY FIRST WORKING WEEK!!!

I started my internship last monday at Panomics Inc., a biotech company located in Fremont.

I was so excited because is was not only my first working week but also my first work experience!!

As I told you the first time I posted this blog, I took my master degree last november and after that I moved here. I mean, I worked in the lab for one year performing my thesis project but I was still a student!

Now I entered the real working world!

When I was a kid(not a long time ago?!), I believed that this "strange place" in the world called "the Silicon Valley" was a sort of fictional world! I was not able to figure out what kind of place it could be! But now I'm here and I started working here, in this"strange place" and everything is real, everything exists!

I usually go to work at 8.00am by car and even if there's a lot of traffic on the freeway in the morning (it's the rush hour!) because everyone here in california has a car (at least one?!), is so nice drive early in the morning, listening to the radio and looking at the landscape around!

Before starting I'm getting into the habit of having a huge cup of American coffee, setting in my pretty cubical and then..let's the day start!

I'm having a great experience, both exciting and challenging and I'm learning a huge amount of things trying to do my best!

I met a lot of people during this week, people coming from all over the world, and everyone was so nice saying me "Welcome on board!". That feels nice!

First off all I think that for being able to do your best you have to feel good, and I'm feeling like this!

The week passed so fast!

Tomorrow is monday and another week is starting and I feel like starting!

Before saying you goodbye..

just a small gift to "Italy" and especially to Lu and Bella....from "Pierino la Peste"

See you soon guys!!

Micol

US capital and Italian heart: a successful story...

2007-03-01T22:10:00.000-08:00

Hello folks!

welcome back..last night I didn't write my weekly part to this blog, because we went to the SVIEC event in Athenarton, at the Libraros' house.

It was one of the periodical events organized by Mr Jeff Capaccio for the SVIEC members. SVIEC is the Silicon Valley Italian Executive Council, a group of Italian and Italian-American technology executives,who meet together on an informal basis to network, socialize and stay current on issues relating to technology, the law, government and public policy.
http://www.carrferrell.com/about/sviec.html

As a special group of technology executives within the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF), and for strengthening the ever increasing cultural and economic ties between Italy and the U.S., SVIEC hosts bi-monthly gatherings where its members can meet other Italian and Italian American technology executives from the San Francisco Bay area, as well as hear from highly-influential guest speakers on a variety of compelling topics.

Speaker invited yesterday was Mr Fabrizio Capobianco, CEO of Funambol, who held a very interesting presentation titled:

"Mobile Open Source and the Funambol Model: US Capital and Italian Heart"

Last January the editors of American Venture Magazine appointed Fabrizio Capobianco one of the top 40 technology executives, venture capitalists, inventors and philanthropists under the age of 40 who are driving new growth in the industry. Capobianco was recognized for his vision to put mobile email and other mobile data services on commodity phones by tapping a global community of developers. It has been a real pleasure to meet him and to know that a so young entrepreneur (and most of all an italian one) has been aknowledged by an american review!!!

And last, but not least, before listening to the presentation, we enjoyed a great dinner prepared by one of the most popular italian restaurant in Palo Alto, La Strada. Moreover, there was some great italian wine and coffee!!! Most of all, however, it has been a unique opportunity of networking, where we had the chance to know some of the most influential executives of the valley!

SVIEC meeting: with us, Mr Jeff Capaccio, SVIEC founder

...we hope to join next meeting as well, so that we can let you know about other challenging and successful ITALIAN stories....

See you soon...

Yours,

Elizabeth

Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford University: Opening Ceremony!!!

2007-02-26T22:42:00.000-08:00

Hi guys,

today I would like to tell you about our visit at Stanford University!!!
The campus is very huge...and it would have been very nice to go around it...unfortunally Saturday was a raining day...so we couldn't have a trip around this wonderful campus!!!

On Saturday, February 24th, there was the "Opening Ceremony and Launch Party" of the

Speaker Line-Up:

* John Hennessy, President, Stanford University
* Carl Schramm, President CEO, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
* Steve Jurvetson, Partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson

The President of Stanford, Mr. Hennessy spoke about what makes Stanford University such a successful Entrepreneurhip center:

1) Develop the willingness to approach problems in a high innovative way!

2) Freedom to Pursue ideas and dreams!

3) Community that embraces change and challenge people!

4) Has a lot of young people who sees a glass half full and not half empty!

5) Willingness to take on challenge in building unique team of people, innovators and entrepreneurs!!

After the prsentations, they spoke about the Challenge Competition:

The challenge is to use an everyday object - A PAD OF 100 3"x3" POST-ITS - to create as much "value" as possible

"Value can be measured in many different ways... How will you measure it?
Tap into your entrepreneurial spirit... Get your creative juices flowing... And, create as much value as possible!
To be successful you will need to challenge assumptions, seize opportunities, and be creative!"

Unfortunately, we can't partecipate to this Competition because it is only for Stanford Students...but it will be interesting to see what they are going to create!!!!

I'll let you know....

