What You Can Learn From Einstein and His Failures [Infographic]

What You Can Learn From Einstein and His Failures [Infographic] Life doesn’t consistently go as easily as you plan. And keeping in mind that it some of the time may appear you’re the one in particular who battles, that’s a long way from reality. Individuals in incredible situations with fruitful lives and tons of regard are not generally conceived as prodigies with the smarts, wise, riches, and sense to be on top. Take the unrivaled Albert Einstein-the author of relativity, everyone’s go-to case of a genuine virtuoso. His excursion to leaving a permanent blemish on the world was a long way from smooth and easy!Follow a mind-blowing way underneath (as observed on LifeHack) to see the exciting bends in the road it took (from beginning with learning battles and being called lethargic, to being the psyche of the century). Possibly perceiving how even Einstein’sâ professional life was not without its knocks will move you to keep your head in the game and your eye on the prize, regardless of what occurs.

Trade of Coffee and Gold

Acquaintance Marketing alludes with the way toward directing statistical surveying, offering merchandise or administrations to customers and elevating them through notice to build the business volume. It is a mind boggling process by which associations and businesses create solid associations with the customers.Advertising We will compose a custom report test on Trade of Coffee and Gold explicitly for you for just $16.05 $11/page Learn More In request to direct powerful promoting of items, it is significant for the showcasing supervisors to have a sound comprehension of the inception of the items they are managing so as to gadget appropriate advertising systems. This paper looks to conceal light on the causes of espresso and gold, challenges in their creation, why they are well known and furthermore their ad. Espresso Origin of Coffee The utilization of espresso can be followed back to the thirteenth century (Schreckmann, 2004). Notwithstanding, its starting point has not yet been bu ilt up. It is normally comprehended that the antiquated Ethiopians who were the predecessors of the current Oromo people group were among the primary individuals who found that espresso stimulatingly affects the psyche (Schreckmann, 2004). In any case, there is no particular proof that can clarify where espresso was developed and utilized in Africa before seventeenth century (Pendergrast, 2010). By sixteenth century the information on espresso had spread in the Middle East, a few areas of Persia and Turkey. â€Å"The utilization of espresso as a refreshment later arrived at Italy from Asia† (Schreckmann, 2004). From Italy its utilization was stretched out to Europe and since that time espresso creation arrived at America (Pendergrast, 2010). In spite of the fact that the inception of espresso had its underlying foundations in Ethiopia, the nation just created a little sum for exportation until the second 50% of the twentieth century. Explanations behind the Popularity of Coff ee The fame of espresso can be ascribed to a few elements. To start with, it has invigorating impact in the brain of the client and persistent utilization of it can prompt compulsion henceforth such buyers are probably going to keep utilizing it (Schreckmann, 2004). Furthermore, the makers of espresso items have likewise figured out how to structure a few components to raise its ubiquity. For instance espresso items come in different flavors that intrigue to the clients taste and inclinations. Aside from this the players in the espresso showcase have consistently been quick to keep up its notoriety in the market (Paul, 1947). They have accomplished this through ordinary exciting notices (Schreckmann, 2004). Issues Encountered in Coffee Production The degree of espresso creation has been influenced by vacillations in its market costs (Paul, 1947). For instance the global market cost for espresso has not been steady and they continue evolving. This has constantly brought down the exci tement of ranchers to keep delivering coffee.Advertising Looking for report on business financial aspects? We should check whether we can support you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Organizations that Deal with Problems of Coffee Production Coffee Marketing Boards in different nations have been instrumental in tending to issues identified with espresso creation. For instance they generally can anticipate better universal espresso costs. They likewise offer warning administrations to the ranchers (Schreckmann, 2004). The guidance identifies with better creation techniques. Gold Origin of Gold was the main metal known by humankind. The wonderful idea of gold and its splendor pulled in the old individuals and it turned out to be a piece of their way of life (Paul, 1947). Since gold is found in various pieces of the world, it was found by various races in numerous spots. Practically anyone who experienced gold got interested with it (Paul, 1947). The least demanding metal to take a shot at is gold. â€Å"It shows up in an unadulterated serviceable state when contrasted with different metals that exist educate regarding metal bodies which cause a few troubles in smelting† (Paul, 1947). Gold has been a respectable product and the early human advancements related it with unmistakable rulers like rulers and sovereigns (Paul, 1947). Gold was of extraordinary incentive to people even before they began utilizing it as a money. This has been shown by an eager exertion to get it. Prospecting exercises for gold has its beginnings in 700 B.C (Paul, 1947). During the quest for gold by Egyptians and Phoenicians, detainees were regularly sent to work in the gold mines. Gold was utilized as cash in the antiquated Greece (Paul, 1947). â€Å"The Greeks directed gold mining exercises in the Mediterranean district around 500 B.C. what's more, researchers like Plato expounded on the hypotheses of its origins† (Paul, 1947). Issues Encountered in Gold Produc tion The mining of gold has been influenced by a few difficulties that can be quickly clarified as follows. In South Africa where we have one of the world’s biggest gold mines, power hitches have constantly injured mining exercises (Paul, 1947). For models a few mines have must be shut for quite a while because of enduring force power outages (Paul, 1947). Laborers have consistently had genuine mishaps in the mines with some closure in passings (Paul, 1947). Besides, the expense of mining has risen impressively in the course of recent years. Thirdly, the underlying expense of setting fully operational a gold mine is generally high (Paul, 1947). There is likewise the test of expanding work deficiencies in the mines. In addition, laborers in the mines consistently interest for high wages (Paul, 1947). Purposes behind Popularity of Gold Today the cost of gold is as yet rising and this can be clarified as follows. One reason for the prevalence of gold is its high caliber as a met al (Paul, 1947). Another factor for the expanded prominence of this metal is its capacity to give assurance against potential money related dangers (Paul, 1947). For instance when the estimation of cash goes down, it allows the financial specialists to ensure their speculations. Likewise, gold additionally offers a wide scope of speculation chances to speculators (Paul, 1947).Advertising We will compose a custom report test on Trade of Coffee and Gold explicitly for you