Week 5 Reading Reflection

I was surprised that venture capitalist not going through on their word was a big enough problem for the book to mention. I suspected there would be a lot of potential problems due to internal factors, but did not think that capitalist (once they said they would invest) could be an issue. 

The different methods to check if the venture was practical seemed to blend together a lot. They almost seemed redundant, which I suppose isn't a bad thing considering that being thorough is a good thing. I just had to check if I accidentally was rereading the same text. 

I do wonder what the author thinks about getting outside advisers to help with getting the businesses started? There seems to be quite a lot to consider, and not all entrepreneurs are qualified to give something like a good market analysis. I would also want to know how to see if someone like an investor or adviser position are qualified. Is there a resource or certain documentation to check? 

The book is getting into a lot of information that I simply have no real first hand experience with to be able to think the author is wrong. Most of what the chapter discusses I feel is logical, but otherwise I really don't know. 

Customer Interviews No. 1

1. Opportunity: I personally care a lot about battery life when it comes to mobile electronics (such as phones and laptops). So I was wanting to see what interest there would be in a product that would help with charging away from an outlet, or assist with some other problem.

2. Market: I guessed that most students here on campus would be heavier phone and laptop users. So they would be a good place to see if there is interest, or other issues with mobile electronics.

3. Questions: The questions I wanted to ask were fairly open. What is the users usual usage for there phone and laptop? What do they like about there phone and laptop? What don't you like about your phone and laptop? What would you look for in a new phone or laptop? And if they mentioned battery life, or another issue, if they would want to have something else with them to help compensate for it?

4. Interviews: I talked to most of these people while at the UVS field, so this may be somewhat skewed. I also found out I have class with the last person interviewed, which was kind of neat. Sorry that the videos are poor quality, I wanted to keep it as out of their face as possible so I was usually holding it off to the side.

5. Opportunity Learned: After doing the interviews it seems that though battery life may of been an issue, most people didn't care a whole lot. However, many of them did say that connectivity on campus was annoying. So it's possible that there is something to explore there.

6. Interviewing Learned: Finding people who were ok being interviewed and being recorded was challenging. A lot of people don't like the video aspect, and said they would be more comfortable if it was just audio. Once getting into the interview, people seemed to be more ok with the questions though.

Week 4 Reading Reflection

The chapter had a couple exercises they mentioned to do. I thought this was kinda cool, because to develop most things, you do need to practice. One asked to come up with some functions for "An egotistical staff member" or "the office gossip". This was different for me because I initially feel that both these things tend to be just negatives. But the point was to try to turn negative things to useful functions.

It mentioned that most adults only use 2 to 10 percent of their creative potential. I don't know how something like creative potential can be quantified. Stating that also somewhat implies that their is a hard limit to how creative someone can be. Which seems very strange considering that creativity, especially in Entrepreneurship, is about ignoring established limits and pushing through with ones own ingenuity.

I'd be curious what the ideas the author came up with for the exercise about the "An egotistical staff member" and "the office gossip". I imagine we may of started with similar ideas, but we each could of gone a different direction after getting into it, which would be cool to see. The chapter also talks about innovations that occurred due to the 9/11 attacks. I would want to ask if they think there may be an ethical line to entrepreneurship when it comes to something like that. Could you take too much of an advantage on peoples fears, or is that just like any other trend to benefit from.

I did not like how the author tried to quantify creativity, like I mentioned in the second paragraph. I understand the want to assign numbers to everything, I am an engineer, but I've always viewed something like creativity to be above being able to quantify. That's just my perspective, and obviously it's open to interpretation, but that's how I feel.

Top 5 World Problems

Last week I discussed what I though were the biggest world problems we face today in this blog post. I'm going to try to rank the worst five of those now.

1. Inability to compromise. If people can't learn to work through their cultural differences, the world will continue to face needless conflict.

