San Fernando, Spain
Startup Weekend Baghdad. Another voice: Entrepreneurship in Baghdad.
Startup Weekend Jul 30, 2013
By Sheikh Shuvo, Regional Manager at UP Global.
Meet Maryam. She’s a 24-year-old Iraqi woman, a college graduate with an IT degree, and has been actively searching for employment for almost two years. Right now, she’s presenting Cartoon, a digital animation business idea that she’s spent the past 54 hours crafting and building. There are more than 200 people in the audience, each watching her every move, analyzing each statistic she shares, and dissecting her market research. This is her first time speaking in front of an audience this big. You can see a hint of sweat on her brow, peeking through her lavender colored headscarf. She softly giggles, and moves onto her demo.
She doesn’t know it yet, but in two hours, her team will be announced as the winner of the first Startup Weekend in Baghdad.
Another fact that she isn’t aware of is that while she is pitching her idea, a novel idea to use cartoon videos to address sensitive social issues, six people were killed when a bomb exploded in a market a few kilometers away from the event venue. Over the past month, over 400 people have been killed in similar instances.
Challenging Stereotypes
It’s impossible to enter a place without stereotypes, and few places have as much baggage as Baghdad. On my first trip to Iraq in January 2013, this is something the border security at King Sheikh Hussein Bridge Border Crossing in Jordan would not let me forget.
«Why do you want to go to Iraq? Don’t you know…boom, boom, boom!» chuckled the guard as he pointed his fingers at me imitating a semi-automatic rifle. I wish the guard could have been at Startup Weekend Baghdad.
He would have seen 124 people – all strangers to each other – come together on Thursday evening, some traveling more than 3 hours, each navigating dozens of security check points that hunt for car bombs, verify identities, and turn traffic into chilled molasses.
He would have heard 44 people pitch ideas for new businesses that could potentially generate revenue and create jobs in Baghdad.
He would have felt the electric energy of 11 teams working tirelessly over the course of three days, several stumbling along on only a handful of hours of sleep.
More importantly, he would have had the chance to have tea with 17-year-old Mustafa Ahmed Abdulabeer, a soft-spoken high school student with a bushy mustache and a six-inch coif of hair that beats Elvis. If Mustafa lived in the Bay Area, he would likely get paid more than you for his software wizardry. Along with a team of four, he spent the weekend building a mobile application to help consumers choose the best Internet provider, based on speed, cost, and availability. His creation of a functional application landed his team a prize for «Best Technical Execution.»
Or, the border guard could have dined with Katral-Nada Hassan, a native Iraqi who is a managing partner at In2Consulting. She flew from Dubai – urged by a sense of patriotism and desire to give back – to mentor all of the attendees on the principles of user experience design for digital products. Given the polish of many of the ideas, her time paid off well.
One local blogger observed a shift in the mentalities of the attendees throughout the event, describing a transformation in all the attendees as «they start living in each other worlds sharing their own fantasies dropping behind the infamous Iraqi egotistic, arrogant and pompous spirit, they just simply translocated from Baghdad to another planet, from shattered dreams to the land of dream’s merit.»
The effects of war and sectarian violence are a wound to a city, but wounds do heal. Indeed, a deep respect and appreciation for the history and culture of Baghdad was a common theme that weaved its way into conversations and business strategies.
«I’m not proud of what my people have done since Saddam left. I’m not proud that six of my uncles died during the war. I’m not proud that I come home angry after four hours spent in traffic,» said Sarmand, a 31-year-old project manager at Mercy Corps, «but I am proud of the two rivers of Iraq. I’m proud that Iraq created the world’s first constitution. I’m proud that Iraq created algebra.»
Some of the other popular ideas at the event included Baghdad Life, an online portal that informs locals of upcoming events and festivals and serves as a guide for tourists to showcase Baghdadi culture. The team of Bil Weekend embraced the history of Baghdad, as well, building a service to identify, report, and publicize points of archaeological interest throughout Iraq.
Hopefully, Iraqi entrepreneurship is something Sarmand can be proud of, too.
Breaking Down Barriers
Of course, real barriers exist in Baghdad that few other entrepreneurs around the world face. Yet, this event was a simple, but powerful validation of both the depth of talent within Baghdad and the huge, untapped demand from the community for opportunities to unleash creative energies. To keep this fire blazing and transform the World’s narrow and incomplete image of Baghdad, Startup Weekend events can be a beginning, but more is needed.
