Proximity is near by

Final thoughts on Proximity Tour to Silicon Valley

Proximity is near by!

The tour ended with a visit to the city of San Francisco. What is special about the city? It is a typical American city (sirens, straight streets) but with an harbor, a mixture of cultures and it is hilly (an understatement). So, what brought this “proximity tour” to the group and me?

In Silicon Valley all conditions are fulfilled to entrepreneur. What are the characteristics?

• Within the American culture you take risks
• Foreign people feel comfortably in this multi cultural society
• Entrepreneurs ask for money as easily as investors are prepared to supply it together with their advice
• Knowledge is created, transferred into an entrepreneurial eco-system and applied to create new technologies using creative ideas
• The entrepreneurial eco-system is built on those characteristics, however the basic mechanisms are networking established by professional institutions and personal relationships of people

We think that we can establish a start of a Silicon Valley like eco-system within the area of Delft. The ingredients we have are:

• Knowledge institutes (TUD and TNO) that are willing to cooperate
• The city of Delft that is willing to support the ideas with political engagement
• A city with historical value that is known around the world
• A network organization that is “alive and kicking” (ICT-Kring Delft) and could provide the start for the development of the Delft eco system
• Other opportunities are the proximity of the harbor of Rotterdam (main port to Europe), telecom industry in The Hague

At the moment I act as the coordinator for innovation projects of nineteen members of the ICT-Kring. These projects stimulate cooperation between members and the transfer of knowledge. Subsidies of the ministry of economical affairs (a typical Dutch mechanism to facilitate entrepreneurs) are supplied for part of the innovation work done and the purchase of external knowledge. My challenge is to make a success of these projects for the reason of cooperation between the member companies. Of course the ultimate goals are the innovations resulting in new products, technology and services. My opinion is that cooperation between members and the transfer of knowledge between those members is conditional for their individual successes.

Da Capo al Fine is already part of the current eco-system in Delft. How can I further enroll my capabilities to establish a Silicon Valley like eco-system near by?

Golden Gate Bridge

An impressive bridge


a spectacular view on the bay


and on San Francisco.

Ex’pression College is the result of entrepreneuring

Ex’pression College for Digital Arts was founded by Gary Platt, a sound recording engineer and educator, and Eckart Wintzen, a Dutch venture capitalist and media arts enthusiast. A 65,000 square foot building was purchased in Emeryville, California to house a new school to be called “Ex’pression Center for New Media.” 

Ex’pression hired preeminent media architect John Storyk , to help design the unique facility which houses the school. Building began in November of 1998.

Eckart died two weeks ago. Many people witnessed his excessive energy. You notice this energy as soon as you enter the doors of the building. Students are studying, coached by their teachers in workshops, staff is busy. Our guide, the former director Peter Laanen, is an enthusiastic storyteller. He shows all the models of animated figures that have been made by students in recent years. The school provides a bachelors degree. In April of 2005, the school became an accredited college and is now accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology (ACCSCT). Since then more students arrive and is the school profitable.

Both Eckart and Peter are typical entrepreneurs. They do simply the things they believe in and work hard to reach success.

From the Differential Machine to VAX 780 and SaaS

Computing is old. People have computed since ages. However the first machines to support computing were designed in the 19th century by Charles Babbage. At the end of the 20th century these machines have been built and appeared to work! The Differential Machine and many others (but dead) computing machines Enigma, Altair, Macintosh (of course), VAX can be seen in de computer museum here in Mountain View California.

Our day ended with a debate in the Churchill Club at the premises of the computer museum about enterprise software between Marc Benioff of salesforce.com and Hasso Plattner of SAP. In practice this was a debate between the old software industry model, the closed model with new versions and vendor lock in represented by SAP and the new model Software as a Service with loosely coupled services automatically updated and managed and hosted by an outside provider. Who won? Most of us prefer the new ideas of SaaS but SAP will be present for more years to come was promised.

During the day Microsoft showed us an overview of their research, which they particularly run as a computer sciences department. And they gave us some insight in their “TV from a Telco provider” product.

But we began the day very well with our visit to the Software Development Forum. This non-for profit organization exists for 25 years and organizes events for their member community on various technical subjects. They connect people such as engineers, entrepreneurs, business angels and alike. Many volunteers support them. We all got the feeling that we could envision the ICTkring in the far future as a kind of SD Forum organization in Delft.


On the picture: Susan of the SD Forum

"Last contribution of the USA to the world was the Internet"

These are words of Joaquin Alvarado, Director of the Institute for Next Generation Internet INGI. He was rather provocative in his speech saying that “We are an old country with crumbling medical systems”. He argued that telephone, energy and education should be available to everybody in the US by law but often are not. On the other hand piracy is a great issue in the media space and the government cannot do anything about that.

He mentioned two examples of successful governmental regulation of infrastructure, namely the interstate highways and the Public Broadcasting System PBS proposed by the Carnegie Commission. So why not the next generation Internet? That reminded me on the succesfull SURFnet model we have in the Netherlands intended for Internet network facilities between the Universities. In the eighties it took a long time to convince the two ministers (Andriessen and Deetman) of the necessity and the funding needed. Nowadays we enjoy the advantages of this organization and the Internet facilities it hosts.

Joaquin thinks that the next generation of Internet must provide services for highly demanding social communities (consumers at home) and at the universities.

Dave McClure of 500 Hats showed us his model of five (5) AARRR stages a webpage visitor (say user) is going through:
• Acquisition; Users come to the site via various channels
• Activation; User enjoy the first visit, “happy” experience
• Retention; Users come back, visit site multiple times
• Referral; Users like product enough to refer others
• Revenue; Users conduct some monetization behavior

Dave argues that every startup company must be aware of its own metrics for these stages in order to operate the company and make conversions to the web application. His experiences look similar to those of Paul Graham. Focus on the customers and nearly daily builds are essential ingredients. See his interesting essay “How to be Silicon Valley” .

The Network is the Platform

PlugandPlayTechCenter

The day started with a meeting with the Dutch business community. They organized breakfast at the café of the Plug and Play Tech center. Immediately people are around you discussing their ideas and business with you. We listened to speeches made by

• Cees Jan Koomen; he is establishing a silicon valley like eco system in the Netherlands

• Prof Inald Lagendijk of our delegation talking about technology transfer starting at the Technical University of Delft

• Carlos Gutierrez of the Larta institute; the Larta Institute is a professional services firm providing entrepreneur training, commercialization, and technology transfer services for governments, companies, and universities.

The center itself incubates 120 firms, some of them being startups founded by entrepreneurs who sold their companies for millions. They are situated on the first flour, the Venture Capitalists and business angels on the third. The working places look a bit dull but the atmosphere seems stimulating for the entrepreneurs. The owner is considering new centers in the region as well in other places in the world (Delft perhaps?).

Cisco
Cisco is known for its routes and switches, forming the basic components for the messaging on the Internet. Their strategy is expressed by “The Network is the Platform”. Ten years ago Sun used a similar expression “The Network is the Computer”. Both are right in the way that the network combines and rules, and provides the intelligence for nowadays services “over IP”. We had a real life teleconference with a Cisco employee in Amsterdam only using 15Mb per second. It really performed well and was very user friendly.

The San Jose Sharks
Is “Hockey” a sport or a show? I think it is the latter. I have never seen so many real life commercials in between the actions on the ice. 17000 People went crazy when they saw their team win the match against the Los Angeles Kings. How would it be to see a short track speed skating competition in such an ambiance?