for just $16.05 $11/page Learn More Description of a Print Advertisement There are numerous methods of publicizing and print notice is one of them. This sort of promotion is imprinted in a bit of paper for instance in a paper. The viability of this commercial relies upon the capacity of individuals to see it. In this investigation a print promotion for gold was utilized. Structure of the Advertisement The notice highlighted gold composing imprinted on calfskin. The calfskin is having a delicate surface and it is dark in shading. The words are written in yellow to bring a sharp complexity and this makes the commercial look exceptionally appealing. The words in the gold promotion are: â€Å"Money drives the world as we know it. Gold prevents the world from getting woozy when the ride’s is over’’. Language of the Advertisement The language utilized in the commercial was painstakingly chosen since it is basic and can be effortlessly comprehended. The utilization of straightforward language in commercials encourages the advertiser to pass clear messages to the focused on populace. Motivation behind the Advertisement This notice was planned for urging individuals to put resources into gold exchange. The advert planned for featuring the primary highlights and elements of gold so as to build its interest. End From the above conversation we can reason that showcasing is significant in business. Showcasing can be upgraded through appropriate research on the items or administrations to be sold. Before an individual chooses a given method of ad it is imperative to examine the adequacy of the different techniques for notice. References Paul, R. (1947). California gold: the start of mining in the far west. Cambridge: Havard University Press. Pendergrast, M. (2010). Extraordinary grounds: the historical backdrop of espresso and how it changed our reality. New York: Basic Books.Advertising Searching for report on business financial aspects? We should check whether we can support you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Find out More Schreckmann, D. (2004). The café reason for change. Java Ranch Journal, vol.3 (I) , 34-36. This report on Trade of Coffee and Gold was composed and put together by client Camila Camacho to help you with your own investigations. You are allowed to utilize it for research and reference purposes so as to compose your own paper; in any case, you should refer to it as needs be. You can give your paper here.

CP3 Enhancing Efficiency of Network Operations with Qwilt - Podcast with Dan Sahar

CP3 Enhancing Efficiency of Network Operations with Qwilt - Podcast with Dan Sahar INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are having a very interesting interview with Dan from Qwilt, which is mainly about video and network operators. Hi Dan. Who are you, and what do you do?Dan: Hi Martin, My name is Dan Sahar. I’m the co-founder and VP of Product Marketing for Qwilt. So Qwilt is a startup selling infrastructure products for network operators. We essentially help them make their network adapt better to online video. One thing that pretty much everywhere around the world you can see today is that consumption of television is fastly moving into online video formats. So companies like Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, Hulu are definitely leading the way and the consumption pattern is headed that way. What we’re enabling is, essentially, a better experience, making that video experience better. We’re helping network operators optimize their networks in order to allow their consumers, their subscribers, watch as much videos as then can at the highest quality. That’s what we do .Martin: Cool stuff, Dan. So, what is your background and how did you come up with those kinds of ideas? I guess maybe you have some kind of background with network operating, or video, or something like that.Dan: Yes. Both myself and Alon, our CEO and Co-founder, we are enginners in background. So we went to university about the same time and one of the first companies we started to work with, we ended up working in the same company. This was known back then as Deep Bridge, later on it became, it was actually a company that was known as Siemens. Later on it became Nokia Siemens.So, we were in companies that were in network infrastructure for pretty much most of our career. So, our roads parted on afterwards I wnet to work for a start-up company that was later acquired by Juniper. Juniper is one of the largest equipment manufacturers for network operators and Alon went to work for a different company, also a start-up company called P-Cube that also got acquired by a giant in the net working space called Cisco, that most people know of, and he spent most of his career in the networking space as well.So we have both development backgrounds, creating products that are tailored to that segment, and also somewhat sales experience into that market as well. I think I started my career as an engineer and went up the ranks in engineering. But, I think, after several years I moved on to doing more product and product marketing activities and that’s where I am right now, but at core I’m an engineer.Martin: And Dan, when did you decide to start Qwilt, and what was it like in the first one or two months or so? Did you leave your job before and then start a company?Dan: So Alon and I, we were squash partners for many years. And what we were doing, we used to play like once a week, and after every game we talked about the industry, what we want to do as individuals. I think at some point we realized that the place that we were at, at the time, is hired employees- we could do more than that and we realize that we want to break out on our own.We started looking at a few directions of products, markets that we can address. I think we had three solid ideas. I think that we ended up selecting this one because we felt that we had a very good insight into the customer segment and into the problem area. And at some point we dove into the water and just, like, decided to cut our ties with our previous employers and just go at it on our own. And I think that’s the basic advice to young entreprenuers. Like ultimately, there’s like a million ideas that are out there. But, the first thing that really dictates whether you do it or not is if you have the balls to, basically, break loose and just go at it on your own. That’s like, the first, I would say, cut off point between if you’re a real entrepreneur or just, like, a dreamer.Martin: Yes. And when you started, how much money did you invest in the MVP? How long did it take you and how did you test this a ssumptions with potentially one of your contacts, or so?Dan: So, the product that we’re selling is the system, it’s the infrastructure product. Typically these types of products are a lot more resource intensive then a web application and they require many more man years, a lot more investment, and a lot more time. So the MVP, the mechanisms are very similar to a web app, however the time that it takes you to get there is longer and the process that you undergo is a little bit different. It doesn’t matter if it’s for network operators, for enterprise customers, I think you have to do a lot of customer discovery in parallel. Building the MVP will take time.So we had to make be like a certain functionality in the product that we had very quickly, probably in less than a month. But it wasn’t the real product. We could test some assumptions but, definitely, it didn’t produce