Building a multidisciplinary engineering program for scale

...you need to systematize the curriculum and delivery.

Here's a day of Challenge Lab training led by Ken Singer at UC Berkeley, to get a set of potential instructors for 2018 on the same page.

This was a really fun day! Got to connect with my fellow European Innovation Academy mentors Tommaso Di Bartolo, Mike Kyriacou & Stephen D. Torres, among other new friends & colleagues.

A delegation from Finland was also there, because this multidisciplinary Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology class in the engineering school is being built for scale. Really cool to see it happening and take part. 

TBT, adapting a novel for the screen

Remembering the screen adaptation I did of an action comedy novel by Jennifer Lawler...

The main characters in this enduring ensemble story are star-crossed lovers who also happen to be mercenaries — and 17th century English scholars. Think the good-humored violence of RED with a younger group.

The Mercenary's Tale, screen adaptation of the novel Not Quite a Hero. We spent two years (1990-2) adapting the story to the screen format.

Here's what a 379 page 20 year old manuscript looks like. After I read the funny, classic love story for the first time in 1987/88 I couldn't forget it...

Always looking for an illustrator to convert the script into a graphic novel for iPad, btw.

We rewrite the screenplay every now and again. It's renamed COY MISTRESS. And Jennifer found a place for those Greek sailors she loves so much!

Learn more about Jennifer Lawler.

TBT, '80s Meatpacking District fashion, society, film production

Remembering an arty, downtown jet-set of the late '80s....at the first fashion show of an emerging Houston designer, featuring the granddaughter of a woman who was married to Howard Hughes.

Here's what the New York Times reported about a later event by the same emerging designer.

And here’s what Cathy Horyn wrote in The Washington Post about what she called the “first show” of B. Moody (but clearly it wasn’t the first show, 👆that was, in 1987.)

Judging at the Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship Summer 2017

It was so much fun to mentor & judge the tech startups at Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship (BMOE) at the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology. 120 global participants gathered at UC Berkeley for a one week immersive experience into entrepreneurship, team-building, mentorship, and more.

Here's the team I & my fellow judge chose as the winner of our 40-person cohort: BrainyT, an AI-for-manufacturing going to market in Brazil.

I also ran into familiar faces from last month's extreme accelerator in Europe, the European Innovation Academy #eia2017italy: participant & UCB student Bailey Farren, and fellow EIA chief mentors UCB faculty Stephen Torres and Pamela Day, who also was a judge at BMOE!

Looking forward to Harika Kalluri's upcoming interview with me and Pamela for the Berkeley Point Of View. We yakked Harika's ear off about tech investing, product building, and the empowering spirit of entrepreneurship.

A few snaps from some of the seven venture pitches my fellow judge Kal Deutsch (managing partner and founding investor of The Batchery, a Bay Area-based global incubator for seed stage startups) and I judged.

Good job to these teams from Berkeley, Denmark, Brazil & Hong Kong:

• BrainyT, the AI for small manufacturers
• SoWa the wireless professional speakers
• A Slice of Reality interactive media system
• the ed-tech play for lesson plans Athena
• CoffeeX, a connected coffee kiosk
• Candle Sense electric candle for memory boosting
• LedoAds, the marketplace for space ads

Thanks to UCBerkeley's entrepreneurship faculty Gigi Wang, the director of BMOE, for including me in her awesome program!

Photo: Gigi Wang

Congrats to BrainyT for making it into the top 3 startups at BMOE Summer 2017!

Thanks to Harika Kalluri for the interview! You can read it at the Sutardja Center site here.

Considering the Arab Innovation Academy in Doha, Qatar

I'm considering joining the Arab Innovation Academy (AIA). It's patterned on the European Innovation Academy, this new extreme accelerator for the Arab world is run by Maher Hakim, the managing director of the Qatar Science & Technology Park. I had the pleasure of working directly with Maher when he was the Chief of Chief Mentors at the European Innovation Academy in Nice in 2016! The AIA program will be delivered for the first time in Doha, Qatar in January 2018 

In the Winner's Circle: 50% of my teams won the 2017 European Innovation Academy, Italy

(To my teams: you are all stars!!)

Giving my Day 7 keynote in Turin, on how to build revenue-producing and meaningful community. "Find why your first users are invested and then deliver on their motivations," was among my recommendations to the participants of Europe's largest extreme accelerator

It was my pleasure to be the chief mentor to six start up teams in the Gaming, Media & Entertainment sector at the European Innovation Academy last month in Turin, Italy.

For ten foundational days, I guided 30 participants through team and business building before additional specialist mentors joined us to take them to pitch their startups to Silicon Valley and global investors. 

Out of 95 total teams, 4 of my teams progressed to the Pitching Carousel of 40 teams which presented to venture capitalists

• Sympha, a creative exchange for the indie music community
• aLive, a realtime nightlife promotion platform
• ARCatalogs, an augmented reality play for restaurants
• Kumpa, a gamification app that turns exercise into social workouts

3 of my teams then made it into the Top 10 winner's circle. You can read the Italian press on the winners.

• Kumpa
• the ranking app Totem (a last minute wild card entry, Totem also won the Nixon Peabody Trademark Scholarship)
• and ARCatalogs. 

So, 5 of my 6 teams made it to the final rounds of the program. That means 83% of our cohort 'showed' in the final rounds of the program.  This is a stupendous achievement, congratulations to all of you!

This is Kumpa, a sports gamification start-up that transforms your favorite games into fun and social workouts.