The Fulbright Girls at Stanford in front of The Electrical Engineering Building

See you soon

Cheers,

Vally

2007-02-23T17:31:00.000-08:00

HELLO EVERYBODY!
How are you?
I fell all right!
Last week I took my E-Commerce mid term exam and it was great to have the possibility to put myself through the hoops!!

But….after this labour of Hercules (?!?!?) we needed some days off ..as my room mates told you!
Anyway, even if hanging around in these beautiful places is so nice, on Thursday we started working again, attending classes and doing networking!

In fact yesterday we went to a seminar in Berkeley.

The seminar, managed by the Berkeley Entrepreneurs Forum and hosted by the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (http://entrepreneurship.berkeley.edu/forum.asp), was about:
"Your Brain in Ten Years—New Startups Advancing Technologies to Keep Your Brain Healthy and Happy, and to Enhance its Abilities"
The speakers invited belong to different companies involved in Neurotechnology that is to say that their aim is to create drugs, devices and therapies to help ensure your “brain’s future health”.
These speaker were:
John Doback, M.D., Founder of Innercool therapies, the technology leader in temperature control therapy.
Zack Lynch, Founder of Neurotechnology Industry Organization, a non-profit trade organization that represents a broad spectrum of companies involved in Neurotechnology.
David Summa, CEO of Acumen Pharmaceuticals, a pre-clinical drug development company that is developing the first effective therapeutics and diagnostics that prevent Alzheimer's disease.
Jeff Zimman, CEO of Posit Science Corporation which provides “Brain Fitness Program”, a series of computer-based exercises that are scientifically proven to improve important brain functions.
And finally the Moderator Jim Glasheen who joined Technology Partners from CIT Venture Capital, where he served as Managing Director, leading the Group's efforts in Life Science investing.

This seminar was very useful to better understand the relevance of this field of study, investment requirements, research and development challenges and regulatory milestones, the Neurotechnology industry should face.

After the seminar since fitness isn’t just about your body but is also about your brain and your heart we were invited from some friends of us for dinner! Max is a really good cook and he prepared for us a delicious Italian pasta!!!thanks Max and Ale..we felt at home!!

See you later guys!!
Micol

On the crest of a wave...

2007-02-22T11:30:00.000-08:00

Hello guys!

welcome back...today is a sad rainy day...we don't feel like being in California :-(

Anyway last week end we went to Capitola, an intimate beach village tucked in a river valley in Santa Cruz County on the Monterey Bay. The City’s wharf and riverside areas remind one of a village in France or perhaps a Mediterranean coast in Italy...we really met a piece of our beloved country over there..and actually it was so sunny that people were on the beach just tanning and surfing..and it's only February!!!

A surf board on every car...
Then, after the longer week end due to the President's Day, lessons started again on Tuesday: we have received results of the mid-term exams and we are pretty satisfied! Yesterday, we attended a seminar of the SC leadership lecture series.
www.scu.edu/business/sc-leadership-lectures
It was held by Ms Peg Wynn, senior vice president of Human Resources at Adobe Systems Incorporated. She manages the recruitment, development, compensation and benefits programs for more than 5000 emplyees wordwide!!! She's super! Moreover, before joining Adobe, she had several experiences in consulting, strategic planning and management. Starting from her background she focused on 10 main principles which describe leaders virtues....and that I want to share with you..

1) Change and adapt..or you'll rust!
2) You can weather any storm with a good team!
3) What you have in your mind will shape your future!
4) Build a portfolio of skills
5) Get outside your comfort zone
6)Be hold or go home. Be willing to upset the status quo
7)Challenge people to be their best
8)Know when it's time to leave
9) Figure out a way to have it all!
10)Pursue your dream!

I have really appreciated these suggestions, I found them so interesting and concrete, mostly because for each of them, she told us about a related personal experience she faced. I am sure you will enjoy them as well...

Now I have to run because Kevin (http://www.scu.edu/business/cie/about/mngmnt/)
is waiting for us for our weekly meeting!!!

See you all later,

Yours

Elizabeth

President's Day

2007-02-20T11:53:00.000-08:00

Hello folks,

sorry if I haven't written to you for

such a long time

but I was

really busy to study for the mid-term exams!!!

We hope they went well...we did our best to pass them...

...and now we are crossing our 's fingers!!!

However..today is The President's Day and I would like to take this chance to wish you all the best!!!

Today we went to Palo Alto for a football match "North vs South of Italy"...and the players are Italian entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley...it was really nice and fun!!!

This event was organized by Mr. Michele Libraro.

Mr. Michele Libraro is the President and CEO of Global Startups, LLC. As one of Silicon Valley's influential insiders, Mr. Libraro has played a pivotal role in the life of many important projects including leading Cisco's expansion in to the European Service Provider market, and helping startups like P-Cube be successful in the European market. Mr. Libraro currently leads all client projects for Global Startups. A key component to his approach that brings immediate value to clients, is helping to identify the business case behind new ventures.

We met Mr. Libraro at a meeting at SCU last Tuesday. It was very interesting because he gave us a lot of advice to create a start-up in Italy.