the value that the product creates. So building the real MVP took over a year and a half, I think. So , I think products that are tailored for enterprise you typically build them, fund them in a slightly different way than you do for your application. So you typically have to raise larger funds initially. The investors have to kind of like take more of a gamble, basically, on inputs that you get from potential customers and partners. So that’s what we did a lot in the early days. We went out and touched the market as much as we can. We talked to probably over a hundred network operators around the world and got feedback from various people inside those organizations as to, like Is this a problem that they think is relevant? If it is, what are guidelines that they would have for a product that addresses this problem?Different people have different thougths. You have to do a lot of listening, I think, at this stage. And, basically, have very fine tuned ears for every piece of data that you gather and try to compose all those data pieces and compile them together. You could be wrong, but hopefully you’re able to really distil the main points and build that viable product. And we think that we did. We think that we managed to really find what the main pain points are, and solve them with a product.I thnk that one thing we were fortunate in doing is we built an extremely solid MVP. It was an infrastructure product, one of the most robust products I’ve ever seen on their first release, which was very fortunate for us because ultimately the inftrastucture that we’re dealing with is very mission critical. Think of ICT Deutsche Telecom, if suddenly your customers do not have internet, it’s very bad and you would call them up and freak out, maybe, that you can’t access the internet. It’s that sensitive. We designed a product that has to be up all the time and cannot fail and out engineering team did a great job of building that product.Martin: Great. Dan. How did you find and approach those 100-200 network operators?Dan: So, I think one of the things that you have to have is some, I think that one of the VCs calls it, unfair advantage. When you’re going after a certain market, you have to know something that other people do not, or will have a hard time finding out. So one of the things that we had going for us, we had a fairly good network of customers that we knew from our past. And that’s how we started. So, you open up your address book and you reach out to everybody that’s out there and you talk to everybody that you can. And you’re friendly. If you approach this with a good vibe, we found out that people are very eager to help you. So even if they’re not the right ones to help you out, they’ll say: Hey you know what? I know this guy and this other operator. I hear he’s looking for things like you’re describing. You should go talk to him. And I think there is, espeicially in Silicon Valley, there’s a lot of that pay-it-forward mentality which is very, I think, welcoming for entreprenuers.So we had a network, bu t within twelve months our network of connections grew substantially. And, to this day, it’s something that always expands. You start off with maybe, like, one or two data points and then all of a sudden within a few years you have a ton of data points and a ton of sensors spread throughout the world and the picture becomes clearer as time goes by.BUSINESS MODEL OF QWILTMartin: Let’s talk about the business model, Dan. So, when I look at Qwilt, what I see are three major things. So one thing is you’re helping network operators decrease their network costs. Second, you help them understand the video consumption. And lastly, you help them, potentially to earn them some money with video streaming by offering extra services. Is there anything with what you started, for example, maybe of those value propositions you said: Okay, this is my entry model, so to speak?Dan: So, in our case, we didn’t really pivot. We had, I can show you probably presentations from five years ago, they look like, maybe they’re less refined then what they have today, but the idea is very similar to what they’re doing and those three things that you said are very aligned with what we had back then. So that was the order of things.So ultimately, I think what we are providing is a better way of doing something that you already do if you’re a network operator. So ultimately, your consumers will want to watch video and it’s a matter of how well or how efficiently you’re able to provide that service to them. And I can give you examples in other industries. You take the storage industry, so there’s been a way of doing storage for probably over a decade of using hard drives for that purpose. And then all of a sudden a new technology came called Flash, and is it that much different? No, it’s a more efficient way of doing things that you are doing for many years and I think we found a way that is specific for video that makes the network a lot more efficient and ultimately brin gs the price of bringing that content down substantially. And, lastly, it improves the quality of experience to the consumers which is, some people find it hard to believe, but that is exactly what the network operators really want to do. They want to help you, the consumer, have the best experience that you can and it doesn’t matter where you are going to watch it. If it’s going to be over your regular television or on an iPhone or a tablet, they wanted you to have the best experience you can. We help them in doing that. That has not changed from day one.Martin: So, normally when you are an entrepreneur, you are trying to identify a business opportunity and then exploit it. This is what you’ve done perfectly. What is your opinion on why network operators before were not trying to solve this issue themselves?Dan: So, I think that during the time that the company has been running a lot of things have been changing in real time. So one of the things was video back in 2009 and 20 10 was still in its infancy. It still is, by the way. What I mean by video is I mean online video. So, at the time you take the largest, long form video provider in the world today, which is Netflix. They, I think at the time had less than 10 million subscribers that were consuming their content online. And they were only in the U.S. at the time. And today Netflix, as one example, they operate on five continents. But the consumption was different. Completely different than it is today. People were still doing a lot of peer to peer downloads. So there was really no incentive for the operator to change their way because there was no demand. Now there is a lot of demand. So, that’s on the consumer side, what has changed.The second thing is that sometimest there is technology innovation that simply wasn’t possible a few years ago and then all of a sudden it is possible. So, I gave the example of Flash and storage. In our case, one of the main differences was that software became hug e. As market research says software is eating the world, it’s eating the world in networking as well. If you would go back ten years ago, there was only one way of doing things to build your own hardware and to have very fast A6 that were passing packets from side to side. But all of a sudden, you have commodities servers from HP or Dell or IBM and they use Intell chips and they’re very fast. And they achieve results that are almost as good as you can do with custom hardware, as long as you know how to build really