Firstly, more money needs to be invested in concepts like Fikra Space, a hackerspace in downtown Baghdad that hosts workshops, build nights, and creates a space for like-minded individuals to come together and share ideas.
Secondly, more energy needs to be spent highlighting local success stories like Mohammad Al-Samurai, a mentor at Startup Weekend Baghdad and the co-founder of EasyBites, a mobile application to facilitate restaurant food delivery. While a seemingly basic concept, delivery is made a challenge by the lack and unreliability of addresses in Iraq. Instead of relying on addresses, Mohammad and his team created a crowdsourced bank of landmarks and geotags, which once overlaid on a map, restaurants were able to pinpoint exact delivery spots. Currently, EasyBites is in talks to franchise their software to companies in three other countries that face similar mapping problems.
Lastly, more time needs to be spent painting entrepreneurship as an alternate career choice. Deeply talented, high potential individuals like Maryam shouldn’t need to spend month and years looking for employment. She should be empowered at every point to create her own opportunities.
In fact, after her team’s glowing performance during the weekend, she is currently in talks with USAID to work on developing an initial pilot for her series of animated cartoons.
This is a lesson to not just read between the lines of violence and danger in Baghdad, but rather to look beyond them and smile together with Maryam.
Fuente:The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/startup-weekend/another-voice-entrepreneu_b_3677765.html
Corruption in Business, and the Importance of Ethics. V Wadhwa.
During the early days of my career, I used to think that corruption was a third-world ill. Then I started my own company and saw the world from the vantage point of a CEO. I realized that corruption is everywhere, that ethics is a slippery slope, and that the decisions you make at every juncture define who you are.
Here are examples of the many lessons I learned.
I once needed to negotiate a distribution deal with a company that controlled market access to my products. The company’s CEO demanded that I give his spouse stock in my firm in return for his support. Doing so could have led to millions in sales; if I declined, we would lose the business opportunity.
I was dumbfounded. In other parts of the world, things like this are common business practice. But this was in America. And I was dealing with a public company.
I decided that I would rather sink my new startup than compromise my values. I declined the deal. My team was forced back to the drawing board to develop new technologies. Eventually we built a company with better products, for a larger market. And we were able to raise millions in financing from top investment firms.
A key to achieving success is to assemble a strong and stable management team. We did a great job at recruiting the very best. Just as the company was taking off in a big way, I heard whispers about sexual harassment in our executive suite.
After investigating, I found a potential problem with one of my senior managers. He was asking for sexual favors from vendors and potential recruits. Losing a person so critical to our operations would be a major setback, but I couldn’t tolerate a situation like this.
I fired him and walked him out the door.
Morale took a big hit, and the company lost significant momentum. But we survived. Later I learned of other ethical breaches by the same person. If I hadn’t made this decision, the fallout would likely have cost me the company—and my reputation.
During the dot-com days, one could take just about any company public and reap fortunes. All you had to do was to make sky-high projections for growth, say you were in the Internet space, and go along with unscrupulous investment bankers and their analysts.
My company’s investors wanted me do what many other CEOs had done and go for the IPO. But I worried that I would be misleading the public and filling my company’s coffers with the savings of unsuspecting grandmothers and struggling families. The analysts and bankers hype stocks and make them seem like certain bets. They rake in big fees, walk away, and disown responsibilities for the company’s projections. The losers are always the public.
At close to a billion-dollar valuation, I chose not to take my company public.
The dot-com bubble did burst a few months later. It decimated companies’ values. Many families lost their savings. Most of the companies that had gone public also ceased to exist. When I think back, I know I could have made tens of millions of dollars and lived the high life. But I would not have been able to face the people whose money I was spending; I would not have been able to live with myself.
Turning away from the investment bankers was the best decision I ever made.
How can companies do better?
Corporate executives and business owners need to realize that there can be no compromise when it comes to ethics and that there are no easy shortcuts to success. Their companies need ethics carefully sewn into their fabric.
Business executives need to start by spelling out and communicating their values. Then they need to lead by example. This means getting rid of the bad apples and declining opportunities to sell one’s soul for instant wealth.
Corporate culture is built from the top down. Employees embrace the ethics and values of their leaders. You simply can’t have one set of standards for management and another for staff. Every executive and employee needs to be held accountable.
