28 Oct Voyage honneur to Silicon Valley
In October, a group of ten honour students headed out on our first voyage honneur of the year to Silicon Valley for a week’s introduction to entrepreneurship and the world of technology start-ups. Tasked with developing their own business ideas, to be pitched to a team of Venture Capitalists for investment opportunity, the trip serves as a fantastic opportunity for Roséens to gain insight into the approach to and challenges of starting a company from some of the best minds in the business.
The weekend was spent exploring San Francisco’s must-see sights, including biking the Golden Gate Bridge and a visit to Alcatraz, before the group drove South to Palo Alto for a busy week of meetings with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and start-ups thriving in Silicon Valley. Visits included Homelight, Amazon, Incubators Plug and Play and Founders Space, Baobab Studios, Rock Health, Stripe, Github, Cloudflare, Santa Clara University Social Impact Programme, Salesforce, Tatari and a remarkable dinner at the home of Apple’s Vice President of Education, John Couch. At each visit, students asked pertinent questions to guide them on their own start-up journey, utilising the wisdom shared by each of our hosts to build a comprehensive understanding of the industry. The week concluded with two impressive presentations – BeeGone and Relace – from our teams, with only a slight show of nerves in what can be quite an intimidating setting in front of genuine investors. They should be immensely proud of their teamwork, confidence, commitment and progress which made this week once again a great success.
