Student Energy Innovations Advance in DOE Competition

Alex Wooten, David Hirsch, and Paul Maa in Shanghai representing their venture, [Temporary Energy]

 

Berkeley MBA students are on two teams advancing to the regional finals of First Look West (FLoW), a national clean energy business challenge. Their ideas for bringing solar energy into low income homes and more easily finding ways to make buildings energy efficient will go head-to-head with 22 other competitors at USC on May 7.

Tom Spooner, and Jonathan Lim, both MBA  14, are part of BEEMS, an interdisciplinary Berkeley team pitching Building Energy Efficiency Mapping Services. The startup is based on licensing a an indoor mapping technology developed at UC Berkeley and, according to Spooner, “offers a fast, cheap, and effective service to assess energy efficiency opportunities in existing buildings.”

David Hirsch, Paul Maa, and Alex Wooten, all MBA 13, make up [Temporary Energy], focused on “making solar as easy as renting furniture.” With guidance from solar and energy experts at Berkeley and Haas, the team plans to improve access to solar for low income households by removing such barriers to entry as expensive permitting.

Temporary Energy recently became the first team from Berkeley-Haas to participate in China Europe International Business School’s (CEIBS) Innovate China case competition. Participation offered networking with investors, students, and government officials, as well as a visit to a special economic zone outside of Shanghai to learn about incentives for businesses there.

Berkeley-Haas was also well represented in the 2012 FLoW competition, with Will Greene, MBA 13, and his teammate Will Regan, a Berkeley Physics PhD candidate, winning the $40,000 third prize for Xite Solar, which has developed a new class of solar cells that could make solar a major source of energy production.

Testing Limits in an Escape from Alcatraz

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On Saturday, April 27, 27 Berkeley MBA students tested their limits with a swim through cold bay waters from Alcatraz to San Francisco. Here’s what it was like to take the plunge:

By Guest Blogger Minnie Fong, MBA 13

It’s 7:00AM, and it’s a cold, foggy, San Francisco morning. We huddle at the Fisherman’s Wharf, with wetsuits up to half of our body, warm jackets to protect our torso, and loud dance music to pump up our spirits courtesy of Bri’s “jammy” pack. Today was D-day: a culmination of two months worth of hard work and training for many of us.

 We sign ourselves in, get numbers on our hands, and listen to a short briefing. We try to protect our skin from chafing with body glide, use wax as ear plugs to protect our inner ears from the cold water, and give each other hugs both to warm up and pass on encouragement. Before we know it, we are getting on the boat, and heading out to Alcatraz.

 At 8:00AM, we were ready. One last briefing – instructions to aim for Fort Mason and Ghirardelli Square – and then the big jump. One by one, we climbed up the steps, held on to our goggles, and jumped off the boat and into the icy water.

 Surprisingly, the water wasn’t as cold today. Perhaps it was because the weather outside was really cold, so the shock wasn’t too bad. Maybe it’s because this is actually my fourth time in the bay already, and my body has gotten used to the cold. Or maybe it’s the adrenaline keeping us pumped. Whatever it was, as soon as you get in the water, you just swim.

 One arm in front of the other, breathing in between: I begin to hit a rhythmic stride. At first I’m surrounded by my peers, then everyone begins drifting apart. Before I know it, it’s just me and my little head, bobbing up and down the bay. I know the support boats and kayaks are around, but there are moments when I look up, and don’t see anyone else beside me. I begin to feel so tiny in the middle of everything. The waves are strong, and I swallow a mouthful of salty water every once in a while. Then I start thinking of sea otters. And jellyfish. And sharks. So I keep going. Because I can. Because I need to. Because I am stronger than I think I am.

 As I keep swimming, I feel the skin on my neck start to sting. Chafing. #$%*. Lauren said this will look like a hickey afterwards.

 The next time I look up and stop to take a break, a voice on a boat provides me with a little reassurance. You’re doing great, sweetheart. Just a little bit longer. You’re almost there.

 I begin to see the walls to the Aquatic Park in the distance. Finally.

 And as I swim to shore on the last stretch, I see my classmates who finished ahead, huddled together and celebrating. As I get closer, I realize that the noise I hear is them cheering for me.