smart software. Fortunately we have experts in software that can extract that capability from the commodities servers and basically find a new way of doing something that’s been done for many years.So it’s, I would say, the combination of these two things. Both consumption changes on the consumer side, and technological advancement that enabled us to build a product that does things in a different way than the status quo.Martin: Dan, when I’m looking at the reve nue model. Can you tell us about how it is working? So is it just a SaaS model, or is it more that you’re trying to do some kind of cost reduction share? Or is it the network reduction? How does it work?Dan: So we have two generic type of business models that we sell.One is based on the capacity that we’re creating. So it’s kind of like a gigabyte capacity model. So, the more that we deliver, the more that we earn.And then we also have a SaaS model, that’s the recurring revenue.That really depends on the preference of the network operator, which model to go with, I would say the traditional model that network operators are used to procuring this type of infrastructure is the gigabyte per second model but more and more, you know, as cloud is slowly penetrating network operators as well we’re seeing a transititon to the SaaS model.Martin: Isn’t there an incentive problem with having a revenue model of gigabyte per second? Because, if I understand your job correctly, you wa nted to minimize the gigabyte per second for the video streaming, but on the other hand you are paid four gigabytes per second. On the one hand side you want decrease it, but on the other hand you would like, from a revenue perspective, to increase it.Dan: So, basically the trade off that we’re creating in our product is that any byte that you’re delivering from our open caching solution is, because it’s in software, is going to be cheaper than having that same byte of data being transferred over the traditional routing infrastructure. So that is the incentive. So, the more that we serve, the more lucrative it is for the network operator. And because video is growing, exponentially, and it’s showing no signs of stopping or slowing down. It’s growing, in some countries, like 100 percent year over year, we are able to serve more and more content and basically improve the efficiencies that we’re getting inside a network.Martin: Cool. When I’m looking at the sales cycle of the network operators, can you elaborate on how does it work, how long does it take, who are the budget owners, and what types of people are you approaching to make a deal?Dan: So, this is, I would say, those of you that are familiar with enterprise sales, it’s very similar to enterprise sales cycles. It’s longer with the consumer, they can take over 12 months in some cases. And you have to interact with a lot of people in the network operator organization.Budget owners are typically the guys that are running the network operations team. But a lot of times you have to have influencers on board to safe decisions. So, people like the CTO organizations, people that are in charge of the content side, in some cases, network architecture. It really depends on the operator, but the sales cycle and processes, you have to really understand the organization that you’re selling to and craft your approach accordigly. It’s very similar to how companies that sell to enterprise craft thei r approach.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM DAN SAHARMartin: Cool. I guess you have learned so much over the last years, Dan. Can you share some of your major learnings and insights and tips and advice for first time entreprenuers?Dan: Okay. I think when you start off, one of the things that you have to bear in the back of your mind is that everything that you build, like there is that saying that the company’s DNA is formed in the first 90 days, and people, a lot of times, think that it’s about the cutture of the company, which is true in many cases, but it’s also about, you have to buld the foundations for the company at that time. It’s like building a building. If you have bad foundation, the building is not going to sustain for very long and foundation means that you try to opt for one of the best employees that you can get and try, as hard as you can, not to make any compromises. That’s a very common lesson. I think that it also means that you have to find the best inveto rs who ultimately become your partners on this journey. And if you have great investors I think it pays dividens throughout the lifetime of the company. It helps you in giving you the great strategic advice in every stage that you’re at.There were points I think then we felt really good about ourselves, we met milestones and everything was going great, and then, you know our investors say: Yes, that’s cool, but you should already be thinking two years out and plan on doing this initiative. And we say: Oh, we really didn’t think of this. They always challenged us.That is one thing that I think Qwilt as a company, we were extremely fortunate to have some of the best minds, I think, on the VC side still on our board and really helping us out on a daily basis. And I said, it starts with strategic advice, but it also, it helps you with recruiting the right people, it helps with giving the advice, making the right introductions to partners that you may need as time goes by. And I th ink the fundamentals to build the right foundation are crucial, because everything is going to be related to that as time goes on. It’s easier said than done. Obviously, everybody wants to have the best VCs but it’s not that easy to get them.Martin: It’s true. Dan, how did you attract the first employees?Dan: So definitely like the first, I would say, five to ten employees we knew from past lives. And I think that also helps when you build a certain company, that you see this often, that there’s this group of people that go together from company to company, and we had that core group. Then we built upon that core group with secondary circles of people, but most of them were from refferals of employees or people that we knew in secondary circles of ours, I think, probably over 80 percent of our first employees were people that we knew or one of our employees.Martin: And can you still remember what have been the major three of four properties, or or skills, or attitudes whatso ever of the person, where you said: Okay, this is the right skill set which we want to have for our company. And this is what we don’t want.?Dan: Well, probably the first people that we hired were engineers. And I think that’s fairly common. We were looking for people that were top 10 percent in terms of their skill set in software engineer. I think, also, we wanted people that were able to, we felt, that could really work within a start up environment, with all that with tiny office, there’s going to be a little mess on the IT side, maybe, in the beginning, there’s a lot of uncertainty. That is, like, one thing that many people don’t realize, but I think engineers, at some point, realize that you can be like a 10x engineer and come into a product that is already, there is foundation. You come into Facebook or Google, there is foundation that other people already put in place. Even if you’re great, there’s only so much that you can do and you’re confined within thos e foundations that were already put in place in the past. So it makes your problem solving a lot easier. There’s less moving parts.And when