Joonseok Oh

TEDx Columbia Engineering

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:32:27 -0500

After failing to attend any TEDx events while I was in Seoul, I did not want to miss our very own TEDx event at Columbia. It was a whole day event, with the following three themes : Health, Sustainability, and Tech & Entreprenuership.

The speaker lineup for the Tech & Entrepreneurship was

- Sinan Aral : Professor at NYU Stern

- Rachel Chong : CEO of Catchafire

- Eitan Grinspun : Computer Science Professor at Columbia

- Omar Haroun : CBS MBA and CEO of Sportaneous

- Jay Rosen : Journalism Professor at NYU

- Jake Porway : Founder of Data Without Borders, Data Scientist at NY Times

- Henning Schulzrinne : Computer Science Professor at Columbia

- Dave Lerner : Director of Columbia Venture Lab

Although all the speakers were inspiring, Jake Porway’s speech(photo below) was the most impactful personally because not only was he a great presenter and effective in getting his idea across, his idea for the organization “Data without borders” which matches non-profits in need of data analysis with freelance and pro bono data analysts, reminded me of Hans Rosling and was very compelling.
I do hope that this organization flourishes and grows not only nationally but internationally as well.

Celeste Beatty, who founded the Harlem Brewing Company, came to...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:31:00 -0500

Celeste Beatty, who founded the Harlem Brewing Company, came to speak at Columbia to the Entrepreneurs Club and Microbrew Club members. She founded the company in 2000 and has been brewing her Sugar Hill beer in Saratoga NY ever since. She has been growing her own hops since 2005 and is planning to open a brewing space in 126th between Amsterdam and Morningside Ave. The beer is currently being sold at Fairway Market in NYC.

The lesson learned : you have to be really passionate about your own startup in order to navigate through all the unforeseen obstacles that lie ahead.

Columbia MBA / Engineering school mixer

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 20:10:58 -0500

The Columbia Business School and the Engineering School mixer last Thursday was a great opportunity to mix and mingle with engineers. Recently there has been a strong initiative on the student side to make it easier for students from these two schools to reach out to one another, and this was one of them. It is tempting to get siloed in your environment and just stick with your MBA buddies but being proactive and reaching out to engineers will definitely help in the long run(and better ideas can emerge!).

Roger Ehrenberg and Steve Blank at Columbia Business School

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 00:41:00 -0500

One of the perks of attending business school is having VCs and serial entrepreneurs come to campus as speakers. Roger Ehrenberg of IA Ventures talked about his path from a wall street banker to an investor, and Steve Blank shared his invaluable know-how of how to become a successful entrepreneur. Their talks reminded me once more that execution is the most important(not the idea!) and possibly the most difficult part in starting a company.

Silicon Alley Talent Fair I saw a lot of pent-up demand for...

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 00:32:00 -0500

Silicon Alley Talent Fair

I saw a lot of pent-up demand for (high quality) engineering talent at the Silicon Alley Talent Fair today. 75 start-ups, mostly in or near New York, set up booths to recruit. On the talent side, Princeton undergrads came as a group on a bus, and Cornell Johnson MBAs were also spotted, as well as developers and hackers. Some of the interesting start-ups included :

- 10gen, a provider of a non-SQL database called MongoDB

- Kikin, a clever touch browsing technology which I had witnessed at the New York Tech Meetup

- iSpeech, a start-up which beat me in developing a human quality text to speech technology

Having used SQL at work, I am looking forward to trying MongoDB’s non-SQL approach.

Intro

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:15:00 -0500

Three months have passed since my MBA program at Columbia Business School started, and it has been an exhilarating experience so far. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of interest at the school in tech and entrepreneurship. I am currently serving as the AVP of alumni for the Columbia Entrepreneurs Organization, and have been immersing myself in the tech scene here in New York; going to tech/entrepreneur meetups within the university and in NYC, attending speaker events, workshops and sessions at General Assembly and Founders@Fail and etc.

There is so much going on every day at Columbia and in NYC that I wish could split myself into multiple clones and check out everything that is going on at the same time.

I will be using this blog to ramble about Tech and Entrepreneurship. I will also be blogging about my search for the quintessential blend of Espresso here.