 I finally get close enough to stand up, run to shore, and get swept off my feet by my classmate to celebrate the fact that I finished.

 We all did.

 Despite all the fear and uncertainty we felt this morning mixed with our excitement, we realized today that we are stronger than we think we are.

 And this, once again, is a reminder of why I love Haas. Because two years ago, I would never have thought that I would have the strength and courage to swim across the freezing, shark-infested bay.

 Today, a month before graduation, I found myself swimming across the San Francisco Bay, truly embracing one of Haas’ defining principles: Question the Status Quo.  But pushing myself further than I would ever have imagined was only possible because I swam today with supportive classmates in front of me, ready to provide anything from swimming tips, encouragement, good cheer, warm hugs, and the occasional celebratory lift to make sure we all cross the finish line. Together.

Congratulations to: Alia Al Kasimi, Levent Besik, Ben Buchanan, Borja Carol, Samir Das, Minnie Fong, Suresh Krishnamoorthy, Gerald Matthe, Elsita Meyer-Brandt, Dominik Sanya, Carla Vazquez, and Andrew Wisnewski, all MBA 13, and to Caroline Bas, Gustavo Brandileone, Pablo Cuaron, Stephanie Curran, Yuval Gez, Chao Li, Luis Lopez Nieto, Bri Treece, Yoni Shiran, Christine Tringale, and Nikita Zhilin, all MBA 14, and to partners Marina Brandileone, Rudy Ramirez, and Sebastiaan Verhaar.

Five Things: Business of Healthcare Conference

Conference Co-Chairs Tara English and Darya Rose with Steve Burrill

Each year, more than 1,000 students, academics, and industry professionals build knowledge and expand networks at conferences organized entirely by Berkeley MBA students. This series will take a look at recent conferences, starting with the Business of Healthcare:

1. In charge: Co-chairs Tara English, Darya Rose, both MBA 13.

2. In attendance: A mix of about 30 percent students, 50 percent professionals, and 20 percent academics/other. People from more than 120 different organizations come, split evenly between small companies and large ones that include Kaiser, Genentech, and UCSF.

3. Questions: How are companies helping consumers manage complex healthcare decisions? How are organizations changing business models to adapt to increasing consumer choice? And who will consumers ultimately choose to meet their healthcare needs?

4. Answers: Keynote speakers Steve Burrill, CEO of the life sciences financial services firm Burrill & Co.,and  Ken Shachmut, EVP  & CFO of Safeway Health, a company founded upon the supermarket chain’s experience in controlling healthcare costs, were joined by attendees, and a host of experts in tackling healthcare’s big questions.

5. Food for Thought: 85% of people who look at their genetics with @23andMe (a personal genomics co.) choose to share their data. An Assumption that people cling to privacy is wrong.

How an Evening and Weekend MBA Student Moved from Idea to Acquisition–in Eleven Short Months

Amit Paka is not a man who wastes time. Three semesters into the Evening & Weekend MBA Program, he realized he wanted to be an entrepreneur. And in 11 short months, he hatched an idea, relocated, launched a venture—and sold it to eBay.

When Paka, MBA 12, began his MBA studies, he was a senior program and product manager with Microsoft, working in online advertising with Bing. “I entered the Haas program to broaden my perspective and explore all opportunities that were out there,” he says of an open-minded approach. The Seattle-to-Berkeley commute for Saturday classes was challenging, he acknowledged, but worth it.

Courses and seminars taken during Fall semester of his second year, such as Entrepreneurship and Competitive Strategy, became the game changer for Paka, introducing him to new ideas, frameworks, and people. “Becoming part of an entrepreneurial universe leaves an impression on you,” he says.

Launching a Mobile Conversation Platform

The impression made on Paka led him to take even more entrepreneurship classes, network extensively, at least once a week whether in Seattle or San Francisco, and to come up with an idea and a game plan. By the end of his second year in the Berkeley MBA Program he left Microsoft and relocated to the Bay Area, ready to commit to Flockish, his idea for a mobile conversation platform. “Flockish combines the status feed concept of Facebook with the location awareness of Foursquare to create conversation among people gathered in the same locations, such as a concert or a sporting event,” says Paka.

