Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford

The highlight of this week was undoubtedly the "Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford" event. To give you a little bit of background, for the past 2 years, Oxford invites some of the most successfull entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley to come and spend a day with the students at Said. This can take the form of Master Classes ( sessions held by them) or Garage sessions (where the students collectively provide ideas on which these guys can then go and act).This year we had Chris Sacca (Head of Special Initiatives, Google) who is in charge of Picasa, Orkut, Google Earth, Google Trends and WiFi, Reid Hoffman ( Founder , LinkedIn), Matt Cohler (VP Strategy, FaceBook), Allen Morgan (MD, Mayfield Venture Capital), Julie Hanna Farris (Founder, Scalix), Mike Malone (Former Editor, Forbes ASAP and columnist for Silicon Insider) and others. Classes were cleared for half a day to enable us to attend these sessions. I opted for a masterclass presentation by Chris Sacca (extremely entertaining)[ He obviously hates MBAs(we talk too much, we need to make everything complex, we think small and not big..and so on..)...As he very succintly put it " In Google, if you want to be really helpful, just get out of the Geeks' way" or" In Google , we are never more that 150 mtrs away from food!!!"] and a Garage Session run by Synectics for Google.The garage session basically provided a lot of insights from about 20 of us and Chris refers to it in his blog entry.. Lots of insights were shared and it is good to hear privileged information straight from the horses mouth, so to speak.We ended with a panel discussion.
In other news this week, we have finally given up sleeping!!! Hallelujah...Its just that there are now extremely fascinating things like assignments to be submitted and enthralling/thrilling course books to study for the oh-so-wonderful exams coming up in 3 weeks time..Oh yes, please pile it on!!We are now suckers for punishment....

"Please Sir, Can I have some more???"

Cheers till next week or rather, till something momentous takes place!!!!

Entrepreneurs Incorporated. !!

Funny how I start all my posts with "yet another week gone by...".Ok so here goes..Yet another week goes by and there is nothing but more pressure now!!!Highlights of the week were the class photograph taken on Monday and a visit to the James Martin Institute of Science and Civilization (they do some cutting edge work and research on combined aspects of science and sociology-nanotech, healthcare and climate change...etc.) and some of us will probably try and see if we can work with them for some of our projects next year.In Hilary term (Jan - Apr) we are also supposed to start our Entrepreneurial project, which basically involves students in groups of 5 working on creating an entire business plan for some of our entrepreneurial ideas, all of which can range from things as varied as starting a Formula 1 racing team to socially relevant aspects like fighting corruption.We will be pitching our ideas to the student and faculty bodies next week and your truly will also be pitching. I will probably put up my presentation here once I have pitched the same.The final idea is that some of the best plans will be judged by top flight venture capitalists (from JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs...etc.) and angel investors to see whether they would receive funding.Interesting side note: An impossible idea(or so it seemed when it started out) a couple of years back by Said students won the JP Morgan Prize for the best Business Plan and is currently in the process of being funded. There is no wading room in between all the lectures and ever increasing topics to study..But I have to say this, for all those of us who started out with the sciences, engineering and then went into technology, Finance is absolutely fascinating.More so when you start applying it practically to things like currency hedging, volatility of markets and risk management....
In other news this week, went to watch the hilariously disgusting movie BORAT!!! That guy is absolutely crazy,having single handedly managed to offend about half a dozen communities in a very crude manner...From a starving student's point of view,absolute value for money at 6 pounds a ticket!!:-). Also had been to a conversation between George Soros, international financier and philanthropist and Timothy Garton Ash , "The Guardian" columnist held at the University Church here. It was great hearing Soros, the man who "broke the Bank of England" in 1992 and who is today one of the world's richest men, discuss the war on terror.

Finally , presenting the MBA Class of 2007 and a sample of what class actually looks like.......Forgive Anuj conducting stretching exercises in class......

Another exhausting week just went by and we are that much closer to exams and Christmas.. First, a word about the weather. It is bloody freezing...and its not even winter yet...There is this thin crust of ice that forms on the cars early morning and it is always enjoyable to see some people getting out wooden slates and scrubbing it off, cursing to themselves...

It has been a good week, Capital Asset Pricing Model, Regression Analysis and Financial Ratios notwithstanding..Our cases are coming along quite well and there is that contented feeling in the air when you actually have tried to stop looking for a distinction and hope to "just pass" all your exams..Life continues to be as busy as ever.Just got our Microeconomics Industry report topic that we need to submit by the end of the month. Topic chosen is Easyjet and the european airline industry..To the newbies out there, this is Britain's version of "Air Deccan" ....Enuff said!!! Highlight of this week, as with every week , was Happy Hour over at Said Business School (the one day in the week when all drinks are priced at 1 pound!!!). Since my last post, I have been informed that it will not be possible to audit the Technology and Innovation Strategy course (its not me..the profs have weird issues) so have sent in an application to audit the Marketing,Culture and Society course..A bit of light reading, what?

Oh yes, a few of us got together outside the MCR (the graduates common room) where they have a grill and cooked us some steak and fries...Not bad at all!!! Hope to do this with a larger crowd and more beers someday!!! In the photos: Saheel, Chris, Brian, Hirotake and Ven. Tomorrow is class photograph day so am sure there are going to more photoos and gaffes that I will have for you next week.....

Toodle oo and pip pip!!!!!