Skolapulsinn.is - Mashing Technology, Education and Psychology

Brian Suda, does not need any introduction in the Icelandic Startup Scene. He also writes a pretty well read blog @optional.is. I stumbled upon this post by Brian on Skolapulsinn.is which he and a couple of other hackers put together for solving a big problem in Schools, to gauge the pulse of the students. Typically this is captured by asking the students through Surveys, but Skolapulsinn.is makes that feedback look much shorter and allows for School Administrator and Teachers to react in real time on what is going in the school system. He has written a very detailed post on this in his blog here. I have to be honest I was not aware that this tool was hacked together in 2008 and has surveyed more than 12000 students, thats pretty impressive data set. I need to talk to Brian today and understand where is this data and what can we learn from it.  I bet you could ask a whole lot of questions and this data can be used to understand the living breathing student community in Iceland in real time. I like how Brain refers to the school system as a living breathing thing rather than a stoic institution. We could ask important questions like how involved are the parents in the school work of the students, because time and time again it has been proven that kids whose parents are more involved with their kids work, make better students. We can actually give a more real-time report card rather than wait for the year to be over or solicit the opinion of the teacher. It is the kid who knows whether their  parents are involved in the home work or not. In addition, we could ask questions about the general feeling of the students to access whether they are feeling positive about school, their self confidence etc. This tools is a fascinating introduction to me and I obviously am going to bug Brian about how this is used in the Icelandic School System. If it is not used, then I want to lobby to the Ministry of Education and get them to use it. We need innovation like this to Tinker and Learn to improve our educational system, after all is'nt Education about Learning?

Related articles

• Students Learn Better with Engaged Parents (usnews.com)
• Students on Bullying: Important Insights (education.com)
• Do Involved Parents Help Teens Learn Better? (huffingtonpost.com)
• Self Fulfilling Prophecy!(Gloom and Doom) (oldschoolteach.wordpress.com)

Disruption in Education

Education is one of the most valuable bequeaths that we can pass along to our next generation. It was hammered into my head when I was growing up that there is only one way out of poverty and that is education. I am doing ok following that advice, what is exciting to me with the advent of the internet is that education is no longer confined behind the walls of an institute. There are disruptions happening that could fundamentally change the dynamics of competitive advantage, productivity, understanding and knowledge dissemination in the entire world. I signed up with Khan Academy yesterday and watched about 40 minutes of Python Programming videos, I have to admit I have done my stint with coding and I am a geek. I thought the instructions were very clear, and I actually felt like I relearnt a lot of the basics very quickly. I think what Sal Khan is doing is fascinating and he is really defining his legacy. This is by no means an advertisement for Khan Academy, but the number of videos that is available in the library is close to 2800 thats a lot of learning in various subjects. I am going to continue my learning in the Python Programming and anything else that I want to learn. The freedom to choose your learning by watching a good teacher is a great motivator, it gives you confidence and the of course the learning. So, what are you going to learn?

Related articles

• Viewpoint: Khan Academy criticism is off-target (mrpullen.wordpress.com)
• Craig Silverstein, Google's First Hire, Leaves For Khan Academy (webpronews.com)
• Khan Academy Slated to Teach JavaScript (linearfix.wordpress.com)

Validated Learning - 4th Meetup

We had a fantastic turnout today with over 40 people participating in Hotel Kex lobby in our 4th event related to the Lean Startup book discussion. Ari led the discussion about Validated Learning, once again the whole meeting was in Icelandic until I interrupted the flow with my 2 cents in English :) what can I say I am like that. Anyways, it was very exciting to see the level of participation and interest in this material. I think the most important element of the discussion was when Gunni gave examples of how traditional businesses can apply the Validated Learning concepts to established and functioning business models, and how one can improve on them. The whole premise of the Validated Learning concept is to treat every assumption we have about our business like a scientific hypothesis and build tests to validate those hypothesis. There were a bunch of references during the examples and talk to Steve Blank's book the four steps to Epiphany. I thought this video was very apt as it talks about the lost lessons of validated learning, I like the conclusion- "Lean Startup does not teach you to create value, that comes from within and from your value system. Use Lean Startup methodology to refine that."