“I felt this was the right space, a big enough market and that I had the expertise to execute on it,” says Paka. eBay apparently agreed: Their event ticket site, StubHub, purchased Flockish and snapped up Paka to head their mobile apps division. In his new role, Paka was able to scale StubHub’s mobile apps, releasing a new iPad app that Apple featured on the App store.

Paka says one of the most important things he learned at Haas is to Question the Status Quo and to ask questions of other people. “If you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to go talk to customers, you have to go talk to your investors,” he says. “You can’t just have an idea and hope that it will somehow become a successful product.”

A Full Entrepreneurial Education

Just how you approach those investors and customers matters too. Paka took Confidence Without Attitude, another of the Haas School’s four Defining Principles, to heart in presenting himself and Flockish to the entrepreneurial community. “When VCs connect you to other VCs, they put their reputations on the line,” he says. “It’s a very close-knit group, so people will hear about it if you come across as anything other than genuine, clear about your goals, and free of arrogance.”

eBay’s purchase of Flockish meant that before he even graduated, Paka engaged in a full entrepreneurial education–from idea generation to launch and all the way through the due diligence required for an acquisition. “I learned a lot about IP and trademark infringement,” he says.

Paka says that since he’s launched Flockish and joined eBay, “Mind-blowing opportunities come up every day.” The most recent one took him from StubHub to a group product manager role with PayPal’s Digital Wallet product team, a group he believes is well positioned to develop and scale the smart-phone-as-wallet. The rapid pace of personal recognition and capture of opportunity mirrors what Paka sees around him. “In this valley you have to keep moving,” he says.

A Weekend in the Life of a Part-time MBA Student: From Health Hackathon to Tough Mudder

…Sunday

This past Saturday and Sunday were a productive 48 hours for Erik Krogh-Jespersen, a student in the Evening & Weekend MBA Program. On Saturday, he was part of the team that won the UC Berkeley Digital Health Hackathon, with a way to track child immunizations in rural India. On Sunday, he was one of eight evening and weekend MBA students completing the Tough Mudder. Get the dirt on Tough Mudder in this Haas Achieves post and read on to learn about the winning Health Hackathon team.

Krogh-Jespersen teamed with Sanat Kamal Bahl and Anandamoy Sen, both MBA 14, and with software programmers Shinto Manuel and Jeremy Rahe, Public Health Adjunct Professor Julia Walsh, and mechanical engineering student Srihari Yamanoor to win the 24-hour competition, which challenged students to “build apps that change lives.” The event, held at Skydeck, is co-hosted by the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship, the Haas Entrepreneurs Association, and UC Berkeley’s CITRIS.

…preceded by Saturday strategizing at the Hackathon–Krogh Jespersen with Julia Walsh

It began with a 60-second elevator pitch on Friday evening to attract teammates. In this case, Bahl, Krogh-Jespersen, and Sen made the pitch and Manuel, Rahe, Walsh, and Yamanoor signed on. The team then worked through most of Friday night and most of Saturday, coding, designing and building—to make a 6:00 p.m. Saturday pitch to judges.

Team Immutrac proposed a way to track child immunizations in rural India using only a feature phone (aka a “dumb” phone) on the side of the rural villagers and a smart phone on the side of the Healthcare providers.  A readable/writable device would allow a villager to keep electronic medical records for her child on her phone, to receive text message reminders about the upcoming need for a shot, and to have the record updated with each visit.

Anandamoy Sen makes the pitch

“We were targeting the over 160,000 child deaths that occur from vaccine preventable diseases in India with an extremely cheap solution that could function without power cords or internet connections,” says Krogh-Jespersen. He credits the diversity of the team for making the event “so amazing.” A chemistry team leader with Nanosyn, Krogh-Jespersen says, “You can imagine that  as an organic chemist, I have no clue what technology solutions are possible, but both Haas and this event bring these people together–and big things happen.”

The winning Haas Hackathon team, top row, l. to r.: Erik Krogh-Jespersen, MBA 14, Shinto Manuel, Julia Walsh, Jeremy Rahe; bottom row, l. to r.: Sanat Kamal Bahl, MBA 14, Srihari Yamanoor, Anandamoy Sen, MBA 14

How Taking a Stand on Culture Makes the Difference at Berkeley-Haas

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When Dean Rich Lyons partnered with faculty, students, alumni, and staff to articulate Berkeley-Haas culture, the aim was to capture the school’s essence. What emerged were our Defining Principles: Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself.