2. Environmental danger. We only have one Earth. If it is damaged not only in the short term will we face the consequences, but any future generation of humans will suffer because of the mistakes of the past.

3. Lack of economic mobility. One of the big ideas that people associate with America is the ability for anyone, through hard work, to do well for themselves. Unfortunately that isn't true for a lot of people, here and around the world. If people can't make it out of poverty, then it means their children probably won't either. In addition, that means more resources from the rest of the society must be spent to help them.

4. Inconsistent energy. Without reliable and clean energy in many of the poorer regions of the world, many people just can't move away from subsistence and try other things to develop their community.

5. Discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality, religion, etc. It will never fully go away, but if societies at large discriminate it severely restricts and hurts the people affected.

Here are my ranked solution starting with the most feasible.

1. Environmental danger. The first big steps to take would setting stringent world wide environmental quotas on international trade. This would need rules that affect not only the worst offenders of pollution and destroying habitats, but also those who continue to trade with them. This is the most feasible because similar, though weaker, efforts have already been put in place. It is also a world wide issue that everyone, regardless of borders.

2. Lack of economic mobility. Providing better education, that helps give students the knowledge and understanding that they can control their destiny would help. Also making it easier and cheaper to access resources such as higher education would mean more people born into poverty have the option to be in higher paying positions. Lots of resources are already in place. They just need to be expanded and directed better in order to serve people more efficiently.

3. Inconsistent energy. It would be beneficial to establish renewable energy sources, like solar panels and wind turbines, in these areas. They could be independent of an existing, unreliable infrastructure and provide clean power more regularly to the inhabitants. This would require a lot of money and other resources to work. One possibility is to work with corporations who could take advantage of the newly freed workers, though that has it's own danger as well.

4. Discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality, religion, etc. These things are baked into cultures, and can only change over long periods of time. The best people can do to quicken these transitions are to learn more about the different groups and having personal interactions with them. It's easy to make something a faceless entity, but actually knowing people, and knowing what they have to go through, certainly can change individual beliefs. It would be hard to do, but overtime things would get better.

5. Inability to compromise. If each party looked that the core of the conflict and considered what they are trying to achieve, without pride or emotion clouding their thoughts, finding a solution for everyone would be much easier. Again, this would be very difficult to stop, because it is so baked into human culture. Like discrimination mentioned above, the most we can hope for is gradual improvement over time.

Very Short Interview No. 1

I was fortunate enough to interview Ellery Chan, co-founder of Precision Lightworks. After working in research and development at Harris Corporation for several years funding was cut on his project. He and another engineer decided to go out and use their knowledge to develop a somewhat similar product. They currently are in their sixteenth year of business and are profitable.

1. What do you think it means to be an entrepreneur?
It means starting your own business.  It means taking your own idea and running with it.  It means you are in control of your own destiny.  In the case of a small business like ours, it also means a huge amount of responsibilities.  We had started a two-person company.  That meant that we were the management; we were the engineers; we were the legal department, the advertising department, the personnel department, and the custodians.

2. What is something you didn't expect to happen when you stated out?
We had three significant challenges:

1. Poor market research:  We had assumed that our target market would eagerly buy our product.  We would be really happy making money by burning CDs with our software and getting paid for each copy. Our original target market (architects) was impressed and excited by our product, but they did not want to spend money on a tool they were not likely to use a large percentage of the time, and in a lot of cases, they did not want to invest the extra effort to use the tool.  Perhaps this could have been overcome with better marketing of our product, but we did not have the skills to design that marketing nor the funds to hire an outside firm to do it.

2. Economic shift:  We had started our company in 2000, in the midst of the stock market downturn due to the dot-com bubble burst.  Because we were a self-funded company (no outside investors), we had to pay for our business and personal (family) expenses out of our own funds.  This meant dipping into our own stock market investments, and selling stock at a loss due to the state of the market.  We had three very lean years where we were developing our products, but did not yet have any significant revenue from sales.