you’re a first engineer in a company, there’s no foundation. You have to, take for example, a logging system. Which log are you going to use when you write your code? When you come into a mature company, you know what that is. When you are first you have to make that decision on your own and there’s a million other decision that you also have to make. I think it’s super exciting for an engineer because you actually influence way more things, but at the same time it’s much more challenging than you would in an established company. Not every engineer is suited for that path of basically coming into an area where there’s nothing defined and you have to define everything from scratch.Martin: Yes, but I guess this applies to every type of function, like marketing, sales?Dan: Of course, yes.Martin: Great. Dan, thank you so much for shari ng your insights for Qwilt, and I wish you all the best and success for your company.Dan: Thank you. Great talking to you, Martin.Martin: Thanks.THANKS FOR LISTENING! Welcome to the third episode of our podcast!You can download the podcast to your computer or listen to it here on the blog. Click here to subscribe in iTunes. INTRODUCTIONMartin: Hi, today we are having a very interesting interview with Dan from Qwilt, which is mainly about video and network operators. Hi Dan. Who are you, and what do you do?Dan: Hi Martin, My name is Dan Sahar. I’m the co-founder and VP of Product Marketing for Qwilt. So Qwilt is a startup selling infrastructure products for network operators. We essentially help them make their network adapt better to online video. One thing that pretty much everywhere around the world you can see today is that consumption of television is fastly moving into online video formats. So companies like Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, Hulu are definitely leading the way and the consumption pattern is headed that way. What we’re enabling is, essentially, a better experience, making that video experience better. We’re helping network operators optimize their networks in order to allow their consumers, their subscribers, watch as much videos as then can at the highest quality. That’s what we do .Martin: Cool stuff, Dan. So, what is your background and how did you come up with those kinds of ideas? I guess maybe you have some kind of background with network operating, or video, or something like that.Dan: Yes. Both myself and Alon, our CEO and Co-founder, we are enginners in background. So we went to university about the same time and one of the first companies we started to work with, we ended up working in the same company. This was known back then as Deep Bridge, later on it became, it was actually a company that was known as Siemens. Later on it became Nokia Siemens.So, we were in companies that were in network infrastructure for pretty much most of our career. So, our roads parted on afterwards I wnet to work for a start-up company that was later acquired by Juniper. Juniper is one of the largest equipment manufacturers for network operators and Alon went to work for a different company, also a start-up company called P-Cube that also got acquired by a giant in the net working space called Cisco, that most people know of, and he spent most of his career in the networking space as well.So we have both development backgrounds, creating products that are tailored to that segment, and also somewhat sales experience into that market as well. I think I started my career as an engineer and went up the ranks in engineering. But, I think, after several years I moved on to doing more product and product marketing activities and that’s where I am right now, but at core I’m an engineer.Martin: And Dan, when did you decide to start Qwilt, and what was it like in the first one or two months or so? Did you leave your job before and then start a company?Dan: So Alon and I, we were squash partners for many years. And what we were doing, we used to play like once a week, and after every game we talked about the industry, what we want to do as individuals. I think at some point we realized that the place that we were at, at the time, is hired employees- we could do more than that and we realize that we want to break out on our own.We started looking at a few directions of products, markets that we can address. I think we had three solid ideas. I think that we ended up selecting this one because we felt that we had a very good insight into the customer segment and into the problem area. And at some point we dove into the water and just, like, decided to cut our ties with our previous employers and just go at it on our own. And I think that’s the basic advice to young entreprenuers. Like ultimately, there’s like a million ideas that are out there. But, the first thing that really dictates whether you do it or not is if you have the balls to, basically, break loose and just go at it on your own. That’s like, the first, I would say, cut off point between if you’re a real entrepreneur or just, like, a dreamer.Martin: Yes. And when you started, how much money did you invest in the MVP? How long did it take you and how did you test this a ssumptions with potentially one of your contacts, or so?Dan: So, the product that we’re selling is the system, it’s the infrastructure product. Typically these types of products are a lot more resource intensive then a web application and they require many more man years, a lot more investment, and a lot more time. So the MVP, the mechanisms are very similar to a web app, however the time that it takes you to get there is longer and the process that you undergo is a little bit different. It doesn’t matter if it’s for network operators, for enterprise customers, I think you have to do a lot of customer discovery in parallel. Building the MVP will take time.So we had to make be like a certain functionality in the product that we had very quickly, probably in less than a month. But it wasn’t the real product. We could test some assumptions but, definitely, it didn’t produce the value that the product creates. So building the real MVP took over a year and a half, I think. So , I think products that are tailored for enterprise you typically build them, fund them in a slightly different way than you do for your application. So you typically have to raise larger funds initially. The investors have to kind of like take more of a gamble, basically, on inputs that you get from potential customers and partners. So that’s what we did a lot in the early days. We went out and touched the market as much as we can. We talked to probably over a hundred network operators around the world and got feedback from various people inside those organizations as to, like Is this a problem that they think is relevant? If it is, what are guidelines that they would have for a product that addresses this problem?Different people have different thougths. You have to do a lot of listening, I think, at this stage. And, basically, have very fine tuned ears for every piece of data that you gather and try to compose all those data pieces and compile them together. You could be wrong, but hopefully you’re able to really distil the main points and build that viable product. And we think that we did. We think that we managed to really find what the main pain points are, and solve them with a product.I thnk that one thing we were fortunate in doing is we built an extremely solid MVP. It was an infrastructure product, one of the most robust products I’ve ever seen on