Student Perspectives
EIA in Italy 2017 Student Perspectives
Jen PrideWEEK 1"The first day of the program Elise and I showed up (a little late because we may have gotten a little lost on the metro) and were told we had to somehow form a team of 5 by the end of the next two days…. Stressful?? Let’s just say I would rate my stress level a 20/10. But I found some friends (Lukas and Chandler) that I had made the night before at the venue and we all bonded and tried to go around and make friends together. On the second day, I found Chandler and Lukas again and we looked at each other and decided we wanted to be on a team together and we better create an idea that would be a feasible enough idea to attract two other brave souls to join our team. We brainstormed a lot of ideas throughout the morning. We finally come up with an idea and we strengthened the idea to the point where we understand the gist of it all to go sell our idea to other people. We also had our first seminar from Ken Singer and he was so incredible. He had such great tips and such an amazing insight about how to build a team and the importance of finding a good team and then solving an issue or problem. I really learned that the people who are on your team matter more than the idea/issue at hand, because if you don’t get along with your team, then nothing will ever get done. We then went into the "misfit" toy room (Team Clinic) to try and find 2 more people to join our team. It was chaos, not even organized chaos... just straight chaos. Everyone in there was trying to pitch their idea and sell themselves in a way that was very stressful and uncomfortable. We had to unfortunately cut some people that originally joined our team in the Team Clinic room because we found Joshia, a computer software engineer from Singapore, and Melissa, a software engineer at Michigan, and we realized they were perfect assets to our team. So, let me recap, there is Lukas and Chandler who are both from Berkeley, Melissa who is from Michigan, and Joshia who is from Singapore all on my team. As of right now the idea for the product is to create a wearable technology that will provide physical data of brain activity for kids. We are currently planning on putting our technology into a sock in which will read the GSR of a kid and can provide accurate data. This week we also went to Milano for Customer Discovery and had the opportunity to talk to local people about our idea, this was extremely difficult for my group because none of us spoke Italian, and our idea revolved around improving the US Education System. With that being said, my group used this trip to Milano as a team building trip and saw a lot of different sites and ate until we couldn’t stuff anymore gelato in us."
WEEK 2"After the first week of EIA my team got closer and stronger than ever. We began to dive deeper into the market research behind our idea and we pivoted away from a sock and into a wristband that the kids would wear during the school day and the devices would stay at school for the whole time. The devices will be synced to an app that the teacher will have access to and will be provided real time feedback with how the students stress levels, heart rate, and GSR (sweat) relate to the lecture/part of class. Our device will be able to gather all of this data and report it into one graph that will be an easy way for teachers to be able to quickly glance at and see if their teaching styles need to be adjusted or not. We talked with a lot of current/retired teachers, principals, and educators through Skype/Facetime over the course of this week. We got a lot of extremely useful feedback that allowed us to continue to pivot constantly. This week Joshia was also able to get our prototype working and reading certain biometrics on the app he created but an accurate representation of the data we were hoping to collect. At the end of the week we went to Roma to basically practice pitching our idea and learning about other groups ideas. We got to Roma a little late and instead of rushing to the venue, my group decided to get a true authentic lunch in Roma and take our time... When in Rome, am I right? 😉 Once we got to the venue there were still groups missing but we were able to set up our posters and our working prototype on the table and then alternated who pitched and who walked around to look at other ideas. After the event ended my group decided to go get lost in Roma for the night and explore as much as we could until we left Saturday mid-afternoon. To sum up the week, we realized we wanted to integrate our device into the classroom as a teaching tool and we pivoted away from a sock and are now working towards a wristband that kids would wear during the day, especially class time. And we also went to Roma to practice pitching and bond even more with our teams and with other EIA peers."
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WEEK 3"The third week was very much of a “shine and polish” week. We assigned the speaking parts for our pitch to certain members of the group who grasped the concept and the technology and marketing aspect of the company extremely well. We practiced different ways to deliver our pitch appropriately to hit the correct target audience and hit a pain point to allow them to relate to our product/idea and then possibly fund our idea. My group sadly did not get picked to pitch in the pitching carousel but we were all extremely impressed with how far we had come considering we didn’t even have an idea at the beginning of the 15 days. We were able to go back home and change into comfy clothes and then head back to the venue to hear the final pitches that were able to pitch to the venture capitalists and angel investors. My group and I were also able to reflect on the program and on our time spent together for the past 3 weeks. We all agreed that we learned so much as individuals and about each other and other cultures and that if we could do this program again, we would do it in a heartbeat. EIA is a very fast paced, intense program that throws a lot of useful information that most people gain over their lifetime as an entrepreneur but we got all that info over the course of 3 weeks. Yes the days were long, but the program and the people I met were all worth it."
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Personal Reflection"Throughout the course of the trip I gained so much knowledge about life. I was able to learn a lot about myself and how the real world is going to look. Within the first 24 hours of being in Torino, Elise and I were thrown into a group of 700 people and were told to basically make friends and relate to certain people and then form/join a team. That was extremely stressful, I’m not going to lie, but over the course of 48 hours we had made so many friends that we stayed friends with throughout the program and stay in touch even today. Elise and I were able to travel to Florence on the weekend we had free and it was one of the best parts of the trip. We took an overnight train to Florence, took a “quick” pitstop in Pisa (long enough for us to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa), and we had to find our way around to the different attractions and restaurants. We did all of this with both of us hardly speaking Italian; luckily Elise is fluent in French and could try to communicate with the locals for directions to certain places. We found the best croissant place at 6:30am in Florence 100% by mistake - was it the no sleep, the grumbling stomach, or the true authentic Italian bakery that made that croissant taste like heaven? We will never know, but it definitely was a little bit of all 3. We found our way to tons of attraction stops, the best Italian restaurant where we both ate the best pasta in our lives, and our way to the hostel. I could go on for hours about traveling around Florence but I’ll sum it up by saying, if you are planning on going on this trip in the future, I HIGHLY recommend traveling to Florence or simply anywhere on your free weekend!!
For the times we got to travel as one big EIA program, that was very chaotic but extremely fun because you had 700 of your new closest friends exploring with you! In Milano, my group got there and decided to go to the typical tourist attractions, and of course find some great food and gelato. We walked until our feet almost fell off, and mine almost did considering I thought were OTBT’s was a good idea for a 12-hour long day… Don’t make the mistake I did, wear sneakers or sandals!! Roma was a completely different story considering we spent Friday night there. We got done with the pitching event in Roma around 5pm and wanted to go explore the streets of Roma. We didn’t spend much time in the hotels though considering we were out trying to hit all of the main tourist attractions without the crowds of people. Seeing the Pantheon, Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, and Spanish Steps all in one night was truly breathtaking without the crowds of people. Strolling through the streets of Roma with all of my new closest friends is something I miss dearly and a memory I will keep forever. Even though the program was from 10am-8pm every weekday, there was always a lot of things going on within the students of the program after we got back from the venue. We would go from hanging out in the courtyard socializing, or go to a local Torino restaurant. As cheesy as it sounds, I know for a fact that all of the memories I created in Italy will stay with me for a lifetime. I wouldn’t trade last summer for anything in the world and I can’t wait to hear about the experiences y’all (those of you that are daring 😉 enough) make in the years to come!!!!" |