He told us that the Silicon Valley’s Favorite F-Word is:

Failure

.........you have to failure to be successful!!!

After the football match...(just for your information, The South of Italy won the match...) we went to eat all together to an Italian Restaurant. It was a very important opportunity for our networking!!!

In the afternoon, we went to Gilroy Factory Outlet to shopping!!!

We found a lot of convenient sales...I suggest you to go there absolutely..it's worth a visit!!!

Finally, we went to eat to "IN-N-OUT"...it is a typical Californian fast food!!

That was our President's Day....

See you next week

Cheers,

Vally

Work in Progress!

2007-02-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody!

This week we are very very busy because of the midterm exams... E-commerce, Finance and so on.. so we regret to inform you that we won't be posting any message on this blog till next week BUT..., dont' worry, this means that next we 'll have more info about us to share with you.

We just want to say ourselves for these exams ...

BREAK A LEG!

..a meaningful experience..

2007-02-09T00:44:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody!

How are you?
Here everything is going well!

First of all I would to thank people who came to our party last Saturday! It was enjoyable cooking Italian food for everyone!!

On Tuesday we got the chance to attend the second lecture of our Leadership course. If you remember Elisabeth and Emanuel told you about the first one we have attended.
I want to share with you this experience because it was really exciting and very interesting.
The speaker was Bob Phillips, President and CEO, Guide Dogs for the Blind.
Guide Dogs is the largest guide dog program in North America, serving over 3000 blind.
The core value of this organization is matching a skilled dog with a blind person to create a guide dog team.

I was totally involved in his speech because he talked as a man and not as a leader and he let us see the idea of leadership from a different perspective.
He started his speech asking us the following curious question…
What are you lacking from inside of you to receive your success and your goals?
And the answer was…
NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
Maybe you have only covered up some of your extraordinary qualities!

In fact he told us that to become a leader “from heart” first of all you have to become a fully man!

A good leader is someone who is able to listen to other people, to get in touch with them, to help them.
A leader has to feel and to live his personal and business life with head, mind and especially with heart because, he said, life is love and to be loved!

He said that a leader should create a deeper connection with world around him by love, joy, compassion, forgiveness, legacy, well-being and interdependence!
There is a huge power in collaboration!

The take home message I had was: TRUST IN YOURSELF and HELP other people with your energy!!

I was in tune with him because I think that with love and collaboration we can really change the world!!!!!!!!

THINK POSITIVE!

See you soon

Micol

Science: A Business Perspective

2007-02-07T22:28:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody...

don't be scared..I don't want to be too serious tonight..the title of my blog is just the title of the seminar I attended tonight in Palo Alto, at the Parc (Palo Alto Reasearch Center).

http://www.parc.xerox.com/

Seminar has been organized by AWIS, Association Women In Science, in Palo Alto. AWIS is a non-profit association which works to promote women's activities in all scientific fields, from mentoring to scholarships to job listings.

http://www.awis.org/

Speakers invited, with their broad expertise in IT and Pharma/Biotech sectors, have talked about paths followed in their careers, challenges facing business development and advice for developing careers. It has been a really interesting meeting, mostly because speakers, two successfull women working here in the Bay Area, come from Accademia, but decided to move from the bench to the business, so they represent a great example for us joining the Fulbright-BEST program!!!

This is a brief summary of their fantastic career:

Kathleen Gilligan - Kathleen is currently President of Ramco Systems and holds an MBA from Stanford University's AEA Executive MBA program. Kathleen's 25-year career encompasses a rich mix of organizational expertise in enterprise and channel sales, marketing, communications, training, and executive management.

Monica Rosoff - Monica is currently Senior Manager, Commercialization and Product Transfer at Genentech. Her responsibilities include coordinating the execution of technology transfers of drug manufacturing to new facilities (e.g. manufacture of Avastin to Genentech's Oceanside facility), project management aspects of new product launches (such as launch of Lucentis in 2006) and coordinating communication with Genentech partners, including large pharmaceutical companies.

It has been a great experience to hear from such successfull women, also because they gave us a lot of suggestions about career, private life and, why not..how to approach with the opposite sex in business activity!

What they emphasized most is the necessity to

do what you really enjoy

be opportunistic and create opportunities for yourself

communicate

respect yourself

use common sense

make networking...it means to take care about people,to look for relationships, to help them!

And last but not least, SMILE!!!!!

I hope you will enjoy these wise suggestions as I did tonight...

Take care

Yours,

Elizabeth

P.S.: thanks to Andrea Rossi who suggested us this event!

Lessons for Future Scholars Part 3

2007-02-06T23:18:00.000-08:00

Carissimi,
benvenuti di nuovo nella mia rubrica “Lezioni per i futuri studenti BEST”, come avrete notato oggi per la prima volta per la prima volta il mio blog è scritto in italiano.
Spero che questo sia un incentivo a lasciare un commento per tutti quelli che mi stanno seguendo o mi seguiranno dall’Italia.
Oggi focalizzeremo l’attenzione su alcuni aspetti di carattere organizzativo, riguardanti lo studio e la vita quotidiana.