3. Paradigm shift:  In addition to our problematic customer base, we had built our software to take advantage of a very cost-effective source of commercial aerial photography that was available on the Internet.  The high-quality archive of aerial photos was being collected, processed, and made available by a division of Kodak.  It made high-quality, low-cost aerial photos readily available to consumers, which worked very conveniently with our software (which needed a source of aerial photography), and which was good for average users because they could get good photos without needing to know a lot about aerial photography (which can otherwise be pretty technical for newcomers).

Those challenges eventually caused us to modify our original business plan and create a new one:  Originally we were going to create and sell licenses to a software product.  We saw that our potential customers did not feel they were in a position to capitalize on using our tools, but we knew their potential.  So we modified our software from and end-user tool to a high-volume production tool, and switched from licensing seats of software to providing a production service.  This meant expanding and hiring workers to do the production using our software.  Now we produce data and license the data to a variety of customers.  The new business model has proven to be much more successful and profitable.

We spent about 2-3 years developing our original software package, 4 years refining it and selling it, and the most recent 8 years providing data production services.  Internally we still are doing continuous software development to support our production environment, and to develop new capabilities that will result in new products.

3. What do you think would be important to learn in an entrepreneurship course?
I think it would be important to understand the trade-offs of entrepreneurship.  These are some:

The likelihood of striking gold is small:  It can sound like a glorious undertaking, and in some cases it is; but starting a rock and roll band or working to become a professional athlete are also forms of entrepreneurship, and the likelihood of achieving a spectacular level of success is small.

There are many levels of success:  For many small businesses, the monetary return may simply be adequate.  But for many, the satisfaction of building something from their own ingenuity is rewarding; and being their own boss is rewarding.  These days, simply being employed can be rewarding, and having the ability to provide employment for others can also be rewarding.

It may not be what you expected:  For me, the personal irony is that I left my former job because the R&D opportunities were dwindling.  However, as a business owner, my R&D opportunities now are frequently (mostly) overtaken by other tasks important to running the company (like keeping the network running, and making sure the employees are happy).  I often miss working for a larger company with lots of resources, a great support structure, and lots of smart people to talk to and learn from; and where I could focus almost all of my energy on technology development.

We consciously chose not to follow the "fail fast" dot-com model of entrepreneurship, where one gets investors, spends venture capital like crazy, works furiously, then either explodes in a glory of success, or implodes as a spectacular failure.  We are fully self-funded, so we owe nobody.  We also could not take advantage of the leverage that external funding can provide.  However, our approach fit our lifestyle choice. We are entering our 16th year of business, and are profitable with zero debt, so we consider it a success.

Learning about how they had to change their business strategy was really cool. I find it fascinating that Precision Lightworks, which had a good idea and product, just had to adjust their approach to appeal to their market and be successful. I was most surprised to learn that they did not need investors.It seems that acquiring investors is just part of the norm when we hear about starting a business. 

Week 3 Reading Reflection

I was pleasantly surprised that they mentioned that eating healthy and exercising were characteristics entrepreneurs often have. Having a healthy lifestyle is definitely important, and is usually the first thing to go when people hit a very stressful or busy time in there life. Maintaining ones body is one of the best ways to keep up ones overall happiness, even in rough times.

When the section was discussing what to do to relieve stress in mentioned networking. This confused me a little at first, because to me, networking is something that is stressful, even though it's an important part of a job. What I think the author meant though, was that talking with your network about common issues is a good, because everyone would have similar experience to empathize better.

The author list quite a few traits that are associated with entrepreneurs. Because of that I was wondering if there were just a few traits the author felt were more critical to being a good entrepreneur? Also about the traits, if there were some that an individual lacked, would it probably be alright to rely on someone else to compensate for it? Working with others is a way to make up for individual disadvantages, but also means that one may become too dependent, and not able to succeed without the other.

