DeveloperWeek 2018, a day at geeky paradise
The third weekday of our trip was about developers and everything that developers like to do or see. We took the BART for the second time and, after a really loud trip (i.e. the tunnel between San Francisco and Oakland seems to be designed to make as much noise as possible), we arrived at the Oakland Convention Center where the DeveloperWeek 2018 was taking place. My first impression : “Woaw ! It feels like a geeky paradise…” All of the leading companies in the developer ecosystem were there : Oracle, AWS IoT, SmartSheet, Microsoft, Cloudflare and many others. For some of us, the goal of the day was to collect as much “swag” as possible, each company being really creative about having goodies to bring people to their booth. It’s part of the game and everybody knows it, actually you are offered a “swag collector” (i.e. a bag) as soon as you enter the premise. Beside collecting multiple t-shirts, pens, stickers or other flying toys there were two major interesting things to do : Talk with the people at the booths and get to know more about their products, services and job opportunities Listen to inspiring speakers such as Todd Greene (CEO of PubNub, a network dedicated to building real time apps that scale) or Joshua Bernstein (from Dell) I will not get too much into details about the topics of those talks because that’s not the purpose of this post and also you can find the list of talks on the DevWeek18 website. That was a great opportunity and many of us have had the chance to make contacts that could lead to a collaboration, an internship or a job in the future. For the other ones that weren’t attracted by the technical aspect, it was also important because nowadays tech and business are more and more tied together. Knowing about the top leading products and emerging technologies is, I think, a success criteria.
Conference « View from the Top » @ Stanford University with Virginia M. “Ginni” Rometty, IBM CEO
Ginni Rometty, IBM CEO since January 2012, spoke about many topics during the conference, such as which aspects we must take into consideration when looking for a position, how to build a long term relationship with stakeholders and IBM mindset regarding the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Her key for an happy professional life Ginni Rometty gave us her key for choosing a new position and/or a career path: be passionate about what you do – no matter the field you are working in – and do something with purpose as it will be important in the long run. In addition to those, she mentioned building trust as the last key factor for a successful business. How to build trust Ms Rometty explained how IBM succeeded in building a long-term relationship with its stakeholders when working with AI and datas. Giving purpose by working with technology and not replacing human being with it. Moreover, transparency is very important for people and giving them information about how datas are collected, by whom and explaining what they are used for will help the company build trust with its clients. Indeed explainability can help stakeholders to better understand the company’s vision and operating model. The use of AI In order to create value for customers, the results of datas analysis should be only for them and not going to their competitors. Therefore, using AI should help them identifying useful information among their own existing datas. Rometty considers IBM responsibility not only to develop new products but also to commercialize them “safely”. WEF 2018 and the importance of skills Ginni Rometty attended the 2018 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, and took part in conferences related to the WEF System Initiatives about skills development, “Shaping the future of Education, Gender and Work”, a topic which really matters to her and is applied by IBM. Indeed gender and religion play no role for the company and developing employees’ skills is recognized as a necessity. Furthermore, Mrs Rometty insisted on inclusion as it plays a significant role in the workplace nowadays. My point of view I really enjoyed listening to her during this conference as she was witty, playful with the moderator and not self-centered. She presented her experience working for IBM and as a CEO, a position she never really thought about in her early career. Guest speaker bio Ms Rometty joined IBM in 1981 and occupied various positions inside the company before being chosen as the CEO. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree with high honors in computer science and electrical engineering from Northwestern University. Ginni Rometty is recognized for a long-term strategic thinking and client focus. Over the last few years, she focused the company efforts on the cloud and cognitive computing systems, such as Watson (an AI platform targeted at professional, amongst which the most discussed, the doctors), for which she played an important role to commercialize it. More information about Ginni Rometty nomination as IBM CEO here, the conference @ Stanford and the WEF Initiative “Shaping the future of Education, Gender and Work”.
CA Technologies workshop
One purpose of our trip to San Francisco was to present a Fintech project to CA Technologies. This company is one of the largest independent software corporations in the world. On February 7th, we went to Santa Clara to participate in a workshop organized by the company in their Silicon Valley Technology Center. We arrived around 9am and received a very warm welcome from the team. A large breakfast was waiting for us before starting the workshop. Peter Matthews who we already met a few months ago in Switzerland introduced us to Sinéad, Tammy and Heather who hosted the workshop. We did different exercises to help us get to know ourselves as well as to promote ourselves in front of other people. We had to find out our personal value proposition and I think this was a very good training for our future. At noon, we took a break to have a delicious meal in their restaurant. After lunch, the team also taught us what makes a great founder and helped us start our own lean canvas for our personal project. It really helped us start our work in the right direction. Then, we got introduced to Howard Abrams, a Distinguished Engineer and SVP at CA Technologies who made great presentation about the company and the startups of CA. At the end of the day, we left CA Technologies with a brain full of new knowledge and went back to San Francisco.