REGISTRATORE DIGITALE
In primo luogo quando arriverete inizierete dopo pochissimi giorni le lezioni il primo consiglio che vi do oggi è quello di comprarvi un registratore digitale, sicuramente non avrete tempo di riascoltarvi tutte le lezioni, ma risulta molto utile specialmente all’inizio, quando ancora non ci si è proprio ambientati e adattati all’inglese, avere la possibilità di riascoltare magari un concetto che è sfuggito.

ALL-IN-ONE
Un'altra cosa estremamente importante anzi direi essenziale è l’acquisto di una Stampante/Scanner oggi esistono degli all-in-one a poco più di 70$. Avere subito dai primissimi giorni una all-in-one vi risulterà utilissimo sia perché dovrete compilare molti documenti cartacei che così potrete digitalizzare ed inviare per posta elettronica sia perché potrete stampare il materiale che vi verà dato in classe dai professori.

SODDISFATTI O RIMBORSATI

Infine vi voglio dare qualche dritta sulla vita quotidiana, qui negli States qualsiasi cosa che comprate potrete restituirla, qualora non vi riteniate soddisfatti entro un mese (15 giorni per il materiale elettronico).
Esiste un poi un Harddiscount che vi consiglio spassionatamente chiamato COSCO (per poter acquistare bisogna acquistare una tessere che costa 50$) che oltre ad avere prezzi molto competitivi permette di restituire ogni cosa acquistata entro 1 anno e vi voglio ricordare che voi rimarrete per soli sei mesi.

Con quest’ultimo consiglio vi saluto
e vi aspetto la prossima settima
Saluti dalla California
Abramo

Saturday February 3th...Vally's Birthday Party

2007-02-05T18:31:00.000-08:00

Hello folks,

Today I'm going to tell you about the BIG CELEBRATION: my birthday!!!!

We organized a party at our house to celebrate...It was very nice and fun!!!

For the occasion, we cooked some italian pasta...

Unfortunally, people arrived late..not for food but for drink and dance...
so now we have to eat everything...probably after this, we don't miss italian pasta anymore!!!

The party was a great occasion to meet friends of friends and to increase our networking!!!

I'm pretty aware that this week my blog is a little bit poor of contents but I would like to take this chance to....................

.......first of all...to thank sincerely my flatmates as well as companions of this fantastic adventure in the USA for helping me to organize this party...

"Elisabetta, Micol, Emanuele and Abramo
thank you very much...I'm very happy to have met people so smart, funny, clever, sociable, and so on, like you!!!"

.....and then...to say hallo to my family in Italy...
I miss you a lot!!!

This is a picture of my family (my dad, my mom, and my 2 sisters, Anna and Nicoletta) made through webcam....

...what a great discover is Internet...isn't it?!?

The only sad thing of my birthday party is the absence of my sister Anna with whom I have always spent all my birthdays...she is an attorney and she is only 18 months older than me...we are always together...she is the most important person of my life and I miss her a lot..but she is coming here to visit me for the spring break..I can't wait to see her!!!

See you next week

Love,

Vally

Take a stand!

2007-02-04T11:28:00.000-08:00

Nice to chat with all of you, guys!

It's my turn.

In the wake of the other Fulbrighters I want to share with you my impressions about the first seminar of Leadership I attended.

The speaker was Mike Selfridge, head of global products division, Silicon Valley Bank.

I’m really struck by his speech and so it has been difficult for me to condensate all the . First of all he spoke with great convinction on his experience from which he directly learnt what he said to us all. Certainly he dealt with a great deal of topics but I would like to underline the issue concerning the relationship existing between ethics and leadership.

-Fortunately all the MBA people had the possibility of reflecting on his speech because we had to make a reflective essay as an assignement.-

In my opinion he presented a really interesting and new idea about it (or at least in my eyes, but i'm utterly convinced that all the people there had the same impression).

Basically, at the beginning of his speech there was something odd... “is it possible that a leader could speak about “your example is more important than your advice” or “personal attributes and ethics””? This question suddenly raises another one: “which ethics is the speaker referring to”? His? Or a common ethics in leadership has to be defined? This questions inspired my reflection. I’m sure there’s not only one answer to this questions. But I’ve tried to find mine. That was really food for thought! I'm really enthusiastic about Leadership seminars because this subject will really give you a lot of indications on how to be a leader in your own reality, I mean, not only at work.

M. Selfridge really said something applicable to my own reality. I join a research team as a researcher and sometimes i have to be a leader for my team. In a research team you have to face the problem of how to innovate and to manage your scientific experiments. Which one is the best to invest on? Which are the risks? As a leader I have to "take a stand"! In this case i really agree with Selfridge when he said “fear might be a great motivator but only for a short time”. Great Mike, thank you for this!

Let's get this show on the road! [Emanuele]

...trying to do our best...

2007-02-01T22:28:00.000-08:00

HY GUYS,

HOW DO YOU DO?

I hope all goes well!

What about us?