There wasn't anything that I disagreed with in this chapter. I'm glad they touched on the darker aspects of Entrepreneurship, because that is something that really must be considered. Being an entrepreneur requires putting a lot of yourself emotionally and physically on the line, and one has to make sure that's a risk they can accept.

Identifying Local Opportunities

1. Brevard group's QR code system uses GPS to help track lost pets
Pets can easily get lost and go missing. Unfortunately the embedded chips often used are not readable by a regular person. So a QR code system has been implemented that allows anyone to scan the tags which provide information about the animal and sends an alert to the owner.
Existing electronic pet identification methods do not allow normal people to identify the owner.
Pet owners and their animals have this issue.

2. Brevard County leaders considering road funding
The roads in Brevard County have been in a very poor condition for a while. Unfortunately the officials can't agree on how they want to come up with the funds to pay for all the repairs. Some suggest making more budget cuts, because the system is inefficiently using money. While others feel that budget cuts would only hurt services for parks and library. Instead they want to raise sales or gas taxes, to the dismay of many citizens. They are having a conference in the near future to compromise on a solution.
Many of the roads are in need of a repair. They often cause damage to cars and create an unsafe environment.
Anyone who drives on the road or pays taxes in the area are affected by these issues.

3. NASA's spacwalk terminated after astronaut reports water in helmet

An astronaut discovered some water bubbles forming inside his spacesuit during an EVA. As a precaution they decided to cut short the repair and return to the ISS. A similar problem occurred in 2013, and since then extra precaution has been taken if water appears. 

The cooling systems on some space suits do leak occasionally.

This puts the astronauts who perform the EVA at extreme risks. 

4. 'Thin blood' and Florida winters: Is it too cold for you?

People who live in Florida for extended periods of time often find that their tolerance to cold is relatively diminished. So much so that it has become a common joke that Floridian's can't handle mildly cold temperatures. This is because when people live in warmer climates the capillaries in their skin dilate, and take longer to constrict to cold temperature. 

Many individuals living in Florida have less of a tolerance for colder temperatures. 

Anyone who has lived in Florida for an extended period of time.

5. 2016 Python Challenge starts Saturday in South Florida

Due to pythons killing many of the native animals in Florida, the wildlife services have started competitions to capture as many as possible. In previous years, even though over a thousand people participated, only sixty-eight snakes were captured. The organizers hope that continuing the challenge will get more people involved and get rid of more pythons.

There is a very large population of invasive pythons in Florida that are dangerous to native animals.

The snakes directly affect the animals they hunt, but also the wider ecosystem as a whole. 

World's Biggest Problems

1. There are millions of refugees fleeing recent conflict. The U.S. does not see the bulk of this, because we are separated by sea. These people are trying to survive, and go to a safer, more stable environment. However, many countries, especially in Europe are worried that they would be overburdened helping these people.
As of right now many refugees aren't able to work in the countries they are seeking refuge in. If the EU created an international work program, that enabled these people to become more productive members of society, many of the overburdening issues, could be minimized.  The program could provide not only paying jobs, but classes on learning languages, becoming citizens, and adjusting to the new country.

2. Many countries are implementing some sort of complex spying and data collection program on it's own citizens (and sometimes other countries). The extent the NSA does this means that more or less anything ones does that touches the internet is traced, profiled, and saved. This can include things ranging from private emails, to health records. I believe this to be a violation of basic human rights. In addition to the ethical issue this brings up, there is now way to know that the information they collect is secure. This means that a hacker could potential take any of this information, and considering this has happened several times recently, is a very real danger.
The reason many of these programs are put in place is to combat terrorism or some other indisputable wrong doing. However, officials have stated that so far the data collection has only assisted in learning about the individuals after the fact. Information that could, and often is discovered using regular police work. Since it seems these costly systems are not doing what they set out to do, they should be closed, and all data collected permanently deleted.

