1. of 2011
Educational Entrepreneurship
A Silicon Valley study trip for
International Business Management students
IEEC Conference, Liverpool, UK, 2016
Christel De Maeyer Researcher – Lector
Christel.demaeyer@arteveldehs.be
20. of 2020
The Changing Light
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1919
The changing light
at San Francisco
is none of your East Coast light
none of your
pearly light of Paris
The light of San Francisco
is a sea light
an island light
And the light of fog
blanketing the hills
drifting in at night
through the Golden Gate
to lie on the city at dawn
And then the halcyon late mornings
after the fog burns off
and the sun paints white houses
with the sea light of Greece
with sharp clean shadows
making the town look like
it had just been painted
But the wind comes up at four o’clock
sweeping the hills
And then the veil of light of early evening
And then another scrim
when the new night fog
floats in
And in that vale of light
the city drifts
anchorless upon the ocean
Thank You! Christel.demaeyer@arteveldehs.be
Hinweis der Redaktion
S1-2: Apart from the beautiful scenery, rich culture, Silicon Valley has a lot to offer as a startup environment. It always has been an innovative hub and over the years established an interesting ecosystem in a most dynamic surrounding. Some make the comparison with a rainforest. Where different cultures, nationalities meet, create social bonding and long-lasting relationships that spur creativity and entrepreneurship.
This is one of the main reasons why this trip happened. It fitted in our IBM curriculum to open up our students to a dynamic entrepreneurship environment fundamentally different then their own.
The Team
S3-4-5-6: We came a long way in the digital age, a lot of ups-and-downs, this is especially illustrative in a city like San Francisco, where the bubble economy is more influencing on the population because of the innovation hub mentioned before. The tech companies establishing themselves more and more in the city, because of tax advantages and location. This has a big impact on the local ‘native’ San Franciscans. This was an extra unforeseen touch in our trip since we were staying in the Tenderloin, one of the poorest areas of San Francisco with a lot of homeless people. This came as quite a shock for most students, as they only hear in the media how great it is to work and do a startup in the valley, this was really eye-opening for them. The haves and have not’s, cannot be more clear than in that neighborhood.
Exclusive: Struggling Twitter lists over 183,000 square
Feet for sublease at its S.F. HQ 8/8/2016
The haves and have not
S7-8-9: To prepare this trip it is a necessity to have a good network and professional track record where you can rely on to get in to the companies we wanted to visit.
Having a long time and career in the digital space for over 25 years and mainly partnered with American companies and academia enabled me to establish a solid network there, all these contacts came in to organize this trip and gave it a high standard quality.
From 1989-2007 partnered with Apple and Macromedia/Adobe to establish a niche market in Belgium on Multimedia and later Online Rich content application consulting and training, which brought us a lot to the US and in specific SFO
From 2008-…. The academic connection towards the next big thing in the digital age.
S10: As mentioned before lots of tech companies establish themselves in San Francisco, but the region before was mostly around Mountain View (where Google is), Cupertino (Apple’s mother ship) Menlo Park home of Facebook, Palo Alto (Stanford University) and so forth. While we could have visited the internet empires like Google, Apple, Facebook and so, we didn’t go that directions. One it is very difficult to get in and second, we would not learn that much new things there. While in the startup scene, founders are open to share their path towards their startup, the pitfalls and the successes, how they go about to create an early startup towards a growth company, if they make it.
S11: to prepare the students we organized ourselves on Facebook. This was an excellent tool to inform them before and after the trip and engage with them. It was easy sharing news on Silicon Valley and San Francisco’s environment, culture wise, meet-ups and other interesting things. They also could easily react within the newsfeed and in a way could have their say in things.
Belgian connections – 2010 Plug and Play accelerator in Sunnyvale contract with iMinds Digital Society Research lab and startup garage – the start of Belgian startups in SV.
S12-16 We organized meet-ups with Belgian companies and US companies. We mainly did this in a form of seminar or workshop, to save time for the startups and for us as well, to bundle startup companies was easier to organize and also to get different views and insights. Some of them were more tech then others. This was also a point of attention, the students were not really tech oriented, they were more business oriented, which is a different intake.
In order to give the students insight on existing ecosystems, we also visited different accelerators, like Runway and Amazon Popup Loft. These accelerators bring University – Private companies and Venture Capital together. In addition, the accelerators organize lots of meet-ups, have different visitors and there is whole melting pot of activity going on.
Seminar on the why, how and what to startup in San Francisco
The SFO ecosystems
VC’’s what is it about?
Behavior change and Peace Innovation seminar with Behavior Design Lab
S17-18-19: The impact on the students was mainly a life changing experience.
On a level of what entrepreneurship is, how they can be supported.
The multicultural aspect of the city and its startups
The clash between the haves and have not
The homeless problem in general
Appreciate the social security system in their own country
The possibility to dream and do something with it
More awareness on what they want to do and not want to do.
Open minded culture in general and specific within the startup scene
Failing is an option
Impact of the students referring to papers
A bit of leisure
S20: Conclusion
Even though this trip had a pretty full program, we could extend it a bit more.
Our Stanford University time was to short.
Guest lectures to prepare students on the business side of things, also on the socio-political impact of hip and innovative city like San Francisco is. It is important that they get insight on the bigger picture.
Partner with colleges
Raise more awareness for internships.
Looking for affordable housing.