This past Sunday I graduated from Carnegie Mellon University. Commencement was absolutely wonderful, Al Gore spoke about the climate crisis, but our ceremony was really about Randy Pausch, a CMU professor who is dying of pancreatic cancer. Now that it is over and I have one degree out of the way, I thought I would recap the footprint I have left behind.

Global Studies House: I will never forget the incredible relationships I have developed with my residents. I was able to go to Doha, Qatar, which was my first venture outside of the country. I am so glad that the global studies program will continue to be an institution at my alma mater

New Space: My senior policy project on the Policy Dimensions of New Space, truly taught me that when a few motivated and hard working minds get together; great things can be accomplished. We worked all semester to come up with our suggestions and recommendations on the legal, social, business and safety aspects of private space ventures. Aside from producing a super heavy final document, we provided a comprehensive perspective of where new space is going, and how important it is to up regulation in order to mitigate the possibility of a major crash. This is essential, because through our historical, social and risk analysis, we found that a large crash would completely cripple this promising infant industry.

Lunar Gala: If you would have told me that I would be in a fashion show my freshman year, I would have laughed. But being a part of the Lunar Gala team has taught me so much about organization, vision, teamwork, cultural diversity, and of course, fashion. LG really is a fantastic organization, and I am so proud to have been a part of something so big. To see design collections grow, to see the confidence in our models develop, and just the rush the night of the show. I know next year it is just going to be even better, and I feel so glad to be a part of LG’s success.

The best convocation speech ever!: Being chosen as convocation speaker my junior year was an honor. Giving a convocation speech is one thing, but giving a speech that freshmen actually remembered? Pretty sweet. The emails I got in response, and the people that stopped me on campus to tell me that they enjoyed it? Greatest high ever!

I can’t believe it is all over. It went by so fast. I am really going to miss CMU, and all of my wonderful professors and super awesome nerdy classmates who have really left an imprint on who I am and how I think. I think I am so lucky to have found a university that was so perfect for me, and I am so sad to leave it behind. Maybe grad school?

Last year Carnegie Mellon was infiltrated with a film crew for a movie called “Smart People” which is an indie film that takes place on our campus! It was pretty sweet to see Dennis Quaid walking his dog on campus everyday. It doesn’t look half bad, and Ellen Page is just too adorable. Can’t wait to see if anyone I know snuck in to any shots.

I thought I would share the findings of Interbrand’s valuation report on native Chinese Brands, a few of them are public. It could be another way to look at the the value and promise of some of these China superstars. Just a note, brands like Coca-Cola and other big name multinationals weren’t included.

Here are the top ten and their NYSE ticker symbols when applicable:

China Mobile (CHL)
China Construction Bank
Bank of China
China Life (LFC)
ICBC
China Telecom (CHA)
Ping An
China Merchants Bank
Moutai
China Unicom (CHU)

Maybe I am culturally tainted, but the American branding seems a little more visually exciting. Still these are the brands that mean the most in China. Remotely interesting

Original Interbrand Report

Click for PDF of “BDM Term Paper- Apgar Scoring”

According to the blog campussqueeze, Carnegie Mellon is the 5th Ugliest College Campus in the United States. I’m not going to lie, when my friend read the headline, I thought they were talking about how unattractive our campus population is, and well that’s pretty old news. We know we are ugly, and I think we are pretty proud of that. We all know that if we are really that ugly, we must be that smart.

But no, this retarded blog post was about how unaesthetic our actual campus buildings are, which is ABSURD! Carnegie Mellon is a beautiful little Oakland oasis. Sometimes, late at night when I am walking back from the library, I will just look out to Hamerschlag hall, or look behind me into the intricate niches of CFA, and I am simply refreshed by how classically lovely it is. Alright, so maybe it’s not that dramatic, but still it’s pretty close.

I love the yellow brick and I especially love the detail and geometry of the Hornbostel architecture, the detail, from the heavy copper doors to the spiral stairways, to the rotunda of Maggie Mo. Baker hall (my humanities home base) really feels like the sacred, hallowed halls of learning that you imagine a college would have.

I’ll give them Wean hall, which is our computer science building. Wean is, well, as attractive as a big, brutalist, block of concrete could be. But Wean isn’t even that bad, and I can’t imagine our campus without it. “Mother Wean” screams CS, like no other building could.

Overall, our campus is open, organized and uncluttered. We have a few hodgepodge buildings, but most of them follow the same style within thier group. Warner, Hunt, Donner, Scaife, in one category, the original Hornbostels, the newer UCand Purnell (which still stick to the brick schema) and Wean, which is in a category all it’s own. I believe Hunt and Scaife were built by the same architect, thus the similar style for them as well.

I know that part of my decision to come to Carnegie Mellon was based on how much I loved being on the campus. It really is quite nice. I can’t imagine why else they would come all the way to Pittsburgh to film the movie “Smart People” which comes out in May. “Wonder Boys” was also filmed here, because are campus IS pretty. Seriously, before you knock Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon, give it a chance. Our campus is super, and Pittsburgh is more than the steel town it used to be decades ago. If you like Emory and Northwestern, you have to give Carnegie Mellon some cred. Those campuses were created in the same architectural vision.

