Thinking outside the Box

No foul play on words. That’s exactly what we felt when we visited Box, a cloud content management company based in Redwood City, CA. This company was founded in 2005 by Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith. Levie wasn’t even of legal age at the time. They now have more than 1,800 employees. Thanks to Vincenzo’s contacts, […]

Prototyping at Stanford University

On 6th February 2018, we visited Stanford University, based in Silicon Valley. Before talking about our journey in one of the most famous university in the world, here is some informations about this amazing place. Stanford University, officially none as Leland Stanford Junior University has been founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford. It […]

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 […]

Design Thinking

The Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design, better known as the d.school, was founded in 2005. The d.school is a hub for innovators at Stanford. Design thinking, i thought, was never the simple culmination of a thousand sticky neon squares, posted and reposted on walls and whiteboards in the loft-style, high-end d.school. But then, what is it for? […]

Visit from Craig Newmark

  InthisTuesday 17th of February we had the luck to receive Craig Newmark in the Swissnex. He is the founder of Craiglist, the main local classified website in the USA. The website is one of the most seen in the world. It receives more than 50 billion views per month. That’s represent more than 60 […]

Two weeks in two minutes

bryant street sign in front of bay bridge

You might be interested into the adventures we had in San Francisco. Well, there is so much to read on this blog, this might be too much for you. So if you only have two minutes available – have a look at our video «Two weeks in two minutes». This will give you the idea, […]

The « Swiss Idea » challenge

As the concluding post of this blog (at least for this academic year), I would like to tell the story about how my students have dealt with the challenge I gave them. The IIM San Francisco study trip was not only an opportunity to visit companies and universities in the Bay Area, but also an […]

Making a video for StudyBox

After having spent a full day in a coworking space called « we work », Sabine and Camille had a wonderful idea. What about making a short video to present StudyBox which is a startup created by two HEIG-VD student and which allows students to share their lectures notes. As I am being part of the study […]