Related articles

• Validated Learning in the Lean Startup (adamdawood.wordpress.com)
• Lecture 3 Important Terms Used in Research (criminologymyresearch.wordpress.com)
• Steve Blank vs. Steve Jobs (empwaynek.wordpress.com)

Ying and Yang of Startup teams and Ecosystems

One of the measures that I think is very important in building great teams is the balance of Ying and Yang, Creative and Analytical, Design and Engineering call it what you will. A great team in any field of operation needs to have a balance between the creative side and the analytical side. I think startup business development and management is a balance between Leadership and Management. Dr.Steven Covey talks about this in his books. I have been analyzing the number of students in Iceland in the Arts field vs those in the Analytical field. What is fascinating is the observation that this ratio is starting to move towards 100% that is a good balance, it means there are equal number of graduates in the Arts as there are in the Analytical. I think while we are looking at teams, it is very important that this balance is part of the equation. The data for this published here, all the source of the data is Statistics Iceland. This is possibly one of the reasons why I believe Iceland can actually create the next Google. Finding a good balance with the available pool of talent today is hard, if you find the talent on both sides, making them work together is harder. I have met many startups and companies in Iceland and the ones that are really making quantum jumps are the ones that have a good balance between Design and Engineering. I don't have comparison data but if I had to guess this ratio puts Iceland really high among those regions that have successful entrepreneurial ecosystems. I am finding more and more evidence to point to the fact that Iceland has all the right ingredients to build a sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem. If you want to participate in a conference that we are planning to organize to discuss the issue of How to Create Sustainable Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Iceland, go to http://signup.startupiceland.com and sign up.

If you are a startup and you dont' have this balance strive to get the balance, the diversity helps you ask hard questions about what you are doing and things that you don't consider, may be are obvious to your team members. Complementary team members always increase your teams odds of success.

Related articles

• Bjork rambles in Icelandic jibberish on the Colbert Report (hipsterrunoff.com)
• Beautiful Iceland (flickr.net)
• No Platform to Stand On (devoted2012.wordpress.com)
• Inspired by juniors (jackyyapp.com)
• Startup Business Growing Pains | Staying Focused (cloudave.com)

Skema - A Startup Profile

I am a strong believer that kids can learn to program very early in their lives. I have been a big fan of the late Dr.Randy Pauch and his legacy of Alice. My daughter and I have played with Alice a bit and I am planning to set some time with her every week to do Alice, she has all these screen plays that she creates in her note book and she is very motivated to be in the performing arts. Here is an idea, she could use Alice to make her stories there by learn computer programming. This is exactly what  Laufey Dís Ragnarsdóttir and Rakel Sölvadóttir—computer scientists and psychologists at the Reykjavík University have started doing. Here is an article about them in Reykjavik Grapevine. They have a startup which actually won the award for being the "Seed of the year for 2011" here in Iceland, the name of the company is Skema but as always the website is in Icelandic and I have to rely on Google Translate to tell me what they are really trying to do. The just started offering programs for kids a couple of days back. I am going to try to meet with them. There has been no innovation in education per se and I believe these kinds of tools and startups can really change the way we learn.

What is fascinating about teaching kid computer programming is that I believe it could help kids with Attention Deficit Disorder and Dyslexia, I am not a medical doctor but I would guess it actually help kids learn better with computer programming because the feedback loop of what you do is immediate and they actually start paying more attention to the task at hand.

Here is Rakel talking about the concept in TEDxReykjavik.

Related articles

• How to teach code (guardian.co.uk)
• Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder Impacts Career Options (adultadhdtips.wordpress.com)
• Computer Program Reconstructs Heard Words From Brain Scans (science.slashdot.org)

School for Entrepreneurship

Did a little bit of research into the Entrepreneurship studies and/or programs offered either by Reykjavik University or University of Iceland. The sad truth is that it does not exist. It gets a cursory treatment and I believe Universities need to adapt their curriculum to accommodate what is going on in the society. As I have written about before what Iceland needs is Entrepreneurship and a new vision, but no institution is focusing on it. I know the examples that are going to come out of nay sayers, Bill Gates dropped out of school and Steve Jobs did not finish college etc but why not use the institutions that exist to teach entrepreneurship? there maybe some of those who want to start companies that solve global problems, entrepreneurship is a skill just like computer programming or financial engineering or marketing. Actually I think entrepreneurship is a melting pot of all these those things taught in a MBA and to build teams and companies.