Employees need to be encouraged to speak up when they see wrongdoing: to “speak truth to power”. And when a mistake is made, it is better to deal with the immediate fallout than to allow it to build its own momentum. A corporate culture that doesn’t allow for mistakes is destined for disaster. The best strategy is to encourage employees to come clean and learn from their errors.
The worst approach pressures employees to hide information. A company can usually survive short-term snags; covering up a problem is likely to create even bigger problems later on. No truth remains hidden forever.
Ultimately, long-term survival is about tying reward to behavior. The best organizations build ethics into their management and compensation systems. They reinforce corporate values by making them an integral part of how success is measured and rewarded.
Remember that doing the right thing doesn’t automatically bring success. But compromising ethics almost always leads to failure.
You can read more on my website: http://www.wadhwa.com or follow me on Twitter:@wadhwa.
Startup Weekend Galicia 2013 Recap by Startup Weekend Crew
This post is by Jose Iglesias, Regional Manager at Startup Weekend Europe. Before joining the Startup Weekend core team, Jose previously organized Startup Weekend Galicia. Jose then went full-circle and facilitated the fourth iteration of the event July 12, and his thoughts on the weekend are below.
It has been exactly one week since the fourth edition of Startup Weekend Galicia, in the Vigo headquarters of Elogia for the second time. Challenges abound! Seven projects were created over the course of the weekend:
War of Sides: A game in which you conquer cities in real time, armed only with your mobile phone
ReceTic: Diet recommender based on statistical analysis with gamification elements
BeEasy: Multilateral platform that facilitates improved communication and interaction between brands, consumers, and bars
Miradi: A website for finding and sharing ideas; you can post project proposals, gain visibility, and find a team
Deskally: Do you have a business with excess space? Deskally is the Airbnb for businesses.
Here I Am: Application with which you can track your kids using GPS.
Making Smart: Identifies opportunities for professionals based on the intelligent interpretation of LinkedIn data; Siri for professionals.
Yes – you read that right – all of these projects were created over the course of a single weekend. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Without a break. In July. And the attendees paid to do it! And first-class mentors such as Miguel Silva, Javi López, Carlos Otero, Manuel Montes, Jaime Novoa, José Alcaniz, Miguel Lorenzo, Lalo García, Pablo Conde, Rubén Bastón, Víctor Salgado, Xoán González, Juan Guell, Luís Sestelo, Susana Gómex, Ismael Faro and Jacobo García-Durán volunteered countless hours of their time to help the teams succeed.
The crazy people from Elogia gave us all weekend to run free in their offices again. The support and sponsorship of the Fundación Novacaixagalicia, AJE, Quobis, Pintos & Salgado, Coca-Cola, Cambalache, Vindeira Capital, Duplo, EYEDO, Indenext, Streaming Galicia and Verde made it all happen.
And because we are doing this backwards, here is what we should have started with: what is Startup Weekend?
We could say that it is the premier community for entrepreneurs in the world, that we are in more than 130 countries, that more than 120 thousand people around the world have attended our events, that hundreds of successful ventures have launched at a Startup Weekend…but one person described all of this in the best way possible after attending Startup Weekend Cebu in the Phillippines. This person wrote a post on his blog intending to alert the world about the nefarious agenda lurking in the shadows of Startup Weekend. “Beware of Startup Weekend, it is a conspiracy,” the title warned, and I, first as a volunteer organizer and for the past few months as part of the 30-person core team, couldn’t agree more.
We are a conspiracy, an oasis in the middle of a desert full of conformism, of negativity, of obedience. A place in which the word crisis does not exist, in which people do no remember everyday problems. An illusion. A 54-hour period of time in which you are free, capable of anything, in which the need for sleep and resulting fatigue are completely eclipsed by your drive. A reunion for crazy people.
What is our goal? We want that 54-hour hiatus to never end, and for the desert to become the real illusion.
http://europe.startupweekend.org/2013/07/31/startup-weekend-galicia-2013-recap/
If I Can Be An Entrepreneur, So Can You. V. Wadhwa
VIVEK WADHWA: I was 33 years old when I became an entrepreneur. I had developed a revolutionary technology at First Boston, a New York-based investment bank, and IBM offered to invest $20 million in it—provided that we spun the technology off into a new company. I was asked to take the job of chief technology officer.