We’re close to our mid-term exams and for this reason we’re studying hard.

It’s stimulating to study topics so different from what I have studied at university.

In reality not only the topics are different but also the way of teaching.

In fact the main approach teachers usually use is the “learning by doing” approach.

It means that we’re not only attending classic “frontal” lessons but we have also to develop individual and group projects.

I think that this kind of approach is very challenging because, first of all you are directly involved in classes and second you have to learn what “work in team” means and which is the most useful way of exchanging your ideas .
As we have learnt from the Leadership course we’re attending in this quarter, the skill of working in team is important not only in the workplace, but also in everyday life.
On the other hand, carrying out individual project could give us the ability to handle and to solve different kind of situations by ourselves.
So….we’re trying to do our best!

Anyway, I don’t want to bother you and I don’t want to give you the impression that we are too diligent so…
Going out with a bang..

This is one of the last restaurant we tried, is located in Palo Alto and they serve very good food and very good Margarita!
We went there with some friends we have met here in California..
NETWORKING GUYS!!!!!
from the left side: Paolo, Valentina, Tony, Emanuele, Elisabetta e Ale.

THAT'S ALL FOLKS!

See you soon,

Micol

Becoming Leaders: who will be the next?

2007-01-31T12:50:00.000-08:00

Hello guys!

how are you today?

I have just come back from the San Jose Biocenter, where some of us have had a job interview.

You know, we are looking for a company which could host our internship..so we were really excited about that, also because I think it is absolutely the most important part of our US experience.

The San Jose BioCenter (SJBC) is an incubator which includes about 20 biotech companies and has been ranked one of the fastest growing life science clusters in the United States.

http://www.sjbiocenter.com/

It is a state of the art facility equipped with wet laboratory and office space that provides world class business and facility services to high potential life science companies. SJBC members have access to an extensive range of products, services and equipment that enables them to grow and scale successful businesses. It was great to see there something very familiar to me, like labs, pipettes, chemicals...

Classes as well are very interesting, yesterday some of us received their first grade - Finance exam- and it was very good! I would have never imagined to get such a good mark in a subject so different from by scientific background...and moreover learnt in a different language...

I have also started to read Mr Posner's (our fantastic dean!) book: "the Leadership challenge" and I have found it really great! Last week, then, Mr Posner introduced us to Mr Mike Selfridge, Senior Vice President of Global Services Silicon Valley Bank. He held conference, belonging to the Santa Clara Leadership Forum (SCLF) program and, after the seminar, we were invited to dine with him. It's so appealing the idea to meet some of today's leading Silicon Valley CEOs and senior executives so easily!

So guys, these have been for sure the most exciting events of my week and I was looking for sharing with you these wonderful experiences...anyway, before leaving you, I would like to show you a couple of pictures describing our free time (not so much actually..), some of our new friends and our famous passion for chocolate!!! Enjoy...see you!!

Yours,

Elizabeth

Lessons for Future Scholars Part 1

2007-01-31T00:27:00.000-08:00

Dear BEST students,

Welcome at the second lesson of FUNDAMENTAL of USA.
Today we will talk about:
- How to have a TV contract,
- How to obtain a SSN (Social security Number ),
- How to buy business cards at bargain price
- and finally I want to stress once again how to face a vast amount of commitments, like Micol has already told you in her last blog.

So let’s start with the

TV contract
First of all you have to know that the TV here in America is mainly broadcasted by cable. If You want to connect your TV you need to underwrite a contract with a TV company, the most famous is Comcast they provide you up to 300 channel for about 50 bucks per months. If you can’t face that expense I can suggest to you to buy an aerial called “rabbit” you can snap 6 or 7 channel, is not a lot but with 30 bucks you are ok for all the 6 months.

SSN
The social security number is something of absolutely essential, you can’t work without it!!
or an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN).
If you are unable to obtain a Social Security number You will then need to obtain an ITIN from the Internal Revenue Service.
For more information about requesting your ITIN, please visit Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) website

Business Cards
Busness card are something of essential. In a few week You will meet so many people that you absolutely need to have some business card. I suggest to buy it in internet. 100 should be enough but to be sure buy 250, you can buy at less then 20 bucks.

Scheduling
If at the very beginning because of the NETWORKING approach, the course deadline, and public relation you fill the sensation to be unable to manage all that huge amount of data.
Don’t worry! You simply need a blackboard to write there all your commitments.

Hops this will help you guy
Abramo

West Coast Fulbrighters meeting

2007-01-29T23:00:00.000-08:00

Hello there,

nice to see you again!

Today I would like to tell you about our first meeting with the other West Coast Fulbright grantees in San Francisco. It was a really pleasant evening and we had the opportunity to meet a lot of very nice people from all over the world who are living as the same experience as us.

The meeting was at the Museum of African Diaspora, MoAD located at the heart of San Francisco (685 Mission Street).

http://www.moadsf.org/index.html

MoAD is committed to showcasing the "best of the best" from the African Diaspora.

