Of all the guest lectures that we’ve had, only two of them made a very lasting impression. (This is mostly due to personal interests – all guest lecturers were all very inspiring!)
The first one is when Karin Nilsdotter visited. It was probably the coolest thing that’s happened for a long time, as I have always been faschinated with space and astronomy – looking at the stars (cliché, I know…) always gives me this peculiar feeling of being very unprotected and vulnerable in a good way. Like, there is actually no shield around the earth as I sometimes feel like we have. We are actually nothing else than just right out in open, vulnerable to any disastrous space acitivity that our solar system or galaxy or universe feel spontaneous about… Pretty powerful, right? Moreover, traveling to space as a “tourist” is something that’s been on my agenda for a long time, ever since I read about a multi-millionaire being the first human being ever to do tourist space. And I am hoping that in 20 years or so, such travels will be much cheaper than what it is today and that I will still be in a very good physical shape to make the trip.
I also think that what Karin is doing is the essence of entrepreneurship through combining existing and new front-end technology with a business model and new ways to do business to commercialize space travel. Although it is not the immediate kind of need most people think of everyday, targeting everyday-needs, it definitely feels very obvious and of-course once you know of it. Which human being doesn’t want to know more about our existence? Who doesn’t want to experience something so much more powerful than just ourselves, our existence and our own consciousness?
The second lecture that has resonated much with me is the one with Gregg Vanourek abour Entrepreneurial Leadership and the ethics and morals of entrepreneurship. This lecture resonated with me because I am someone who strongly believes in taking responsibility and being honest. And finding investors is such a crucial part for a venture, and the lecture’s practice gave me a good insight of what a real-life complicated, risky and uncertain situation in both starting a business and in finding investors would be like. You always hear that it is risky and confusing and chaotic but during Gregg’s lecture, we got to experience it. Even though it was in a very mini-format, it was still valuable. And what we really felt was the time constraint and fast pace a startup operates in, having to make the “right” decision so quickly whilst trying to miss a fantastic chance of investment. Moreover, it was also nice to learn that lying for investors is a serious crime – good with regulations for dishonesty!
Besides the case,/practice, I also appreciated to learn that a business is also about the heart (vision, values, etc.) and not solely the brain. It connects back to the fact that you have to be passionate and belief in what you do as well as the softer skills to lead an organisation if you wanna succeed with a startup, thus making entrepreneurship sound even harder than what I already see it as…
Overall, I have really appreciated the guest lectures. It was very good to meet real-life entrepreneurs and hear their stories and they have to say.I really admire them because I think that starting a business and making it successful is the most difficult thing there is.
. It turns out there are many “levels” of intelligence on these cards and that the ones we use in daily life are fairly “dumb”, a great number of “smarter” prototype cards exist which have far greater abilities. Another group of guys was working on communication that occurs between companies. I spoke to 
They underestimated however that many people in America simply do not believe in climate change, and even if they do they are often not prepared to take measures against it. Perhaps in the future they will start believing in it and take action, but not yet. This is another good example I think of being “ahead of a trend/wave”. I personally see a big “wave” in sustainable transportation in urban environments, and specifically cycling equipement and facilities. It is my dream and goal to play my part in this, but I can see that as the situation is now the world is not ready for it yet. It will take many years before a “cycling culture” will take a foothold in many big cities (Copenhagen and Amsterdam excepted), and before a favourable market is there which entrepreneurs can exploit.
Sophie, 25: “One possibility to make the app profitable would be to sell statistics from the app to people. Maybe sell it to someone who wants to start a bar, or to people needing statistics on the movement and habits of students. I would like to be able to put an upper limit on the price and maybe also being able to adjust the distance I am willing to walk to get cheap beer.”
be you should have some extra features in the app? For example: “bars that are open until 01” or “bars that also sell wine”. I don’t know if the users would pay for this app, as the target customer is a poor student. To get the bars to pay for participating would also be hard, as the app would be really bad if only five bars joined.”