I didn’t come from an entrepreneurial family, and I had no entrepreneurial aspirations. I had a wife and two children to support. Taking this position would entail relinquishing a great job that paid a hefty six-figure salary, for a startup that could easily go out of business—and didn’t pay as well. So it wasn’t an easy decision. Nonetheless, I took the plunge.
We grew the startup, called Seer Technologies, to 1000 employees and $120 million in annual revenue in a short five years. Then we took it public. The IPO was fun, but the experience afterwards was like a nasty hangover. The excitement was gone. I got sick of the big-company politics and the obsession with meeting short-term revenue goals. I wanted out.
Microsoft tried recruiting me and told me they would have offered stock that was worth a fortune, but I could not stomach the thought of working for another big company. So I chose to start my own company again. I was 40.
I realized that, after tasting entrepreneurship, I had become unfit for the corporate world. There was no turning back. The only regret I had was having wasted my life in the corporate world for so long.
Some people say that my transformation was a fluke—that entrepreneurs are born, not made. They also say that successful entrepreneurs are young. I have had heated debates with venture capitalists who claim that they know an entrepreneur when they see one. They say it’s the kids who sell lemonade or start dog-walking businesses while in primary school. And some VCs pride themselves on their abilities of “pattern recognition.” I doubt I would have fit the pattern.
The majority of successful entrepreneurs don’t fit the pattern either.
How do I know? Because I’ve worked with leading academics to research this.
After my health suffered due to the stress of running my second company, I had to switch careers. But I still didn’t want to go back to the corporate world. So I became an academic. And the topic of what makes an entrepreneur is one of the first subjects I researched.
My team surveyed 549 successful entrepreneurs. We found that, like me, the majority didn’t have entrepreneurial parents or any entrepreneurial aspirations while going to school. They started companies because they had become tired of working for others, had a great idea they wanted to commercialize, or woke up one day with an urgent desire to build wealth before they retired.
We found that 52% of entrepreneurs surveyed were the first in their immediate families to start a business— just like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sergei Brin, and Russell Simons (Def Jam founder). Their parents were academics, lawyers, factory workers, priests, bureaucrats, etc. About 39% had an entrepreneurial father, and 7% had an entrepreneurial mother. Some had both.
Only a quarter caught the entrepreneurial bug when in college. Half didn’t even think about entrepreneurship until then. There was no significant difference between the success factors or hurdles faced by entrepreneurs who were extremely interested in entrepreneurship in school (and who likely set up the lemonade stands) and the ones who lacked interest. But entrepreneurs with extreme interest started more companies and did it sooner. Of the 24.5% who indicated that they had been “extremely interested” in becoming entrepreneurs during college, 47.1% had gone on to start more than two companies (as compared with 32.9% of the overall sample). Sixty-nine percent started their companies within 10 years of working for someone else (as compared with 46.8% of the rest of the sample population).
Family entrepreneurship, prior interest, and extreme interest had little bearing, then, on the successes. So what did bear on them? Education did—but not which college they graduated from. In a different study of the 652 CEOs and CTOs of 502 tech companies, we researched the correlation of education with the sales and headcount of companies founded. We learned that companies started by founders with just high-school diplomas differed significantly from the rest. Education provided a huge advantage. But there wasn’t a big difference between firms founded by Ivy-league graduates and those founded by graduates of other universities.
We also found that, in the tech world, older entrepreneurs are the norm—not the exception. Our research showed that the average founder of a high-growth company launched his venture at age 40. We also found that these founders were likely to be married and to have, on average, two or more kids. They typically had six to ten years of work experience and real-world ideas. They simply got tired of working for others and wanted to rise above their middle-class heritage.
So if anyone tells you that you’re too old to be an entrepreneur or that you have the wrong background, don’t listen to them. Go with your gut instincts and pursue your passions. Like me, you’ll wonder why you wasted your time working for that jerk boss
Fuente: WSJ
http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/BL-232B-1371
WSJ Startup of The Year.24 Startup compiten por ser la N• 1
Las 24 empresas que compiten por el título de WSJ Startup of The Year están trabajando para influir en todo.
La semana pasada, WSJ Startup of The Year comenzó con 40 mentores, entre ellos Sir Richard Branson y Nina Zagat . Esta semana, vamos a tomar el tiempo para aprender más acerca de cada puesta en marcha a través de la revisión de sus perfiles de video de auto-generados.
He aquí un breve resumen de los 24 competidores:
Centrado en la comunidad deportiva, Sentry ha creado un sensor montado en el casco que le dice a los atletas que se han encontrado con un gran impacto de la cabeza.
Los atletas también pueden seguir el aumento de su temperatura corporal a través de cambios de color en los estilos de prendas de vestir deportivas de Atletismo Radiate .
Kenai Sports ofrece una opción alternativa para la ropa de los atletas, a través de la ropa sostenible hecha de los residuos orgánicos como cáscaras de coco y hojas de maíz.
Brewla se esfuerza por reinventar el mercado de alimentos congelados,
Para amantes de la música, Asius tecnologías permite a los usuarios experimentar un sonido musical rico y completo, mientras protege sus tímpanos.
ZinePak , fanáticos del entretenimiento a través de revistas de pequeño formato interactivo con sus celebridades favoritas.
Gamemaster permite a los jugadores experimentar su entorno a través de teléfonos móvil juegos de la vida real.
En el mundo de los negocios, Kairos utiliza la tecnología de reconocimiento facial para ayudar a los minoristas reconocen a sus clientes habituales.
Trendalytics identifica cuáles son las marcas y de mercancías a estos clientes regulares están comprando.
Y TroopID utiliza la tecnología de identificación digital para ofrecer descuentos a grupos específicos, como los militares.
Para aquellos que todavía averiguar su plan de carrera, The Muse ofrece información sobre ofertas de trabajo, perfiles de empresas y permite al usuario saber de los empleados en sus empresas de ensueño.
En el aula, LiveSchool deja que maestros compartan datos de comportamiento de los alumnos en tiempo real desde una tableta o un ordenador portátil.
NanoSatisfi trae la tecnología espacial a la tierra, al permitir a los estudiantes a controlar satélites.
Centrándose en la mejora de la seguridad, Rebelión Fotónic crea cámaras de imagen que muestran cuando un equipo o refinería está experimentando una fuga de gas potencialmente explosivo.
PlanetReuse Marketplace , tiene como objetivo reducir el porcentaje de vertido de residuos de construcción y demolición, haciendo coincidir de manera eficiente los materiales adecuados con la compañía adecuada.
Light Point Securitit permite a las empresas buscar en la web, mientras que los protege de malware basado en web.
SwipeSense , un dispositivo de saneamiento portatil, rastreable,que lucha contra las infecciones hospitalarias mediante la supresión de desinfectante para las manos y el seguimiento de la utilización del personal.
En el mundo de la tecnología, MyCityWay proporciona aplicaciones personalizadas para ayudar a los residentes y turistas a encontrar su camino alrededor.
Syntellia ha creado una tecnología de teclado que permite a los usuarios de Smartphone teclear sin mirar la pantalla.
Los usuarios móviles pueden utilizar Snaps! añadir imágenes virtuales para sus fotos.
Chute, recoge el contenido generado por el usuario, como fotos y permite agencias fácilmente publicarlo en la web.
Infina Connect Healthcare Systems envía soluciones basadas en la nube para reducir los costes sanitarios.
WeDidIt crea una plataforma en línea y móviles para las campañas de recaudación de fondos sin fines de lucro.
Y con Speek , las empresas pueden utilizar sus teléfonos móviles y computadoras para realizar llamadas de conferencia visuales sencillos y gratuitos.
Para más información sobre cada inicio, echa un vistazo a los vídeos que debutan esta semana. Y no te olvides de votar por tu favorito!
BYU’Centro de Rollins para el Emprendimiento y Tecnología -Universidad Brigham Young
Visión
Conviértete en el líder mundial en exitosos proyectos empresariales campus de inspiración
Misión
Inspirar y preparar a los estudiantes para ser líderes de clase mundial en el espíritu empresarial y la tecnología, fomentar la interacción con los modelos de éxito y facilitar la investigación de la facultad de soporte
El Centro de Rollins para el Emprendimiento y Tecnología crea un ambiente de apoyo, la crianza de todos los estudiantes de la Universidad Brigham Young, que sean capaces de iniciar y desarrollar empresas de alta tecnología y escalable. Nos inspiramos confianza, el coraje y la voluntad de dar el primer paso empresarial. Creamos un ambiente que da rienda suelta a la creatividad, cultiva la visión y la innovación, y enseña los principios rectores que son la base de toda empresa exitosa. Ofrecemos mentores que guían a los estudiantes a medida que navegan estas aguas nuevas. Establecemos cursos, ciclos de conferencias, concursos, conferencias, talleres y otras actividades que nutren y sostienen el espíritu emprendedor en los estudiantes. La prueba definitiva de que estamos haciendo un buen trabajo se mide por el número de proyectos de éxito a largo plazo que vienen de los estudiantes dentro de nuestra esfera de influencia. Como medida intermedia, tales parámetros como el número de estudiantes que posean el capital de una tecnología escalable o de puesta en marcha en el momento en que se gradúen, y de manera más inmediata, el número de estudiantes que participan en las oportunidades de aprendizaje y la práctica que ofrecemos.
Aprenda sobre el liderazgo, la innovación, la tecnología y el espíritu empresarial … El número de experiencias de aprendizaje en el que los alumnos participan (cursos, charlas, conferencias, tutorías)
Practica el liderazgo, la innovación, la tecnología y el espíritu empresarial habilidades … El número de estudiantes que participan en experiencias prácticas (por ejemplo, competiciones, eventos, pasantías, talleres)
Establecer empresas reales, especialmente empresas de tecnología orientadas y escalable … El número de estudiantes que posean el capital de una tecnología escalable o puesta en marcha de la graduación
Valores
La creación de empresas escalables que marcan la diferencia en el mundo y recompensar a sus fundadores para que puedan ser más influyente
Tecnología de la fluidez que conduce a inherentemente escalable empresarial de alta tecnología
La creatividad y la innovación , un «espíritu pionero» que impregna la cultura BYU
El comportamiento ético y el equilibrio trabajo / vida que sea coherente con la cultura de BYU
La mayor comunidad de espíritu empresarial que rodea y soporta el núcleo de negocios escalables
Competencias distintivas
Estudiantes innovadores, luminoso, con tecnología de mente y éticos que tienen grandes modelos de conducta del estudiante en el espíritu empresarial y la tecnología basada en una fuerte tradición en estos programas
Fundadores empresario de clase mundial que forman una gran comunidad de empresarios comprometidos, de apoyo, experimentados, exitosos y dispuestos con una afinidad por la Universidad Brigham Young y que aman a devolver
Facultad empresarial y expertos en tecnología que entender la teoría, la investigación y la práctica de gestión
Alrededor de medio ambiente tecnología : Condado de Utah es un semillero reconocido a nivel nacional para la iniciativa empresarial en general y startups de tecnología, en particular,
Ética liderazgo empresarial : nuestros fundadores y profesores premio de innovación, creatividad y liderazgo fuerte ética
Experiencia global : la mayoría de nuestros estudiantes / profesores / fundadores han vivido en el extranjero y hablan con fluidez en diferentes idiomas y culturas extranjeras
Samsung presentará la tecnología 5G en el 2020
Samsung Electronics announced Sunday that it has developed technology that allows data transmission on fifth-generation (5G) networks for the first time in the world.
The world’s largest electronics maker by revenue said that its new wireless technology successfully sent and received data at a two-kilometer distance at a download speed of 1 gigabyte per second at 28 gigahertz wavelength, by which users can download an entire movie in less than a second.
The company plans to commercialize the 5G networks by 2020 and expects its most recent achievement to speed up an international standardization for the next-generation wireless system.
It also emphasized that this is the world’s first successful data transmission at super high frequency. Super high frequency refers to a waveband of over 6 gigahertz which allows heavier transfers compared to lower frequencies.
Samsung said it is most likely that 5G networks will likely use super high frequencies due to the current shortages coupled with the need to achieve faster transmissions.
3G networks are currently the most widely used systems globally, with an ongoing migration towards 4G, or long-term evolution (LTE) networks. LTE network boasts a download speed of 100 megabyte per second, and there are currently over 20 million LTE users in Korea.
Samsung’s early announcement of its 5G technology is seen as an attempt to cement its reputation as a forceful network equipment maker. The technology giant is currently competing with Swedish company Ericsson and Cisco of the U.S. in network equipment business.
The global competition to commercialize 5G networks is intensifying following China’s formation of the IMT-2020 Promotion Group, charged with the task of facilitating the development of the new network. The European Union has also announced that it will invest the equivalent of 72 billion won this year on the wireless system.