“These have always been the Haas heartbeat,” says Lyons, “but we have never used them so deliberately to shape our community and to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace.” Here are ten ways, among many, that taking a stand on culture has already had an impact at Berkeley-Haas:

• Curriculum: As part of the Berkeley Innovative Leader Development (BILD) curriculum, Haas launched the groundbreaking MBA course Problem Finding Problem Solving, giving students valuable tools to Question the Status Quo and bring solutions.

• Admissions: The school assesses prospective students, in part, on how they live the Berkeley-Haas Defining Principles, through essay questions, interviews, and letters of recommendation.

• Alumni: We have conducted the first of bi-annual alumni surveys to gauge familiarity with our Defining Principles. Already, 50 percent of those graduating in the past 10 years and 30 percent of those graduating prior know the Berkeley-Haas Defining Principles. Our aim is that in two years this familiarity will register with 70 and 50 percent, respectively, and, ultimately, with 100 percent of alumni who are within ten years of graduating.

• Student Recognition: The Masters in Financial Engineering Program honors four students at commencement, awarding one student for each defining principle.

• Careers: The “Standards of Professionalism” document signed by students to retain MBA career services leads with how the Berkeley-Haas Defining Principles apply to the career search process.

• Recruiters: The MBA Career Management Group gives a copy of our Defining Principles to corporate recruiters and surveys them on how well Berkeley MBA candidates reflect them.

• Faculty: All faculty, both tenure-track and professional, are now brought on-board with an orientation day that includes discussion of the Berkeley-Haas Defining Principles.

• Thought Leadership: For two years, Dean Lyons has served as a leading expert in a national conversation on the importance of business school culture. He now expands his role in shaping that discussion, having been tapped by fellow deans to serve on the governing board of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the leading accrediting organization for U.S. business schools.

• Staff-Faculty Teams: Volunteer staff teams spent fall 2011 developing ways to further deepen Haas community engagement with our Defining Principles. As a result, the school created two new staff positions dedicated to culture building and internal communication and is committing resources to implementing recommendations made by the teams.

• Staff Recognition: Each year the school recognizes four employees with Outstanding Staff Awards for clear commitment to, and demonstration of, a defining principle.

Read more about the power of culture in the latest issue of Berkeley-Haas magazine.

On the Road with Problem Finding Problem Solving: New Skills Fuel Shuttle Startup

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It’s 10 p.m. on a Saturday night in June and Michael Vladimer and Tuyet Vu, both MBA 13, are at the corner of 19th and Valencia Streets in San Francisco’s Mission District, a thriving area for nightlife. However, Vladimer and Vu are not club-hopping, they’re…playing in traffic.

The two have spent the summer working on their early-stage startup, Yaygo, a shuttle service requested via smartphone that aims to be fast, fun, and affordable. As part of their launch process, they’ve used skills honed in the Berkeley MBA Program’s Berkeley Innovative Leader (BILD) curriculum, including the required Problem Finding, Problem Solving course (PFPS)–making firsthand observation one of their first priorities.

Hence, a Saturday night spent charting the frequency and direction of taxi traffic and interviewing club-goers on how transportation is enhancing their evenings (or not). Observed on this night were 30-minute waits for taxis, women in spiked heels darting into traffic to flag down cabs, and one would-be passenger calling out in frustration, “Hey, that’s our cab!” as it drove off with a more aggressive fare.

“This is not how transportation should work,” says Vladimer, shaking his head. “Not when we have smart phones as a way to share where we are and when and where we want to go.”

“I’ve had many bad experiences with transportation and many times secretly wish for a faster, safer and cheaper way to get around,” agrees Vu. “Designing Yaygo’s operation and actually implementing it has been a fascinating experience and it feels good to help make people’s transportation experience better.”

The team entered three competitions this past spring, making the finals in Big Ideas@Berkeley and the semi-finals in the UC Berkeley Startup Competition. From there, they launched into trial operations this summer, renting some plush wheels and giving free rides to continue the information-gathering process. The team began by targeting weekend club-goers, which let them operate and observe on Saturday nights and spend the week incorporating what they’d learned into the rapid prototyping processes learned in PFPS.