I know there really wasn’t any solid rationale for the campusqueeze post, and a recent high school junior that is making the admission tour rounds, realistically would do a better job, but still, I thought that I had to defend my alma mater, because well if we can’t get points for having good-looking people, we need to help our buildings get the loving they deserve. Maybe we aren’t the most beautiful campus as compared to the Spanish-style architecture of some of the California and Florida schools, but top 20 ugliest? Give me a break.

Can you please give me a bowl of rice?

I found a way to feed the world and also increase my vocab. What a deal. The people at freerice.com have a vocabulary quiz (and trust me it gets pretty tough) and for each word you get right, they donate 20 grains of rice. I was dabbling for a few minutes and before I knew it I had accumulated a heap of rice, heading towards 2,000. Now I am on a quest to use some of my new words in conversation…and/or my blog post.

Are are looking for some circumlocution, and some sesquipidalian fodder? Are you looking for a way to ameliorate the world hunger issue; give them some food to gormandize? Then spend some time free-ricing. If you don’t want to do it for the world, do it for your own rumination.

With GMAT’s coming up soon this site can’t hurt.

I got to level 45, beat that :0)

Yesterday I went to Nicolas Sullivan’s lecture for the Institute for Social Innovation at CMU, and I thought I’d share. It was about cellular telephones, and the huge role that they have played in really driving and increasing connectivity in developing countries. What’s a phone call, though? A phone call means connectivity, and as Sullivan put it, connectivity means productivity, and productivity means an increase in the growth of GDP.

He spoke a lot about Grameenphone and how it came about. Telenor worked with Grameen to really introduce cellular telephony to the 5 million Bangladeshis that they felt could afford the technology. He mentioned that one of the reasons why the cell phone strategy has been so successful is because they didn’t just go in and think that the western cellular phone culture was going to work.

Cell phone market penetration has been very successful in Africa as well. They have utilized pre-paid calling plans, plans that people can afford to connect their businesses and connect them to the world.

Cell phones could be the more realistic answer to the connectivity gap that is so important. Initiatives like the $100 Laptop project could be helpful, but the learning curve on a cell phone is significantly easier. Companies have realized this and are using mobile platforms and technology to make people’s daily transactions a little easier; Specifically with financial transactions. One area you could look at is money that is sent into the country, apparently 20% of the Philippines’ GDP comes from remittances. To expedite this process and make it less expensive, is huge deal.

Further, if transactions can be made by cell phone, that means that people don’t have to walk around with cash or credit card at hand.

Another tidbit I found interesting was that many governments in Africa, realizing the profitability from cell phones, have been taking as much as 30% tax on cell phones and prepaid plans. This could be a potential hurdle in really getting cell phones out in an affordable way, to the masses.

All in all I think it was quite an enjoyable lecture. I’m still waiting for the world of free cell phones that Eric Schmidt said will eventually emerge, but until then, the connectivity that cell phones are providing to the developing world, is a huge boost.

Last month, IBM agreed to partner with the Grameen foundation in working with the open source Mifos platform. Mifos is a MIS program being used at microfinance institutions around the world. This technology component is massively important because it means more cost effective lending, which means there can be more lending, which means they can reach more entrepreneurs and really affect change.

It is estimated that only half of the MFI’s around the world are currently using automated systems for their loan processing and administration. In some ways I could see how top-of-the line software wouldn’t be the top priority in say a village where electronics may not be as prevalent, or where the volume of small business owners isn’t as great. Still having a solid streamlined database managment system is essential for the expansion of microfinance.

Props to Grameen for their emphasis on technology in pushing MFIs to the next level, specifically their insight in using an open source platform. Further, I think that IBM is setting an example, and I think that more companies should get involved with not just throwing money at a cause, but instead using their industry experience and know how to make this world a more equitable place.

Somedays, I really wish I was a programmer, It would be cool to program for social change.

Perhaps I start a a business philosophy based on awesome ticker symbols paired with not so awesome market performance. I’m about 98% kidding, but it’s a funny thought.

Iv’e been looking at HOTJ for a while since Ben and I stumbled upon it during Blue Nile’s spotlight. They have a pretty sweeeet ticker symbol, It is almost devastating to see their price go from 98 cents down to 47 cents in the past month. Performance, not so sweet. Instead of saying that they don’t deserve such an awesome symbol, I am going to say that they don’t deserve such crappy performance, and thus, I am going to buy them out. LBO all the way. I guess I have to disclaim that I don’t actually mean this. So yeah, I don’t really mean this.

But I was trying to think of other sweet ticker symbols suffering from the pain of being daunted by some not so sweet numbers.

• LUV-Southwest
• COOL-Majesco
• ZZ-Seely

I guess clever tix can’t carry all the weight.