Blockchain

This semester has been an interesting one.  With many changes, I involved myself in many opportunities that have influenced my future.

Throughout my learnings, I have realized the future potential in the blockchain technology and have began to pursue the industry.

Recently I was hired for an internship position in the Board of Trade with Chicago Crypto Capital.  I will be researching ICO's and other cryptocurrencies for new opportunities for our investors.  This will give me the skills and knowledge needed in order to move further into the industry.

Along with this, I will be helping with the development of a newer crypto company, CryptoBloc.  This platform is still in the early stages, but I plan to help the company with outside research and testing the trading bots that are under development.

For the summer, I also plan to start building my first computer.  Now, the best part about this, the main purpose of the computer will be to have my own personal miner.  I plan to make the investment in order to open up more opportunities in the industry.

Finally, my crypto addiction moves to my own personal investing.  I have only recently started, but am excited to go full force.  I am currently trading with Coinbase and Binance with a small account.  I plan to add more money as I progress and learn more about the industry in my internships and experiences.

http://www.ben.edu/
http://www.ben.edu/facilities-management-planning/planning-construction/daniel-l-goodwin-hall-of-business.cfm
http://www.ben.edu/college-of-business/undergraduate/entrepreneurship.cfm

Professor

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodihoulihan/

Week 11- Entrepreneurship 2

With the semester coming to an end, all of the work we put in came down to the final project.  The final pitch for Entrepreneurship 301 was very stressful with compacting a semester of research and information into a eight minute presentation.

Creating the presentation was a long process, but one thing that helped a lot was being able to use google drive.  With this feature, the group was able to share information and work on assignments without always having to meet.   With drive, we had a folder that included all of our work and with that we created a presentation with google slides.

Using most of the work that we already completed through the semester and transforming them into slides was difficult because we all had so much information to pack into the few slides.

We ended up braking the presentation into four sections, one for each team member.  Yaju was head of Research and Development and presented the slides on the problem that we were working to solve and why it needs to be addressed.  I presented that prototype that we created with all of the future features that a working prototype would come with and the estimated prices for the working prototype.  Frank was in charge of the marketing strategy and the competitive landscape.  This was a strong part of our presentation because Frank is a Marketing Major.  Finally, Ken closed up the presentation with our products future innovations and the sales pitch on why to invest.

Overall, our group made a solid presentation on google slides, but we all felt that it did not have enough eye appeal.  The night before the presentation, we ended up working late in order to change the presentation into a Prezi.  This ended up adding value to our presentation because it created a story behind it.  The slides work up a mountain, with the last slide being at the top with our closing pitch.  We felt that little details like that add value and helped our presentation in the end.

All in All, the class was very helpful to me in knowing what to do next with my business ideas.   The class, along with Professor Houlihan, gave me the confirmation on what I want to do for the rest of my life.  I am very excited to begin my journey as an entrepreneur.

http://www.ben.edu/
http://www.ben.edu/facilities-management-planning/planning-construction/daniel-l-goodwin-hall-of-business.cfm
http://www.ben.edu/college-of-business/undergraduate/entrepreneurship.cfm

Professor

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodihoulihan/

Team:
Yaju Mahida- https://www.linkedin.com/in/yajuvendra-mahida/
Frank Greco- https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankgreco24/
Ken West-

Week 8- Entrepreneurship

I am currently enrolled in the course Entrepreneurship 301 at Benedictine University with Professor Jodi Houlihan (LinkedIn below).  In the class, we were changed from students in a group to entrepreneurs creating a business.  My team and I have created the company A-1, and together we came up with an idea that will solve the germ infested technology problem that is growing faster then technology itself.

Our company started with an idea of a self cleaning handrail machine that would occasionally clean public handrails in order to keep them clean.  We quickly found out that creating a solution before finding out if there is an actual problem is not a good business model.  Research became A-1's top priority.  We started by learning more about germs.  We conducted interviews with many people including multiple Benedictine Microbiologists and an employee from P&G.  All of the research conducted lead our company to the next business decision.  We changed out focus and strated seeing the problem that we needed to solve.

We moved our focus from handrails to touch screens for many reasons, including; softer surfaces are more common for germs, some of the most harmful germs are found in grocery stores from uncooked meats, and the volume of human contact is much higher on touch screens with the new technology wave.

So, our company developed a new process to consistently protect touch screen users from the fecal infested technology. Yes, over 50% of self-check out screens actually have fecal bacteria on them. And this is not all, there are millions of germs on these screens that can be harmful to the user.

We have created our first prototype. In this process, we struggled with getting the idea into a physical product. One of the hardships we went through was explaining what supplies we needed for the prototype because we didn't have anything to show them visually. We learned that any prototype is better then nothing because it gives others a visual to what the product is. Finally being able to put something together was a huge step for us. Currently, we are in the process of receiving constructive criticism on our prototype in order to further our idea into a working product.

So far, this class has shown me some of the struggles that entrepreneurs go through to get a company started. As I have said before, becoming an entrepreneur and starting my own company is my dream. Now that I have personally gone through some of these business experiences, I can say I feel more confident in being able to make my dream a reality.

http://www.ben.edu/
http://www.ben.edu/facilities-management-planning/planning-construction/daniel-l-goodwin-hall-of-business.cfm
http://www.ben.edu/college-of-business/undergraduate/entrepreneurship.cfm

Professor

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodihoulihan/

Team:
Yaju Mahida- https://www.linkedin.com/in/yajuvendra-mahida/
Frank Greco- https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankgreco24/
Ken West-