3. Unfortunately the world environment is at threat. Pollution is is damaging the climate of many areas, causing change that is killing off many species as well as resources that are needed with the growing population. It's causing weather systems to behave more erratically than normal, which is putting millions of people at risk.
The world environment is very complex, which means solutions are hard to come to. However, the first big steps to take would setting stringent world wide environmental quotas on international trade. This would need rules that affect not only the worst offenders of pollution and destroying habitats, but also those who continue to trade with them.

4. In many third world countries, and even some more developed ones, energy can be inconsistent. To the point that having lights at night can be difficult and other valuable electronics, like a refrigerator to store food, impossible. This presents a very wide gap that is difficult to cross and overcome in the modern world. To top it off, often the only source of power is fossil fuels, leading to more pollution.
It would be beneficial to establish renewable energy sources, like solar panels and wind turbines, in these areas. They could be independent of an existing, unreliable infrastructure and provide clean power more regularly to the inhabitants.

5. There are many people in severe poverty aground the world, and even in the US. Even clean water and food can be hard to come by. This leads to malnutrition and death in many cases. Often these people are vulnerable to things like drought that destroy there crops and primary source of food or income.
There are several ways to help solve these issues. Dealing directly with crops, helping the farmers to diversify in both type of food and specific type of crop (for genetic diversity). This would reduce the damage that a disease or environmental damage. Increased education of the people would also assist in opening up employment possibilities, bringing new industries and creating a varied economy.

6. Terrorist attacks are another unfortunate issue on the world stage. They are often motivated by extremest mentalities against outside influence and internal cultural disagreements. Many people are killed, loose loved ones, and become more upset at the opposing group.
This a very tricky situation, because often outside influence is seen as a problem. One point of view would be to just leave these groups alone and let them sort out the issues themselves. However, this means leaving many innocent people at the mercy of extremist who will do harm. A more interconnected world, using things like the internet and social media could help bring more people closer together and present new ideas and opinions, but it would also requires people to have access to infrastructure to work.

7. Many people maintain a fear or hatred of others based of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. This causes different groups a struggle to find work, feel ok with themselves, and be accepted in modern society. People being treated poorly due to factors they can't control should not be a problem in the twenty-first century.
Unfortunately changing social stigmas is no easy feat. These things are baked into cultures, and can only change over long periods of time. The best people can do to quicken these transitions are to learn more about the different groups and having personal interactions with them. It's easy to make something a faceless entity, but actually knowing people, and knowing what they have to go through, certainly can change individual beliefs.

8. Lack of economic mobility is a problem many individuals face for a variety of reasons. Many people may not have the agency over their own lives to do better, while others must fight social injustices to earn a spot where others start. This prevents many from being able to rise above the economic condition they were born into.
Providing better education, that helps give students the knowledge and understanding that they can control their destiny would help. Also making it easier and cheaper to access resources such as higher education would mean more people born into poverty have the option to be in higher paying positions.

9. History repeats itself, and often times people ignore the lessons from the past. The United States having a war in a region and leaving it destabilized, leading to a extremist leaders taking charge, is not new. It happened in World War I, where the Nazi party took charge and plunged the world into another bloody conflict. And it happened more recently with the Gulf Wars.
If we continue to let emotions dictate both the charge into battle, and how we treat the people afterwords, we will continue to have escalating conflict.As a society and government we need to treat others, even old enemies, with respect and human decency.

10. Many conflicts arise because people aren't willing to compromise. For instance, Israel and Palestine both want to live where they consider to be their home. However, there continued conflicts means many people are hurt and sacred sites damaged. Neither side is wining in this drawn out battle.
If each party looked that the core of the conflict and considered what they are trying to achieve, without pride or emotion clouding their thoughts, finding a solution for everyone would be much easier.

I want to point out that a paragraph devoted to each issue is not nearly enough to really explain it. So there is a whole lot of generalization going on.