Shout out to these international mentors who also worked with my cohort on: marketing (Americans Jesse Leimgruber, PJ Leimgruber, and Italian Francesco Fiume), IT (Polish Bartek Jazwinski), and design (Estonian Tanel Eero), and, team dynamics (Italian Claudia Chiavarino). Also, thanks to Federico Mammano, my fellow chief mentor in the other Gaming, Media, and Entertainment cohort, for his pitching challenges and AR expertise! 

This is ARCatalogs which makes augmented reality menus for restaurants.

This is aLive, a nightlife platform where users can see and share what's happening around them in real time, leveraging the power of influencers. aLive made it to the Pitching Carousel round.

Here's BidCar, my sixth team, which was building a blind auction for car sales. Chief Business Officer Miguel Valdez delivered a 1 minute story-based pitch on Day 6 in front of another gaming, media, entertainment cohort and our design and IT mentors watching, on the right:

For your accomplishments in team building and business building, congrats to the winners, the carousel pitchers, all the teams of the Gaming, Media, and Entertainment cohorts, and all the teams of EIA Turin 2017. It was fun mentoring you and I look forward to seeing what you do next!

Joining Silicon Valley Jumpstart Program As A Mentor

Excited to join JUMPSTART PROGRAM as a mentor in this startup event produced by the Silicon Valley Forum and Wasabi Ventures Global.

You may recall I've already had the pleasure of working with Wasabi principal Jeff Abbott as a chief mentor for two summers at the European Innovation Academy. I'm looking forward to contributing to his new intensive program.

Launching in fall of 2017, this 6-day hands-on experience is designed for international startups and scaleups seeking to enter the US market. It will address technology, organization, cultural differences, marketing & sales, financing, and more.

It's for you if:

• You want to develop and refine your scaling strategy
• You believe you’re ready to enter the US market
• You want to broaden your network of potential customers, mentors, partners and investors in the US
• You want to jumpstart your efforts and make 6 months of progress in one week
• You want to have a clear plan before investing time and precious resources in developing a US presence via unfocused experimentation
• You’re ready to have an intense, action-packed week in Silicon Valley and make friends for life with other founders facing similar challenges 

September 5th is the last day to apply!

Love hanging with my fellow mentors, program leads, & university observers!

Fun dinner with chief mentors, VCs, university observers, life coaches & family from the European @innovationacademy in Turin!! Photos by Radha! #eiamoments #eia2017italy#eia2017turin #accelerator #startups#entrepreneurship #Torino #Turin

I love supporting global women entrepreneurs, like Sydney Alfonso

Considering getting evicted due to Netflix's Original Series Sense8, TBT

Joining ITUGate as a mentor

Happy to join the global mentors of Istanbul Technical University's International Start-Up Acceleration Program ITUGATE. During their six month stay in San Francisco this year, I'll be mentoring a set of technology-producing companies and entrepreneurs entering the US & international markets.

Read more about ITU ARI Teknokent's program to help companies to enter the US market and to provide access to Silicon Valley. It's based at Galvanize, one of the best startup centers in San Francisco. 

The Berkeley Method Bootcamp: Mentor & Pitch Judge

This was one of the startups I judged at The Berkeley Method Bootcamp, Fall 2016, UC Berkeley's Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology -- and the team our room sent to the finals.

Featured in a video interview for BMOE, talking about the issues of early stage startups.

Interviewed for a Growth Hacking thesis

...by an Irish entrepreneur from the European Innovation Academy this summer. Here are his questions, and my answers:

    •    What is growth hacking in your opinion?

Accelerating the usual rate of growth of a product or service.

    •    How relevant is growth hacking for start ups?

It’s required for startups to differentiate themselves from lifestyle businesses and other non-scaleable businesses.

    •    In your opinion, has there been a paradigm shift away from traditional sales and marketing? If so, is it here to stay? If not, why not?

Marketers would say no, growth hacking is the same as marketing. What might be different is the time scale.

    •    What are the characteristics required to be a growth hacker?

Knowing where people are, how they can be reached, and what it’s worth costing to do so.

    •    Is an appreciation of marketing and coding needed to growth hack successfully or is a deeper understanding required?

Expert growth hackers would probably say there is a deeper understanding, but I think anyone can be a growth hacker to a basic degree. I like growthhackers.com as a resource for newcomers.

    •    What method / methods of growth hacking did you or your organisation employ to gain traction? 

The last startup I worked with was so unfamiliar with growth hacking they refused to consider the San Francisco and Silicon Valley standards I suggested. They are not based in the USA. This would have been a way for them to level the playing field, and I suggest it for startups outside the USA.

    •    Should big data be embraced in the customer acquisition process or is privacy becoming more important?

If you can get access to data, by all means, use it. Also, don’t be a creep, and think of the user. There is plenty of data users don’t mind parting with for real value. It does not have to be a privacy issue.

    •    Are there a set of steps a startup can take in order to optimise the growth hacking process? Is growth hacking an art or a science or a combination of both?

It’s both an art and a science. As I suggested earlier, try tapping into the community of growth hackers at growthhackers.com

Chief Mentor At The European Innovation Academy

Honored to be a Chief Mentor at the European Innovation Academy this summer in Nice, France. (That's like Tim Gunn's role on Project Runway, for up to 7 groups of entrepreneurs.)

500 college student entrepreneurs will take an idea to a tech startup in 15 days in this program that brings together faculty from 75 nations, and education programs developed with universities and organizations like UC Berkeley, Stanford, Google, IBM and Amadeus.

Thanks to Ajda Mustafova for making this connection.

Global women's leadership issues advocacy, TBT

Nine years ago:

Seven years ago: