Entrepreneurship

These days I've been watching and listening to many talks I found on Stanford Entrepreneurship Seminars website: http://ecorner.stanford.edu. If you haven't checked it out yet, my gosh don't waste a minute! Each and every talk makes me so exCITED!! All these great success stories, how the students, our own age (and younger) got to work and made something that changed the world....

There's a lot to do, that's for sure!!! These days Information Technology and Software engineering is like the old Civil Engineering and Architectural...  Before internet, people used to build shops on this or that street, they got famous because of the good quality of their offering, built more branches and eventually (as I like to look at it) make something that created so many jobs and added value to the world, and made the world a better place..

Now, Internet is like a new district that a number of people (varying by each country) pass through everyday. Before, civil eng. people built "physical" houses and cafes and shops..,  and now on this district, IT people are the builders. very neat world, isn't it?(Specially when you know a little bit of IT yourself! :D) Of course just like before, a shop that created something of good quality that people needed would be successful and valuable. So is true about online business.

Something valuable...Connecting people who otherwise wouldn't have found each other (for example, connecting a person who wants to do something good for the world, and a school that needs a couple of old but working Computers); Collecting local information and providing a useful service (like, online traffic maps,.. ); This list just never ends!! And guess what, it's all about thinking what you want to add to the world, putting down the first block right, and you've got it!

That's definitely part of the plan for me these days.. Creating values, hopefully leading to more jobs and better life-styles, more education, and more responsible citizens, and ultimately, better world! I did some research about this general path... Unfortunately, because of the sanctions against Iran it's a little hard (next to impossible actually) to hire from Iran while I'm studying here. (Not that the company is all up and ready you know, but still...) Very counter intuitive, if you ask me, to stop a family from having a stable income, rather than having them constantly worry about the next day's food, and house rent, and their health, and yet expect them to have enough peace of mind to care about their kids' school performance or attendance, to read news papers, or be aware of their civil responsibilities, etc.

I think all good things begin only when people don't have to fight for their survival..

Anyway, I'm back to more listening and learning and thinking (and of course as a PhD student, doing my research as well!) :P