Ericsson and NTT Docomo of Japan and China’s Huawei have all previously revealed test results for 5G development.
The International Telecommunication Union held a conference in January to discuss what bandwidth to standardize for the next-generation network.
Fuente:Korea Times
Presente y futuro de los phablets
Pero no sólo Samsung con su Galaxy Note II se ha interesado por este formato. En 2012 LG se sumó a esta tendencia con el Optimus Vu con 5 pulgadas, y este año ha presentado el Optimus Pro con una pantalla de 5,5 pulgadas. En 2013 también se ha presentado el Huawei Ascend Mate con 6 pulgadas, el ZTE Grand Memo con 5,7, el Asus Fonepad Note FHD de 6 pulgadas o el Acer Liquid S1 5,7 pulgadas, y el próximo 4 de julio se presentará el Sony Xperia ZU con una pantalla de 6,44 pulgadas. Además, según afirma la agencia Reuters, Apple también se sumaría próximamente a la guerra de los phablets con el desarrollo de nuevos tamaños de pantalla rumoreándose de hasta 5,7 pulgadas el Iphone 6.
Fuente:ticbeat
Desde el MIT: La gamificación en el futuro de la enseñanza
El Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts (MIT, en sus siglas en inglés), junto con las uninversidades de Harvard y Berkeley, han puesto en marcha edX, una plataforma de enseñanza interactiva online, en la que se apuesta por un nuevo método educativo que deja atrás a un profesor explicando el temario durante una hora mientras los alumnos escuchan. Te explicamos desde el MIT esta propuesta educativa.El futuro de la enseñanza, para abordar la proliferación de los canales no presenciales como internet y el impacto que tiene sobre el método tradicional de enseñanza en las aulas.
Como todo lo que se hace en el MIT, ya se está experimentando en nuevos métodos de e-learning. El Instituto y la Universidad de Harvard han cofundado edX, una plataforma de enseñanza interactiva online. Recientemente la Universidad de Berkeley se ha unido a la iniciativa. El profesor Anant Agarwal, presidente de edX y exdirector del MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), dio una charla en la que explicó las claves de esta plataforma.
El profesor Agarwal fue muy claro a lo largo de su intervención: “El futuro de la enseñanza está en gamificarla”. Así el método de clase entendido como un espacio de tiempo (digamos, una hora) en el que el profesor explica y los alumnos escuchan, deja de tener sentido.
A través de edX, los alumnos tienen videos muy cortos (15 minutos máximo), ligados a tareas que tienen que desarrollar después de los mismos en un tiempo de 10 minutos. Estas tareas muchas veces requieren de que los alumnos, a través del canal online colaboren para poder resolver los problemas. Todo esto está acompañado de paneles de clasificación, donde los alumnos pueden ver su progreso, y cualquier variación en su nota global.
El feedback inmediato es muy importante para el aprendizaje. Lo importante es enseñar a resolver problemas, ya que al ritmo al que el mundo se mueve, los conceptos quedan obsoletos rápidamente. La estructura de edX combina diseño y poder experimentar y permite, por ejemplo, que en un laboratorio de Electroacústica los estudiantes puedan hacer los ejercicios con una pista de su artista favorito. En cuanto al diseño, edX dispone de múltiples plataformas que permiten hacer simulaciones de lo que los estudiantes están estudiando.
No he dicho nada de las recompensas, pero como todo sistema gamificado, edX también da premios a los estudiantes, con lo que se fomenta la competitividad a través de lo que llama ‘puntos karma’. El símbolo del OK en verde se está convirtiendo en un emblema de la iniciativa, siendo un objeto de deseo por parte de los estudiantes. Hay hasta camisetas.
Tras los primeros cursos, el 63% de los estudiantes consideran que la experiencia de aprendizaje ha sido mucho mejor, un 36% considera que ha sido igual de buena, y sólo un 1% considera que ha sido peor.
Ver articulo:
https://www.centrodeinnovacionbbva.com/blogs/planta29/posts/9835-desde-el-mit-la-gamificacion-en-el-futuro-de-la-ensenanza
Artículo: El Moto X de Google ya es oficial
El Moto X de Google ya es oficial
http://gizmologia.com/2013/07/moto-x-google-oficial-motorola
Javier Sanxchez Abogados Consultores 