Week 2 Reading Reflection

Learning how young the study of entrepreneurship is was something I didn't expect. It's easy to take how things are in modern time for granted. It hasn't been very long that "regular" people have the means and freedom to pursue their entrepreneurial interest, even though it seems like that is an expected part of society today. 

I though having the Venture Opportunity School of Thought under the Micro view was strange. It mentions "developing the right idea at the right time for the right market niche", which to me seems very dependent on outside factors. Even though the micro view is about "the potential entrepreneur has the ability, or control, to direct or adjust the outcome of each major influence".

There are many different schools of thought, and I personally feel that a combination of all of them is needed to form a realistic concept. However,if I had to choose one I feel that the Environmental School of Thought is the biggest factor. I wonder what the author would personally choose. The chapter also talks a lot about the benefits entrepreneurs have on society, which makes sense considering it is an Entrepreneurship textbook. It would be a nice contrast to see know the authors thoughts on problems or issues that entrepreneurship can cause, which would make the chapter feel more well rounded.

There wasn't anything I disagreed with in the section. It does a very good job of being general and not really saying one idea or way is better than any other. 

Bug List

1.   Bug:  I use a tablet as an alarm clock, and if it gets a notification during the night it's notification light starts blinking even if it's set to silent. I have trouble sleeping often and this can can cause issues.
      Why: It is probably something the designers just didn't consider, or if they did thought it would  better to have some non-audible way to convey a notification.

2.   Bug:  The oven in my dorm takes an excessively long time to heat up (almost 30 minutes to 400F).
      Why: The oven is probably a cheaper model and just doesn't preform well.

3.   Bug:  The elements can take a toll on bicycles, so it would be nice to have covers for them to keep them in a nice condition outside.
      Why: It cost money to put some up, and could possibly be considered an eye sore.

4.   Bug:  The U-Lock for my bike is difficult to open and does sometimes get in the way while biking.
      Why: The shape of the lock is part of the cause for both of these inconveniences. 

5.   Bug:  While biking it is hard to stay dry in the rain, as a jackets hood will usually be pushed back by the wind, and umbrellas are unrealistic to use.
      Why:  Riding a bike normally requires the use of both arms, and pedaling at most speeds will create wind.

6.   Bug:  UF has many different (and not always great) websites for students: financials, schedules, clubs, ID's and more. It can often be hard to remember or know where to go when you need to do anything.

      Why: It might be simpler for each department to have their own website instead of working together on one unified one.

7.   Bug:  Each of my classes has their own website in addition to using canvas. Not having one place to go to check on homework can be quite annoying.
      Why: Professors may not like canvas, or may just want more control over their own site. 

8.   Bug:  There is very little desk space in most lecture halls, which makes taking written notes difficult.
      Why: The seats are primarily designed to fit a large number of students in the room.

9.   Bug:  The floor numbering scheme in many of the building on campus varies from the base floor being called ground, first floor, and even other ones.
      Why: It's possible different designers decided to go with their own standard, instead of look at the preexisting buildings and keeping a unified system. 

10. Bug:  I have a little multi-tool on my key ring, which is convenient to have, but it is fairly awkward to take odd the ring. An easier way to take it on and off would be convenient.
      Why: They probably prioritized the multi-tool being compact and lightweight, which meant a more complicated attachment mechanism was decided against. 

11. Bug: The lack of counter space for cooking storage in dorm can make things difficult, especially when its hared with three other people.
      Why: Dorms are small and don't offer a ton of space. 

12. Bug:  It can be difficult to keep school files synced across various computers and thumb drives. Having a non-cloud based service (so internet speeds aren't important) to keep all files up to date.
      Why: It can be stressful worrying about keeping so many important files on hand and easily accessible. 

13. Bug:  The recycling on campus is limited to paper and some plastics and it would feel nice to more easily recycle materials instead of throwing them away.
      Why: It may not be cost effective to spend time recycling some materials or composting food wast, even though it is possible to do so. 