For instance, the ride theft observed on that Saturday night in the Mission arose because the cab driver had no way to validate that he was picking up the person who had actually called for the lift. This observation led to a Yaygo response that would reassure customers that the ride they’d called for couldn’t be pilfered—the introduction of “pirate” passwords to be given before boarding.

“I’ve found that it’s easy to fall into the trap of tacitly assuming that I understand the problem correctly and jumping into developing a solution,” says Vladimer.  “My studies at Haas, and in PFPS in particular, have taught me to step back and re-evaluate the problem itself.”

“Similarly, PFPS taught us how to create a playful, fun environment that produces meaningful real-world results — a culture that we’ve deliberately included in Yaygo,” Vladimer adds. “We’re tearing down the wall between work hard and play hard.”

A Look Back at 2012-13: Berkeley-Haas Defining Principles in Action

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Berkeley MBA students won the MIT EdTech Case Competition in November with strategy recommendations for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on a new online tool that helps parents to help children with schoolwork. 

Razoring their way to raising funds, students donated $12,500 to Challenge for Charity through the annual tradition of No-Shave November.

Creativity is a matter of course in Managing the New Product Development Process. For nearly 15 years, this joint Berkeley MBA/Mechanical Engineering course has guided inter-disciplinary student teams from concept generation through prototype development in a semester-long project.

Berkeley MBA students won the Michigan Renewable Energy Case Competition with a portfolio approach to helping a Michigan utility generate more electricity with renewable energy technology.

First-year full-time MBA students Elsita Meyer-Brandt and Jens Uehlecke were just two of the aspiring Haas entrepreneurs to benefit from expertise offered by the Lester Center’s Entrepreneur’s Corner.

Full-time students won the IBM/Novartis Non-communicable Disease Challenge with a pharmacy membership program in Mexico that will provide access, community, and encouragement for improving the health of pregnant women with diabetes.

Evening and weekend MBA students used tools from Problem Finding Problem Solving on their way to semi-finalist status in the global Innovation Challenge.

Berkeley MBA’s Team Takes Second in California Dreamin’

From the left: Richard Sudek,Chapman University; Gaurav Agarwal, MBA 13, Co-Founder & CEO Traverie; co-founders Tiffany Yang and Jimming Cheng

The Competition: Chapman University’s inaugural California Dreamin’ Business Plan Competition.

The Team: Evening and weekend student Gaurav Agarwal, MBA 13, co-founded Traverie, a travel discovery startup, with Tiffany Yang (MIT) and Jimming Cheng (Harvard) “I met Tiffany when she came to my wedding as a +1 and danced on stage with my wife to Bollywood music,” says Agarwal. “Jimming and I worked together previously and became close friends.”

The Outcome: Second place. “We won $25,000 after winning $1000 as a finalist in the UC Berkeley Startup Competition.”

The Field: Among the schools topped by Traverie were USC, Caltech, and all UC schools. BYU came in first.

The Winning Idea: “Think of us as a visual interactive travel magazine with content from people you know and trust.” Traverie (now in private beta) aims to make travel discovery “fun, inspirational and personalized.”

Won Because of: The team. “We have relevant and complementary skills that work great together and things just get done.  Secondly, we are going after a large market – $39B spent on travel advertising, 84% of it offline. Finally, our extreme focus on travelers and their needs has helped us build something people will love.”

The H Factor: Agarwal says classes such as Problem Finding Problem Solving and New Venture Finance, along with the Startup Board of Mentors Program at the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and the UC Berkeley Startup Competition all greatly contributed to the team’s success. “At Haas I’ve learned how to create a business out of an idea and how to build a strong team, which is the most important asset in a knowledge company.”

Defining Principles at Work: “More than anything, the principles of questioning the status quo and following your passions inspired the team.”

Haas Achieves: A Video Year-in-Review

Congratulations to the full-time MBA classes of 2012 and 2013. In just one year you have accomplished an extraordinary amount, from organizing conferences and international treks to winning case competitions. We are so proud of all you achieve at Haas–and have captured what we could (i.e. some, certainly not all!) in this Haas Achieves video. We know you have many achievements yet to come and wish you the best.

Video produced by Tritone Media