Embracing the newest applications in media technology, MoAD features an interactive theater and immersive exhibitions. This coupling of art, culture and technology enables MoAD to bring Africa, the African Diaspora and the world community closer together.

We really enjoy the opportunity to visit MoAD because it is totally different from the classic Museum that we have in Italy.

In particular, we could admire the Painting Ethiopia (which is the current exibition): The Life and Work of Qes Adamu Tesfaw.

Qes Adamu’s paintings stand out as truly exceptional. They tell stories about Christianity from an Ethiopian perspective, about the political and military exploits of 19th and 20th century Ethiopian rulers, and about rural and urban life. Rather than working from rote, Qes Adamu creatively re-envisions the subjects he paints.

He approaches every painting as a new problem to be solved. He is constantly thinking… dreaming… about making art.

So..I really suggest you to go to MoAD to admire Qes Adamu's paintings because they worth a visit!!!!

Before leaving you to the next episode, I would like to ask you a question:

Are you able to resist this kind of temptation????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????????

Honestly.....I can't resist!!! This is a very big problem for my figure!!!

See you next week

xxx

Vally

News from Bay and... BAIA

2007-01-27T17:28:00.000-08:00

Hi folks!

It has been a long long week, a great deal of stimulating activities.

We all were so busy... nevertheless I had time to dream of my beloved Sardinia....

In particular I would like to tell you sth about BAIA and the first BAIA meeting we joined on Tuesday, Jan 23 in Palo Alto.

BAIA [Business Association Italy America] is an independent, nonprofit, member-based network whose mission is to create tangible business value by establishing a professional forum through which information, knowledge and opportunities can openly and effectively be exchanged between the business communities operating in the United States and Italian business interests. BAIA's new approach to business networking is based on an Open Source Governance model.

The speaker was Peter Thoeny, a recognized thought-leader in wikis and social software.Featured in numerous articles and technology conferences including LinuxWorld, Business Week and The Wall Street Journal Thoeny explained what wikis are and how they are used, covered social aspects and security concerns while teaching how to roll out a wiki. He also explained how teams can use TWiki, an open-source wiki for the enterprise, to build tailored wiki applications supporting their workflow and processes.

For more details see http://twiki.org/

I would like to thank Giorgio Ghersi, Matteo Daste and Michele Ursino (BAIA founders) for giving us the chance to attend those interesting meetings that are also a great opportunity of meeting a great deal of entrepeneurs.

Next BAIA meeting will be held on February 8, 2007 in San Francisco.

Take it easy,

Emanuele

...how many things to do...

2007-01-26T02:54:00.000-08:00

So, nice to meet you again….
Another week has passed, maybe all too quickly!!!
Everyday is full of new things to learn, new people to meet, new experience to have…it’s wonderfull but also very challenging!

We don’t want to forget anything so… we’ve bought a huge board on which we are writing down all our commitments and, as you can see, they are quite a lot!!

One of the events we took part in last friday was the Venture Capital Investment Competition "VCIC" hosted by the Santa Clara Univesity.

http://www.vcic.unc.edu/

In this competition, differently from the other business plan competitions, the students are the investors, and real entrepreneurs try to convince them of their projects. We had the possibility to attend this event and it was a very powerful learning experience!!

Even if we’re very busy (!?) we found time enough to go to Santa Row..It’s like a small Wonderland!

Unfortunately when we arrived there, at a quarter to 6 pm, shops were closing so…no shopping (this means health for our wallet) but only a very very good Italian pizza!!!!!!!!!!

See you next week,
Micol

LOST..IN TRANSLATION!!

2007-01-24T22:44:00.000-08:00

LOST.....

Ok guys...I think that this picture can really sum up our first trips around the valley by our new cars! Actually we never got lost so far, but maps and google have become our best friends!!!

SO, just to thank our friend, namely Google, we went there yesterday to have a look to this "good giant" ...well, everyone knows it's a real giant by now and it is great to think how quickly they were able to create such a big company: from Siliconvalley you can really conquer the world!!

Beside this, it has been really intesting to talk with Joe, a very smart guy from the sales group, who has explained us the succesfull vision ruling in Google. First of all -DEMOCRACY- that is, every single decision concerning the company, comes from a democratic opinion survey, than, INNOVATION and, most of all, the aim to develop each employee's CREATIVITY. Great!

GOOGLE is our friend!

As to me, last Friday I met my mentor, Mr Brian Neider. Mr Neider is Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios and is an alumni of Santa Clara University. I met a very kind and helpful person who gave me a lot of suggestions about my stay here and my future. Than, I had the opportunity to visit EA studios, so funny...it seemed to be in a living videogame!!

EA STUDIOS in REDWOOD CITY

.....IN TRANSLATION

I go on making poor showings around because of my English...last week I told to a guy that he seemed a "turkey" instead of "turkish" (from Turky)!!!! anyone helping me!?!

Yours,

Elizabeth

Lessons for Future Scholars Part 1

2007-01-24T01:12:00.000-08:00

Hello guy,
big stop news!!!!!
Today, we’ve finally rented two cars:

a Dodge Caliber

and a Kia Rio

For the first time in my life I drove a car with automatic gears, it was a really strange sensation. I couldn’t take the left leg and the right hand stopped and I hope I will be comfortable quite soon also with this kind of cars.