14. Bug:  Drying dishes can take up a good amount of counter space. A solution could be to have cabinets with built in drying racks and maybe even fans to keep everything more organized and  efficient.
      Why: Dishes need circulation to dry, which means they should be spaced out, taking up space.

15. Bug:  Frequently I will have issues with the UF internet, having incompatibilities with programs or operating systems. This makes doing work or most anything else in our interconnected society frustrating and sometimes temporarily impossible.
      Why: They want to make sure the network is safe from people exploiting it, which is understandable, though does seem overbearing at times. 

16. Bug:  Getting mail is fairly infrequent here, but it would be nice to get an email notification like when receiving packages, so it would be easier to respond to letters quickly if necessary.
      Why: A system like this would probably take time to implement, and fewer people are using snail mail for important communications nowadays. 

17. Bug:  Between chargers, headphones, keyboards, and other computer peripherals, there is a mess of cables on and around my desk. A desk with built in cable management would help alleviate this issue.
      Why: It would cost extra money, and wouldn't necessarily be a one size fits all solution, making it harder to implement campus wide.

18. Bug:  For most phones if you forget to charge during the night, they will struggle to get through the following day, It would be really cool to easily get multiple days out of phone.
      Why: Battery technology has not advanced at the same speed processor and screen technologies have.

19. Bug:  Printers are notorious for not working when they are needed too. Having a reliable printer at this point would seem like a miracle.
      Why: Moving parts are always vulnerable to breaking, which for right now, are required for printers.

20. Bug:  There seems to be a rush at certain times of the day to do laundry, especially towards the night. There could be a system that would let people know good times to try.
      Why: The system would have to be implemented. 

I did have some trouble coming up with things that bug me. Normally I do try to see things in a more optimistic point and not have little things bother me. My thought process was to just run through my daily routine and see what might be improve. 

My Entrepreneurship Story

Last year I took part in the Big Idea Gator Business Plan Competition. It was a very interesting experience, not only because I was learning about how to make a Business Plan and pitch the concept, but also because I was working with someone else's idea that needed to be evolved to make more feasible. The product was an accessory which would attach to any writing instrument that would turn it into a "smartpen". This would give it the ability to record writing digitally, make audio notes, and have motion controls that could tie into a smartphone or computer application. I acted as the Chief Technical Officer (did feel weird about having a title like that) and researched the existing market and products. We actually made it to the top sixteen and presented in front of a group of investors. It was a very cool experience, which I hope to try again in the upcoming years.

I chose this class because I do have a strong interest in joining a start up or creating my own businesses. But I hope that even if that doesn't end up happening, I do learn valuable skills that will help me in the future.

The name of the company concept was Atramentum (it means ink in Latin, weren't we fancy).

Introduction

Currently I am a sophomore Computer Engineering student. I am proud to consider myself a nerd, if you were wondering where the title of the blog comes from. There are a few different things that I am passionate about. Open Source software is one that is closely related to my major. In general, it is software that allows anyone to look through, modify, and share the code. This is really cool because it helps people work to make programs that can take advantage of existing work, without having to start from scratch. In addition it allows anyone to learn from the software, and contribute back to it to make it even better. Martial arts is also a great interest for me. For the past year and a half I have been practicing one called Cuong Nhu. It's a Vietnamese mixed martial art that was actually brought over to America at the University of Florida.My other hobby is photography. I love being in the mindset of being able to look at anything and be in wonder, and I do my best to show that with my pictures. I am still not sure exactly what I want to do with my career. What I do know though, is that I want to help people in any way I can. It makes me happy, and would help me get through hard days knowing I've made someones life better.

Entrepreneur's Mantra

Hello World!

Hello everyone! ENT 3003 seems like it will be an interesting class. I am curious too see how I feel about the assignments as the course progresses. It certainly is taking a different approach that I hope pans out.