CUHK MBA USA Study Trip 2017
This US Study Trip focused on innovation and entrepreneurship in the Silicon Valley Ecosystem. During the trip, students learnt directly from successful executives and entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley through face-to-face interactions. Besides, students also spent some time to study the entrepreneurship development of the Valley and San Francisco. They visited some companies and attended lectures delivered by entrepreneurs and professors who shared their experiences/perspectives.
At the beginning of the trip, students attended a lecture on an overview of Silicon Valley Ecosystem by Mr. Steve Adelman, who founded Nexus Partners in 2000, a consultancy focused on working in a collaborative manner with its clients on growth and innovation. Apart from Stanford University Tour, company visits to Apple Park & b8ta (Internet of Things Retailer) were arranged for students to explore the latest technologies on Day 2.
On Day 3, we invited Julian Gonzalez (Director) and Mark Newhouse (Managing Director) of ?What If! Innovation to give us a presentation and explained how they bring human values to business and partner with organizations to invent new businesses, products, brands and services. Jim Viola (Innovation Activation Manager) of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS also talked about how they enable and empower innovators to create and accelerate the delivery of life-saving, life-enhancing health and wellness solutions to patients around the world.
In Mountain View, just a few miles south of the San Francisco Bay, there’s a complex of buildings that serves as the headquarters for one of the most powerful companies in the technology industry. It’s the home of Google, the Internet search engine giant. Our students had a chance to visit there!
“Shark Tank” (investment project for a new business) is one of the highlights in the trip. Each group of students presented a fresh business idea to the Judging Panel (the “Sharks”), in a 10-min pitch. The Panel from different entrepreneurial backgrounds gave feedback and asked questions to each group about the proposed business idea. In the end, the Panel decided on which companies they would invest and why.
What’s more, students had an opportunity of gaining insights into strategic technology trends from speaker sessions by Startup Basecamp (first startup facilitator providing an all inclusive co-living and co-working solution to help international startup professionals land in Silicon Valley), 99designs (the planet’s largest on-demand design marketplace connecting a global community of freelance designers), Nextdoor (offering a private social network for neighborhoods), MoodMe (advancing the frontiers of face recognition, emotion detection, face tracking in video), CPP Innovation Labs (a scientific incubator created to develop personality and data driven solutions) and Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.
What Our MBA Student Says for the USA Study Trip
Shirley TEO (Full-time Year 1 Student):
“This study trip to the US has allowed me to understand what exactly is the hype and attractiveness of Silicon Valley. The culture and environment in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley is vastly different, in terms of its openness and acceptance of failures. This is also one major factor that contributes to the vibrant start-up scene.
The visit to d.school at Stanford University and the presentation by the team from ?WhatIf! Innovation gave me a better understanding of Design Thinking and the innovation behind. Also, we learnt the important fact that the solution should solve the needs of the target audience, and not ‘what we think is best for the target audience’. “