their first release, which was very fortunate for us because ultimately the inftrastucture that we’re dealing with is very mission critical. Think of ICT Deutsche Telecom, if suddenly your customers do not have internet, it’s very bad and you would call them up and freak out, maybe, that you can’t access the internet. It’s that sensitive. We designed a product that has to be up all the time and cannot fail and out engineering team did a great job of building that product.Martin: Great. Dan. How did you find and approach those 100-200 network operators?Dan: So, I think one of the things that you have to have is some, I think that one of the VCs calls it, unfair advantage. When you’re going after a certain market, you have to know something that other people do not, or will have a hard time finding out. So one of the things that we had going for us, we had a fairly good network of customers that we knew from our past. And that’s how we started. So, you open up your address book and you reach out to everybody that’s out there and you talk to everybody that you can. And you’re friendly. If you approach this with a good vibe, we found out that people are very eager to help you. So even if they’re not the right ones to help you out, they’ll say: Hey you know what? I know this guy and this other operator. I hear he’s looking for things like you’re describing. You should go talk to him. And I think there is, espeicially in Silicon Valley, there’s a lot of that pay-it-forward mentality which is very, I think, welcoming for entreprenuers.So we had a network, bu t within twelve months our network of connections grew substantially. And, to this day, it’s something that always expands. You start off with maybe, like, one or two data points and then all of a sudden within a few years you have a ton of data points and a ton of sensors spread throughout the world and the picture becomes clearer as time goes by.BUSINESS MODEL OF QWILTMartin: Let’s talk about the business model, Dan. So, when I look at Qwilt, what I see are three major things. So one thing is you’re helping network operators decrease their network costs. Second, you help them understand the video consumption. And lastly, you help them, potentially to earn them some money with video streaming by offering extra services. Is there anything with what you started, for example, maybe of those value propositions you said: Okay, this is my entry model, so to speak?Dan: So, in our case, we didn’t really pivot. We had, I can show you probably presentations from five years ago, they look like, maybe they’re less refined then what they have today, but the idea is very similar to what they’re doing and those three things that you said are very aligned with what we had back then. So that was the order of things.So ultimately, I think what we are providing is a better way of doing something that you already do if you’re a network operator. So ultimately, your consumers will want to watch video and it’s a matter of how well or how efficiently you’re able to provide that service to them. And I can give you examples in other industries. You take the storage industry, so there’s been a way of doing storage for probably over a decade of using hard drives for that purpose. And then all of a sudden a new technology came called Flash, and is it that much different? No, it’s a more efficient way of doing things that you are doing for many years and I think we found a way that is specific for video that makes the network a lot more efficient and ultimately brin gs the price of bringing that content down substantially. And, lastly, it improves the quality of experience to the consumers which is, some people find it hard to believe, but that is exactly what the network operators really want to do. They want to help you, the consumer, have the best experience that you can and it doesn’t matter where you are going to watch it. If it’s going to be over your regular television or on an iPhone or a tablet, they wanted you to have the best experience you can. We help them in doing that. That has not changed from day one.Martin: So, normally when you are an entrepreneur, you are trying to identify a business opportunity and then exploit it. This is what you’ve done perfectly. What is your opinion on why network operators before were not trying to solve this issue themselves?Dan: So, I think that during the time that the company has been running a lot of things have been changing in real time. So one of the things was video back in 2009 and 20 10 was still in its infancy. It still is, by the way. What I mean by video is I mean online video. So, at the time you take the largest, long form video provider in the world today, which is Netflix. They, I think at the time had less than 10 million subscribers that were consuming their content online. And they were only in the U.S. at the time. And today Netflix, as one example, they operate on five continents. But the consumption was different. Completely different than it is today. People were still doing a lot of peer to peer downloads. So there was really no incentive for the operator to change their way because there was no demand. Now there is a lot of demand. So, that’s on the consumer side, what has changed.The second thing is that sometimest there is technology innovation that simply wasn’t possible a few years ago and then all of a sudden it is possible. So, I gave the example of Flash and storage. In our case, one of the main differences was that software became hug e. As market research says software is eating the world, it’s eating the world in networking as well. If you would go back ten years ago, there was only one way of doing things to build your own hardware and to have very fast A6 that were passing packets from side to side. But all of a sudden, you have commodities servers from HP or Dell or IBM and they use Intell chips and they’re very fast. And they achieve results that are almost as good as you can do with custom hardware, as long as you know how to build really smart software. Fortunately we have experts in software that can extract that capability from the commodities servers and basically find a new way of doing something that’s been done for many years.So it’s, I would say, the combination of these two things. Both consumption changes on the consumer side, and technological advancement that enabled us to build a product that does things in a different way than the status quo.Martin: Dan, when I’m looking at the reve nue model. Can you tell us about how it is working? So is it just a SaaS model, or is it more that you’re trying to do some kind of cost reduction share? Or is it the network reduction? How does it work?Dan: So we have two generic type of business models that we sell.One is based on the capacity that we’re creating. So it’s kind of like a gigabyte capacity model. So, the more that we deliver, the more that we earn.And then we also have a SaaS model, that’s the recurring revenue.That really depends on the preference of the network operator, which model to go with, I would say the traditional model that network operators are used to procuring this type of infrastructure is the gigabyte per second model but more and more, you know, as cloud is slowly penetrating network operators as well we’re seeing a transititon to the SaaS model.Martin: Isn’t there an incentive problem with having a revenue model of gigabyte per second? Because, if I understand your job correctly, you wa nted to minimize the gigabyte per