Now… move on…
I believe that this blog must be an open window on our life here in Santa Clara helping in this sense people reading this blog to understand why we are here and what we are doing. But at the same time since we are a sort of pioneers in this project I also believe that we should leave as much as possible useful information to the posterity.

So I want to point out here a list of essential things to do once the next generation of the BEST students will arrive here in US:

Open a Bank Account
this is not essential but help a lot, The Italian Bancomat doesn’t work here and this is the only way to have the ATM (the equivalent of bancomat here in US).
DSL connection and telephone
The first is absolutely indispensable, the second can be avoided.
Buy a USA Mobile

This is really useful you can communicate with everybody at acceptable fare
NB: In US you pay both when you call than when you receive a telephone call

…See you next week guy
with the second part of the list.

Have a nice week
Abramo

Networking approaching.....

2007-01-22T22:26:00.000-08:00

Hello folks,
here I am again!!!
I decide that I would use this BLOG to share with you the most important events of my life here in California, my impressions as well as my thoughts...

First of all...I would like to show you our house...it's really nice, isn't it?

Sunday, January 7...Leavy School of Business
New Years Brunch!!!

..actually, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Dean, Barry Posner, for the excellent brunch on behalf of all the Italian Fulbrighters!!!

MONDAY, January 8... courses began!!!

1) Managing Innovation and Technology

2) Financial Management

3) Seminar in Leading Dynamic Organizations

All these three courses are very interesting and challenging...I really enjoy them...even because they are totally different from the courses I attended in Italy...so for me they represent also a new approach to study and to know a different culture!!!

Friday, January 12...to SAN FRANCISCO to meet Matteo Daste and Giorgio Ghersi, cofounders of Business Association Italy America (BAIA)....

...and so...our NETWORKING starts!!!!

N.B. For more information about Baia, please visit the website.

http://www.baia-network.org/

I could go on speaking endlessly because here every day is full of things to do and to learn...but maybe it is better if I stop now...at least for the moment!!!

See you next week for the next episode!!!

Vally (my nickname!)

CIAO CALIFORNIA!

2007-01-19T18:31:00.002-08:00

Hello everybody!Last but not least, right? So, let me introduce myself.

My name is Emanuele Orgiu, the fifth italian guy that joined the BEST/Fulbright Silicon Valley Immersion Program. I come from Italy. I was born in Sardinia, the small island on the left of Italy in the map. Sardinia is wonderful and well-known for its amazing wildlife and especially for its impressive coasts and beaches that pull a great deal of tourists in. This is just a taste of Sardinia's beaches:

I spent almost all my life in my native village, Laconi (http://www.laconi.it/english/indexi.html) where I obtained a diploma from "Liceo Classico Pitagora". Immediately afterwards I moved to Cagliari, the largest city in Sardinia, where I studied Electronic Engineering, graduating in 2004 with a thesis entitled "Realization of an all-organic field-effect transistor combining Soft Lithography and Lithography Tecniques".

Immediately afterwards I joined the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (DIEE), University of Cagliari, as Ph.D. student in the fantastic team named DEA (Advanced Electronic Devices) coordinated by prof. Annalisa Bonfiglio. Here is my "Magic Team":

Currently, my research is focused on innovative electronic devices, in particular Organic semiconductors based devices, organic dielectrics characterization, Soft Lithography processes and innovative textiles applications.

In 2006 I spent some months working as a researcher in Konarka Austria (Forschungs und Entwicklungs) GmbH, a company leader in the world for research on organic solar cells. Its chief scientist and cofounder is Dr. Alan J. Heeger, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2000.

In October 2006 I applied for the BEST-Fulbright program, discussing an entrepreneurial project based on the development of organic sensors.

I've been selected and... Here I am! I'm getting used to California and to its sun even if it seems that the warm got shy so far. ;-)

Presently I attend some classes of the MBA program of the business school in Santa Clara University.

It is a big change route in my career but I think this experience will be great because in Silicon Valley I can "smell" the right climate that will help me to realize my entrepeneurial project when I come back to Italy.

For now I just want to say thanks to the BEST/Fulbright staff for giving me this great and unexpected possibility.

Many many thanks to Mr Gaetano Pellicano & Ms Candace Putnam (U.S.-Italy Embassy), to Mr Arthur Austin (IIE) and to Kevin Holmes (CIE) for really taking care of us all.

That's all, folks!

Emanuele

from Italy..to California

2007-01-18T13:08:00.000-08:00

Hello,
I’m Micol Macellari and I come from Italy.

I grew up in a small town not far from Milan but nearby the country where we produce different and very good kind of wines. For this reason I promise myself to do a “Napa Valley wine tasting-tour” before my return to Italy in order to compare Italian and Californian wines and to judge which are the best!

from the left: me, my big brother Mattia, my sister Margherita and my little brother Marcello

Last november I received my Masters degree in Medical and Molecular Biotechnology at the university “Vita-Salute San Raffaele” in Milan.

