Sunday, May 23, 2010
Prague, China, and beyond
So, my last entry was a little over a year ago and in that entry I said how I was about to start blogging again often. Well, that obviously did not happen. One thing led to another and I got lazy with the blog. Over these next two months however, I will be blogging often.
First I'll give a recap of my last year and then I'll get into what I'm doing now.
Over the last year I moved around a a lot. Thunderbird, where I am getting my MBA is an amazing school. It has campuses all over the world. For two months lat summer I was in Prague studying. School was extremely taxing but I still found time to explore the city. After our module ended there I went down to Italy for a 2 week road trip before flying off to Beijing for the next 2 month module. China again was a great time. It was not quite as taxing so I had a little more time to get to know the city. China, is by all means not an easy place to travel around of you don't speak the language. Nevertheless, I had a fantastic time. After China I took a two week trip to visit my brother in Thailand and to relax in the Thai islands. From there I went down to Brazil for 3 months where I was living in Rio De Janeiro and doing an exchange program with COPPEAD, which is rated one of the best MBA programs in all of Latin America.
Rio sure is an amazing place. I was living 2 blocks from the famous Ipanema beach where I tried to get to as often as possible. I also spent a fair amount of time hiking up in the rainforest that is right inside of the city. It is the largest urban rainforest in the world. I thoroughly enjoyed learning Portuguese and getting to know Brazil and the Brazilian people.
After Rio, I spent a relaxing month off back home, between my mom's and my dad's houses. My brother was able to be there for the entire time and it was great for all of us to be together. In January I headed back out to Arizona (main Thunderbird Campus) where I finished all but 6 credits of my MBA. It was great to be back on campus and see some old faces that I had not seen for a long time.
I have decided that I am going to move to San Francisco to work in a tech start-up company there. For those of ;you who know my brother, it sounds a little like I am following his footsteps. In '97, in the height of the dot com boom, he moved out to SF and started a couple of companies. Luke however is now living in Thailand where I just spent two weeks. It is horribly sad what is happening over there and I truly hope the country and figure out its problems and come to some kind of peaceful resolution.
Before I can move out there, I am finishing my lat 6 credits in Peru. As I write this I am sitting in my apartment in Lima overlooking the ocean. I am here with 4 other classmates and friends from school and we are doing a program called TEM Lab (Thunderbird Emerging Markets Program). We are acting as consultants for a micro-finance bank, Mibanco, and are trying to see how we can help move women up the pyramid faster. For those of you unfamiliar with micro-finance. it is a relatively recent phenomena. Banks are focused on solely giving loans to women in the developing world. It first started over in India and now has spread throughout most of the developing countries in the world. We are going to be working on a program where we can try and figure out how to accelerate women from the bottom of the Pyramid up to the top. This would make more money for the women, more money for the banks, and more money would be in circulation in the developing country.
Our work is going to be taxing, but it is going to be rewarding as well. I look forward to keep everyone updated here.
First I'll give a recap of my last year and then I'll get into what I'm doing now.
Over the last year I moved around a a lot. Thunderbird, where I am getting my MBA is an amazing school. It has campuses all over the world. For two months lat summer I was in Prague studying. School was extremely taxing but I still found time to explore the city. After our module ended there I went down to Italy for a 2 week road trip before flying off to Beijing for the next 2 month module. China again was a great time. It was not quite as taxing so I had a little more time to get to know the city. China, is by all means not an easy place to travel around of you don't speak the language. Nevertheless, I had a fantastic time. After China I took a two week trip to visit my brother in Thailand and to relax in the Thai islands. From there I went down to Brazil for 3 months where I was living in Rio De Janeiro and doing an exchange program with COPPEAD, which is rated one of the best MBA programs in all of Latin America.
Rio sure is an amazing place. I was living 2 blocks from the famous Ipanema beach where I tried to get to as often as possible. I also spent a fair amount of time hiking up in the rainforest that is right inside of the city. It is the largest urban rainforest in the world. I thoroughly enjoyed learning Portuguese and getting to know Brazil and the Brazilian people.
After Rio, I spent a relaxing month off back home, between my mom's and my dad's houses. My brother was able to be there for the entire time and it was great for all of us to be together. In January I headed back out to Arizona (main Thunderbird Campus) where I finished all but 6 credits of my MBA. It was great to be back on campus and see some old faces that I had not seen for a long time.
I have decided that I am going to move to San Francisco to work in a tech start-up company there. For those of ;you who know my brother, it sounds a little like I am following his footsteps. In '97, in the height of the dot com boom, he moved out to SF and started a couple of companies. Luke however is now living in Thailand where I just spent two weeks. It is horribly sad what is happening over there and I truly hope the country and figure out its problems and come to some kind of peaceful resolution.
Before I can move out there, I am finishing my lat 6 credits in Peru. As I write this I am sitting in my apartment in Lima overlooking the ocean. I am here with 4 other classmates and friends from school and we are doing a program called TEM Lab (Thunderbird Emerging Markets Program). We are acting as consultants for a micro-finance bank, Mibanco, and are trying to see how we can help move women up the pyramid faster. For those of you unfamiliar with micro-finance. it is a relatively recent phenomena. Banks are focused on solely giving loans to women in the developing world. It first started over in India and now has spread throughout most of the developing countries in the world. We are going to be working on a program where we can try and figure out how to accelerate women from the bottom of the Pyramid up to the top. This would make more money for the women, more money for the banks, and more money would be in circulation in the developing country.
Our work is going to be taxing, but it is going to be rewarding as well. I look forward to keep everyone updated here.
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