Week 7: Leave Stanford arrive in Harvard

Flying from West to East coast of America takes approximately 3500km and 7 hours, almost the length of the trip to get from the UK to America.

Highlights this week included Northbridge Venture Partners: a chance to network over free food and drink with local entrepreneurs, a Harvard Business School Case by David Ager focusing on IDEO and quite possibly the highlight of the whole experience in America meeting Dean Kamen of DEKA.



Its difficult to describe Dean Kamen; we arrived at DEKA for lunch and sat in the board room to wait for him. In the mean time a multi millionaire from Switzerland came to join us along with 2 people from a well known web company. Dean entered the room, a short to medium build man who always wears a Denim Shirt and Denim jacket (there are pictures on the wall of the boardroom of him shaking hands with various past presidents wearing the same outfit) and for the next 2 hours captivated the audience talking about his history and what he is working on now.


To say that Dean Kamen is a prolific inventor is an understatement. By the time he was my age (24) he had created the lighting for the New York City Christmas lights, made a kidney dialysis machine which revolutionized the way diabetes were treated. He has also invented a heart stem, drug dispenser, iBot and the shame of it all is that the one invention he is known for in the UK (if any) is the Skegway.

And the story doesn't end there, Dean has also solved drinking water problems in the 3rd world. Poor drinking water is the worlds biggest killer. National governments and intenational bodies have thrown huge amounts of money at research to try and solve the problem (some estimates at $trillion!!) without resolving it. And now Dean Kamen has a solution. As a group of 16 engineers we walked round Dean's company in awe.

I really think it was a life changing experience to find out that there really are people in this world who have the drive, genius and money to make big changes happen: another great example of this being Ewin Marion Kauffman and the legacy he left in the Kauffman Foundation.

Week 6: Silicon Valley California

From the snow of Kansas city at 6 in the morning to warm bright sunshine in Silicon valley 5 hours later: America has a diverse set of climates. This week the pace and number of activities hasn't slowed down at all. We were hosted by Stanford University who helped set up a number of great experiences. Highlights for me include going to "Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati" the law firm which looks after clients such as Google and Youtube, visiting 3 biotech start ups, hearing their stories and Visiting Burril and Co. Venture Capital firm.

Whats really hit home for me this week is that Silicon Valley really is a different kind of environment to anywhere else I've ever been. From Stanford university and their unparalleled innovation, Sandhill Road with a huge density of Venture Capital Firms (of all the VC firms in America 40% are in California) to the incredible community of Entrepreneurs, both aspiring and those who have made many millions. Its truly a unique environment for high tech start up business.
To put in perspective the wealth of the state of California, they have the same GDP as France, but half the population! In my opinion this is down to the entrepreneurial economy (and possibly the complete anomaly which is Google).

So far we have made a lot of contacts with local entrepreneurs, investors and VC's. There is a huge amount of experience in the valley waiting to be tapped who in the general case are more than happy to help and answer questions.

A model which all countries should follow to develop their entrepreneurial economies, and ultimately grow the GDP.