second for the video streaming, but on the other hand you are paid four gigabytes per second. On the one hand side you want decrease it, but on the other hand you would like, from a revenue perspective, to increase it.Dan: So, basically the trade off that we’re creating in our product is that any byte that you’re delivering from our open caching solution is, because it’s in software, is going to be cheaper than having that same byte of data being transferred over the traditional routing infrastructure. So that is the incentive. So, the more that we serve, the more lucrative it is for the network operator. And because video is growing, exponentially, and it’s showing no signs of stopping or slowing down. It’s growing, in some countries, like 100 percent year over year, we are able to serve more and more content and basically improve the efficiencies that we’re getting inside a network.Martin: Cool. When I’m looking at the sales cycle of the network operators, can you elaborate on how does it work, how long does it take, who are the budget owners, and what types of people are you approaching to make a deal?Dan: So, this is, I would say, those of you that are familiar with enterprise sales, it’s very similar to enterprise sales cycles. It’s longer with the consumer, they can take over 12 months in some cases. And you have to interact with a lot of people in the network operator organization.Budget owners are typically the guys that are running the network operations team. But a lot of times you have to have influencers on board to safe decisions. So, people like the CTO organizations, people that are in charge of the content side, in some cases, network architecture. It really depends on the operator, but the sales cycle and processes, you have to really understand the organization that you’re selling to and craft your approach accordigly. It’s very similar to how companies that sell to enterprise craft thei r approach.ADVICE TO ENTREPRENEURS FROM DAN SAHARMartin: Cool. I guess you have learned so much over the last years, Dan. Can you share some of your major learnings and insights and tips and advice for first time entreprenuers?Dan: Okay. I think when you start off, one of the things that you have to bear in the back of your mind is that everything that you build, like there is that saying that the company’s DNA is formed in the first 90 days, and people, a lot of times, think that it’s about the cutture of the company, which is true in many cases, but it’s also about, you have to buld the foundations for the company at that time. It’s like building a building. If you have bad foundation, the building is not going to sustain for very long and foundation means that you try to opt for one of the best employees that you can get and try, as hard as you can, not to make any compromises. That’s a very common lesson. I think that it also means that you have to find the best inveto rs who ultimately become your partners on this journey. And if you have great investors I think it pays dividens throughout the lifetime of the company. It helps you in giving you the great strategic advice in every stage that you’re at.There were points I think then we felt really good about ourselves, we met milestones and everything was going great, and then, you know our investors say: Yes, that’s cool, but you should already be thinking two years out and plan on doing this initiative. And we say: Oh, we really didn’t think of this. They always challenged us.That is one thing that I think Qwilt as a company, we were extremely fortunate to have some of the best minds, I think, on the VC side still on our board and really helping us out on a daily basis. And I said, it starts with strategic advice, but it also, it helps you with recruiting the right people, it helps with giving the advice, making the right introductions to partners that you may need as time goes by. And I th ink the fundamentals to build the right foundation are crucial, because everything is going to be related to that as time goes on. It’s easier said than done. Obviously, everybody wants to have the best VCs but it’s not that easy to get them.Martin: It’s true. Dan, how did you attract the first employees?Dan: So definitely like the first, I would say, five to ten employees we knew from past lives. And I think that also helps when you build a certain company, that you see this often, that there’s this group of people that go together from company to company, and we had that core group. Then we built upon that core group with secondary circles of people, but most of them were from refferals of employees or people that we knew in secondary circles of ours, I think, probably over 80 percent of our first employees were people that we knew or one of our employees.Martin: And can you still remember what have been the major three of four properties, or or skills, or attitudes whatso ever of the person, where you said: Okay, this is the right skill set which we want to have for our company. And this is what we don’t want.?Dan: Well, probably the first people that we hired were engineers. And I think that’s fairly common. We were looking for people that were top 10 percent in terms of their skill set in software engineer. I think, also, we wanted people that were able to, we felt, that could really work within a start up environment, with all that with tiny office, there’s going to be a little mess on the IT side, maybe, in the beginning, there’s a lot of uncertainty. That is, like, one thing that many people don’t realize, but I think engineers, at some point, realize that you can be like a 10x engineer and come into a product that is already, there is foundation. You come into Facebook or Google, there is foundation that other people already put in place. Even if you’re great, there’s only so much that you can do and you’re confined within thos e foundations that were already put in place in the past. So it makes your problem solving a lot easier. There’s less moving parts.And when you’re a first engineer in a company, there’s no foundation. You have to, take for example, a logging system. Which log are you going to use when you write your code? When you come into a mature company, you know what that is. When you are first you have to make that decision on your own and there’s a million other decision that you also have to make. I think it’s super exciting for an engineer because you actually influence way more things, but at the same time it’s much more challenging than you would in an established company. Not every engineer is suited for that path of basically coming into an area where there’s nothing defined and you have to define everything from scratch.Martin: Yes, but I guess this applies to every type of function, like marketing, sales?Dan: Of course, yes.Martin: Great. Dan, thank you so much for shari ng your insights for Qwilt, and I wish you all the best and success for your company.Dan: Thank you. Great talking to you, Martin.Martin: Thanks.THANKS FOR LISTENING!Thanks so much for joining our third podcast episode!Have some feedback you’d like to share?  Leave  a note in the comment section below! If you enjoyed this episode, please  share  it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post.Also,  please leave an honest review for The Cleverism Podcast on iTunes or on SoundCloud. Ratings and reviews  are  extremely  helpful  and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.Special thanks  to Dan for joining me this week. Until  next time!