Push the door and go up the multicolor stairs…
If you are a little geeky, or just curious about how things work, or looking for a place to realize your craziest DIY projects, then you won’t be disappointed with your visit of Noisebridge, a hackerspace located in SF. We were welcomed by “J” (because every Hispanic name start with a “J”) who showed us the place. Electronic equipment, techie library, sound lab, classrooms, bike station, wood workshop, laser-cutting machine, 3D printers, sewing area, welding station, … The list can continue for long. And because of the slightly anarchic appearance of the place – which is only an illusion because all the equipment is inventoried – you would never be safe from discovering something you didn’t know existed. In this place where the only access fee is respect, the motto is : “Be excellent to each other”. Fair enough ! https://www.noisebridge.net/
San Francisco Tour – Part. 1
During the week-end, we all had the opportunity to discover the city and meet the people who live around. Here is a few things that you can see/do in San Francisco: The Painted Ladies The painted ladies are Victorian and Edwardian houses painted in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details🏠🏠🏠. You can see them in Alamo Square Park. Alcatraz Alcatraz, the most famous prison in the USA, is waiting for you. Don’t be afraid to take the ferry to this place you will come back in San Francisco later. Promise The Pier 39 Castro Castro is a neighborhood of San Francisco. It is one of the first gay neighborhoods in the USA.
Discussion on the refugee crisis at swissnex
As seems to be a recurring theme since we have arrived, this morning’s early start was accompanied by yet another fresh northern Californian drizzle. After a short tram ride down to the Embarcadero, we attended a panel discussion at swissnex about the contributions tech companies in the Valley can make to help with the ongoing global refugee crisis. Instead of simply throwing money at the problem like many companies have been doing in recent decades, the idea behind this new wave of support is to leverage their core business expertise to provide assistance to refugee families. The offered support ranges anywhere from helping them get in touch with the local community in their new country to offering education to younger people who, in some cases, have been out of school for several years due to the situation in their home country. Following this insightful hour and a half discussion, it was already time to hop back on the tram and head off to Berkeley for a tour of the world-renowned school that happened to be hosting its 2017 annual research symposium on the theme of AI and neural computation.
DAY I – SWISSNEX & SWISSCOM
First day visiting the Silicon Valley, amazing experience! Despite our jettlagged brains and minds, once our stomachs had been properly fulfilled with coffee and bagels, we started our journey by visiting swissnex. We were looking forward to discover where the HQ were, since Vincenzo had told us that words could not express how amazing they were. And he was right. Who could have imagined that the docks of SF’s marina had been transformed in a huge, impressive and unbelievable industrially designed place becoming the nest of Swiss innovation in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. Christian Simm – founder of swissnex – told us the story of swissnex, their goals as well as the current challenges of the Silicon Valley, which was a great and rewarding experience! Benjamin Bollmann, Head of Science at swissnex, gave us a tour of the offices. Many thanks to them for their commitment and enthousiasm! The second part of the day was a trip to the heart of the Silicon Valley in order to discover the offices of Swisscom, acting a bit like a satellite aiming to exchange information and innovation between SF and Switzerland. We were given an intensive and interactive course on the main facts that have to be taken into consideration through the innovation process. Another great experience that immersed us in the way business modeling and product developing is thought in the Silicon Valley. Once again, many thanks to Grégory Leproux and Stefan Petzov for their energy and all the precious hints they gave us! So – to conclude – our two-week journey started amazingly well with great encounters, lots of good advices and amazing chicken wings and potatoes at noon, which brought the smile on every eating face.
The 3rd HEIG-VD InnoTrip to Silicon Valley has started!
Stay tuned for new stories…
The big actors of Silicon Valley Innovation
On Tuesday morning, we took a private bus, drived by Adolpho, our crazy, but funny, driver. Our first stop was the Oracle Campus. We were so delighted to walk around beautiful buildings that we almost forgot one of the students on the Campus when we left ! Our second stop was on the EA (Electronic Arts) Campus. Some of us were stunned to discover the place where their favourite games have been created! Mr. Dominique Philippine, Head of Technologie Development & Operations, welcomed us and told us the history of the company. Then, we had the chance to visit the area: a beautiful park, a basketball field, childcare. Their employees are so lucky! At the end of the visit, some of us enjoyed playing some video games that were intended for employees. Before lunch, we arrived by Facebook, welcomed by Pierre Andrews, Senior Software Engineer. It was such an amazing discovery! There is actually a real town behind the social network’s walls. Several restaurants, which propose different kinds of food, ice cream bar, sports courts, spas, creative places, etc. In a nutshell, we discovered a new mind-set of work-life balance. We were also amazed that such a big company open its doors to us so transparently. We were allowed to take pictures and to visit almost every place. To finish our day trip, we made a stop to the Ames Research Centre of the NASA and to Apple. To compare with our previous visits, we were just able to visit the NASA museum and the Apple Store. It was interesting to see such a contrast between opened companies and restrictive ones. Finally, we had dinner all together at Woodside Buck’s restaurant, an unexpected place where all kinds of decoration were put on the walls and ceiling. Boots, deer’s horns, hooks, huge chandeliers, etc. Those kinds of moments were able to bond a stronger group spirit. To conclude, we went back to our hostel one half sleeping in the bus and the other half recalling the wonderful things they discovered that day! Sevine & Virginie