My professional objective is to integrate my scientific skills with experiences that allow me to effort my entrepreneurial spirit in order to be able to recognized, develop and bring to market a "good" scientific project.

With this aim I decided to take part in the Fulbright /Best Silicon Valley Immersion program.

My business project is about the creation of a biotech start-up focused on innovative therapies for several cardiac pathologies based on the unique capacity of a specific protein of inducing stem cells migration and proliferation

During our first week in California we didn’t have enough time to get bored!
One of the first thing that we’ve learned is that in Silicon Valley lunchbreak doesn’t exist!

...just a sandwich...

But if you go to San Francisco ( and we went there!!) you can taste one of the most typical dish at the Fishermans warf: fried calamaries and crabs! Very good…the only problem is that it is quite difficult to digest!!!

But...even if we’re so far from our country, we can find here a lot of "things" sounding italian!

...a roadsign in San Francisco...

So, I tryed to tell you a little bit about myself..

see you soon,

bye bye

Micol

Abramo has come to the Valley

2007-01-17T01:23:00.000-08:00

Hi, my name is Abramo Barbaresi (the oldest of the team, well… wishing to see the other side of the coin, we could say the most experienced). I am a native of Senigallia (it's a small city in the centre of Italy), probably the most happening city in Marche Shire. Senigallia is located just in front of the Adriatic Sea and it's a really nice place. I did my schooling there at the "Enrico Medi" Scientific Lyceum School. Afterwards I move on to Milan, where I spent the latest 15 years of my life. There I received a Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the “Politecnico di Milano” University I worked for short period and I continued my studies with a Ph D focused on 3D measurement without contact. For more information about my Ph D research interests I suggest you to visit my website when I was student www.barbaresi.net . My goal is to start-up a company working in 3D scanner field. In this sense I’m here to acquire entrepreneurial skills studding at SCU and principally to find partnership and/or alliance with all that Companies want to join with me in the development of new applications in 3D virtual world, security and medical field, using my 3D technology. I arrived here in California a couple of weeks ago and I immediately had a good feeling with people and the place. I feel that this will be a fantastic adventure.

The weather is fantastic even if unusually windy.

Our first visit in San Francisco

Hey, the same tram I had in Milan!!!!

I'm at home!!!

Enjoy our blog

Abramo

Hello from Valentina...one of the BEST!!!

2007-01-16T00:22:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody!

I'm Valentina Coccoli (the second one from the left..the blonde one..).

I come from Naples, a city in the south of Italy...actually, it is the place where PIZZA was born!!!

Following is a link where you can find a lot of curiosities about my city: http://www.napoli.com/english/.

I received my Masters Degree in Materials Engineering from the University of Naples "Federico II" in July 2004. I'm currently on my third and final year of PhD program on Materials and Structure Engineering, focus on Biomaterials at the Dept.of Materials and Production Engineering, University of Naples "Federico II" (http://www.crib.unina.it/).

I applied to the BEST/Fulbright Silicon Valley Immersion Program (http://italy.usembassy.gov/p4g/best/ ) to acquire entrepreneurial skills to create a spin-off company from my university research group.

My challenge is to create a tissue and organ substitutes company in Italy. This company would be a leading global provider of tissue engineering products that allow patients to continue living healthy and active lifestyles.

I arrived here in California 10 days ago with the other grantees...fortunally I get on very well with them...we live in a beautiful house all togheter. We really enjoy Silicon Valley' s weather and people.

Following I upload some pictures of our first week here...I hope you enjoy them.

See you next week

Valentina

Valentina and Micol: our first breakfast at Starbucks!!!

The 5 Fulbrighter grantees after the LSB New Years Brunch.

First time of the Fulbright GIRLS at Safeway: Desperate Housewife?!?

Welcome

2007-01-02T18:50:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Silicon Valley Immersion blog hosted by the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at Santa Clara University.

We are excited to host five Fulbright Scholars for an intensive six month immersion experience that will provide a comprehensive education in high tech entrepreneurship.

Taking advantage of the world class resources available here in the Silicon Valley, the Immersion program combines graduate business courses in SCU's Leavey School of Business, conferences at Stanford University and UC Berkeley and seminars offered by the Churchill Club and SVASE. In addition, members of the CIE Advisory Board serve as mentors to the scholars, helping them with internship placement and more strategic networking opportunities.

The five 2007 scholars and their interests are:

1. Valentina Coccoli; biomaterials / tissue engineering,
2. Abramo Barbaresi;non-invasive 3D measurement,
3. Elisabetta Capezio; biomedical devices,
4. Micol Macellari; diagnostic genomics,
5. And Emanuele Orgiu; organic semiconductor sensors.

This blog will document the scholars' experience with their regular journal entries and reflections. Who are you? What is your research? What do you think of Santa Clara University and the Silicon Valley? What are you learning from the immersion experience? What do you plan to do after the program?

Welcome to Santa Clara University and the Silicon Valley!