Jenny Kwan, MBA '09

SIPping reflections

SIP week - the Sloan Innovation Period which happens for one week in the middle of each semester straight after midterms.  It is a week of presentations and sessions from a whole load of professors and external speakers about various interest and research topics.

Here are some of my thoughts and learnings from the week:

World Class Public speaking (Darren LaCroix): the most important part of a presentation is the thought process the audience is going through.

The Rich and the Thirsty (Anjali Sastry): the problems caused by water pollution and water scarcity.  3.4mln people die each year from preventable water related diseases.  90% of these are children.

Jamuna Bridge (Dr Leautier): a simulated negotiation involving a large capital project, social justice, under represented groups and multiple stakeholders - this time for an infrastructure project in Bangladesh.

Mediation and Arbitration (Curhan/Eigen): how to consume lawyers.  The difference between mediation and arbitration and when you might choose one or the other.

How people learn (Sastry):  a practical session  among other things emphasising the different ways of learning and operating people have using the accomodator/assimilator / converger / diverger model and tasking each group with 'we love / we hate' lists.

Integrity (Jensen/Erhard): presented by the creator of EST himself.  Integrity being as natural and inescapable as gravity and how to maximise workability in your life.

Sustainability (Otto Scharmer): an inspiring session about how we should be looking at the world, and the places we live, in a systemic way that includes ourselves.  That because of the culture we grow up in and the language we use, we instinctively think of 'people' as being separate from 'nature'. Nature is something to be fenced off and protected. 'Preserving' nature means minimising human contact.  Rather we should see ourselves as an integral part of the world and examine our role in cocreating and regenerating the ecology as it was supposed to be.

Fall(ing)

It's been an unusually warm autumn, as a result the leaves are changing colour later... What better way to enjoy the New England fall and the end of midterms by jumping out of a plane??!

One of my classmates used to be a skydiving instructor and when she offered to take us I figured this was another one of those things that I never thought I'd do before coming to MIT Sloan :-)

The view from the plane on the way up was amazing... and the jump itself?  Well, like Sloan, it's something you have to experience for yourself!!

Here are some of the leaves we saw on the way up:

Our experienced skydivers (Adam and Sam) back from a jump:

Flying high:

Midterms

The main focus of last week was our midterm exams.  During the whirlwind 6 weeks since we started I found that it has been an easy adjustment to do assignments and prepare for classes.  Each activity is quite discrete and has a clear deadline. 

'Studying' is something else.  Somehow getting back into the study groove was quite a struggle for me.  I just found it very abstract - how do you know when you've done enough??  Paying attention in class and doing the assignments definitely helped and I'm hoping for a solid result...

On another note, end of midterms marks the end of the first half of our first semester.  We're now one-eighth of the way through our MIT Sloan experience.  It's going by so quickly and there's still so much to learn and do!!

Great Pumpkins!

Tomorrow morning the grass area outside the Kresge Auditorium will be transformed by the yearly MIT Great Glass Pumpkin Patch featuring work by students at the MIT Glass Lab.

Friday night was just the preview.  If you want to buy one you'll have to line up early on Saturday morning.  A little bird told me that the sale starts at 10am but people already start lining up at 6am...

Tibet!

I'm so excited!  I'm also very sleep deprived but that's another issue :-)  There is so so many many exciting things to get involved with and the latest is that our team has been selected to work on a SEID (Social Entrepreneurs for International Development) project with an organisation in Tibet!

Braille without Borders is an NGO dedicated to educating and rehabilitating blind and visually handicapped children in Tibet.  Our team's mission could include helping them write a business plan for their new initiatives - launching an eco-lodge in Tibet and opening a new school in Kerala, India; devising ways to get more sustainable funding and looking at what kind of technology could be transferred there.

Ideas into Action!  Having a real impact out in the real world.  I love it!

Ready... Set.... Pitch!

The $100K Business Plan competition is well established here at MIT and in the field as one of the premier business plan competitions in the world.  It started off as the $10K competition a few years back, grew into the $50K a few years later and added a Development track in parallel to the Venture track a few years after that.

This year we're adding another event to the mix.  One of the key problems people face at the beginning of the year is getting a team together.  Solution?  Get the people and the ideas out there earlier.  Enter the Elevator Pitch Contest!  Entrants from anywhere get 60s stage time to convince the judges they should with the $2500 grand prize.  What are you waiting for?