Brad has a post about a new course that he is planning to start in Colorado University with he title "Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Public Policy". I think it is very relevant to any startup community. Please click on the link and read the post. I plan to reach out to both the Universities in Iceland and see if they would be interested to offer this course. I would volunteer to teach it  (refer back to my previous post "If you want a great student change their role into a teacher!")

I have taken the topics and pasted here just to summarize the thinking...

1. Being an Entrepreneur. Reading: The Start-up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career (Hoffman, Casnocha). Five Minds for the Future (Gardner).

2. Leadership and What Makes a Great Founding Team. Reading: Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup:  (Cohen, Feld). Leadership Lessons From the Shackleton Expedition (Koehn).

3. Building and Scaling A Business. Reading: The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (Ries).

4. Entrepreneurial Communities. Reading: Startup Communities: Creating A Great Entrepreneurial Ecosystem In Your City (Feld). Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity 1996 – 2010.

5. Financing Entrepreneurial Companies. Reading: Venture Deals: How To Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer(Mendelson, Feld). Improving Access to Capital for High-Growth Companies (Department of Commerce – National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship)

6. Entrepreneurial Leadership in Government. Reading: Alfred Kahn As A Case Study of A Political Entrepreneur (Weiser). Start-up Nation:  The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle (Senor and Singer).

7. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy: Reading: Accelerating Energy Innovation: Insights from Multiple Sectors (Henderson, Newell).

Related articles

• New Course: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Public Policy (feld.com)
• Free Online Stanford Class On Tech Entrepreneurship (Begins January 2012) (forbes.com)
• 2012 Will Be the Year of the Entrepreneur (moneyland.time.com)
• Entrepreneurship Program (kaitvinson.com)
• Kauffman Symposium on Entrepreneurship and Innovation Data (kauffman.org)

Image via Wikipedia

Education level in Iceland

I have written about my vision and investment thesis for Iceland. Important element of this thesis is the young and well educated population in Iceland. This blog post is facts and data to support that investment thesis. The first graph shows the number of Doctoral students enrolled in the Universities in Iceland, the trend has been increasing since 2003 so this is not a new phenomena. The second graph shows the number of students in the Masters degree program. The third one shows the total of all students in Universities pursuing basic degree and all the rest. The total stands today 18869. If you consider that the population of Iceland on 1 January 2011 was 318,452 almost 6% of the total population is pursuing University degrees. The final graph is the total education attainment of the population age between 16 to 74 years from the year 2003 the total number in 2010 stood at 222500, which is a very high percentage of the overall population. 

Related articles

• Iceland Says No to Privatization of Proft and Socialization of Debt (stevebeckow.com)
• Michael Lewis' Boomerang (cdixon.org)
• Global Times: Tycoon slams Iceland's land sale snub (anisekirkpatrick.wordpress.com)
• Bárðarbunga: more seismic unrest at another one of Iceland's large volcanoes (theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com)
• Witness the hidden corners of Iceland in high definition (gadling.com)
• And some more about Iceland (hotelranga.wordpress.com)
• All things Icelandic (parkersiniceland.wordpress.com)
• Iceland Revolution and Arrest of Banksters A Blueprint for Change (crazyemailsandbackstories.wordpress.com)

Three cups of tea

I finished reading the book "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin. I was moved by the book, I have decided that I am going to use my marathon running to raise money for Central Asia Institute. I don't have any specific goal for the London Marathon, however whatever may be the funds I raise will be donated to the Central Asia Institute. If you happen to read this blog entry, please visit CAI and contribute in one of the several ways described.

I think everyone can make a difference and Greg Mortenson has proved that one man can make a huge difference in this world in a movement towards peace.