Education, Gender Roles And Humanism - 1379 Words

Education, Gender Roles and Humanism in the Renaissance. Throughout the fourteenth and into the fifteenth century there were a number of tragic events that directly caused a revitalization of society. This revitalization was needed to restore hope to the people that were living each day for survival. Some of these events were the destabilization of the Catholic Church with the relocation of the papacy from Rome to Avignon. This would soon be followed by the Black Death and its mammoth death toll that lead to the reduction of work forces and uprisings of peasants’. At the same time England and France were fighting a series of wars that were later be deem The Hundred Years’ War and this battle would add to a western mindset that was being cultivated to expect death, destruction, violence, sickness and poverty. In the midst of this depressing and violent society, Italy and more specifically Florence, saw a need for change and to work towards the elevation of society, the creation of a new society, and a new mindset to bring about a more civil and cultured society. This lead to a new philosophy called Humanism and this Humanistic evolution of the educational system involved a total reconstruction of the university curriculum, as well as the resetting ideals of gender roles. In the beginning of this new society there was a great admiration for classic Roman culture and this was the model being used with a great focus on the arts, philosophy, religion, and honor. TheShow MoreRelatedEducation And Gender Roles Are Direct Causes For The Renaissance1393 Words   |  6 PagesEducation and Gender Roles are Direct Causes for the Renaissance. Throughout the Fourteenth and into the Fifteenth Century, there were a number of tragic events that directly caused the need for a revitalization of society. This revitalization was needed to restore hope to the people that were living each day for survival. Some of these events were the destabilization of the Catholic Church with the relocation of the papacy from Rome to Avignon. This would soon be followed by the Black DeathRead MoreA Doll s House By Henrik Ibsen1666 Words   |  7 Pageslives under societal and expectations of others, I then realized that Nora’s decision at the end really meant fighting for feminism and humanity. More specifically, although the play has many feministic ideas, it is actually a play that fight for humanism. Both men and women should have equal rights and the chance to form their own opinions and make their own decisions. The interactive oral was a powerful and transformative experience that helped me to have a better understanding of the culture valueRead MoreThe Italian Renaissance And The Renaissance1424 Words   |  6 PagesThe Italian Renaissance was an explosion of art, writing, and thought, that roughly lasted between 1300 to 1600. In this time each citizen, countrymen, or villager had and performed different jobs and careers. Humanism the study of Greek and Roman writings, art, and architecture, initially jump started the Renaissance, and the need for art. Artists now were inspired to use life like art and linear perspective, so art seemed and was more realistic. The start of the Italian Renaissance was theRead MoreUrban Society in the Ancient World1283 Words   |  6 Pagesorganization, religion, and educations (Mackay et al. 2012). Through ancient systems of writing to the latest invention, people keep evolving and shaping their knowledge to a better and successful life. Furthermore, p eople realized that through history, they could learn or discover new things, or how to prevent the same mistakes. In this essay, I will argue that Western Civilization has influenced people’s perspectives about various aspects (e.g. government structures, gender roles, religions, economicsRead MoreWhat I Believe About Philosophy, Ethics, Adult Education, And The Curriculum1412 Words   |  6 Pagesthat drive their profession. As Merriam and Brockett said, â€Å"The practice of adult education does no happen in a vacuum. It occurs in a context that manifests certain beliefs and that values certain behaviors over others. Understanding what those beliefs and values are can only lead to more informed and reflective practice.† (2007) This essay will outline what I believe about philosophy, ethics, adult education, the learner, the instructor, and the curriculum. This will ultimately help guide meRead MoreWomen in the Scientific Revolution Era Essay1452 Words   |   6 Pageslearning humanism arose for only those in the higher class families. Even though they started to educate themselves, the majority had no rights whatsoever in money matters as well as estate. From the 17th century and up to the scientific revolution, women’s rights had consistently been improving. However, during the revolution, the study of the human body brought to attention that the male brain is quite larger than that of a female. This revelation set back the female race back to a limited role, butRead MoreWhy Education Is Important For Life After School868 Words   |  4 PagesI believe the purpose of education is to help teach students how to learn, how to prepare students for life after school, to provide students with a wide range of subjects, and most importantly, to give students the necessary tools and the help they need based on each student’s unique learning style. Teachers should teach in a way that will welcome all students to participate, knowing all students want to learn and all students are good. A good teacher is one who will accept all students and willRead MorePros And Cons Of Adult Learning1859 Words   |  8 PagesUsually when we learn something new we tend to distinctly look at it from two different aspects: analysing its logic and variables, and this is exactly the role behind a theory where a set of concepts and definitions explains or predict a situation by specifying logic and variables (Edwards, 2005). Edwards argue that when we deeply engage with a theory we are now theorizing as a practise, where we involve abstractions, contemplation, critical engagement, and imagination to make sense of the theoryRead MorePsychology Perspectives: Columbine Massacre1537 Words   |  7 Pageshuman mind works. These perspectives are respectfully derived from different ideas and time periods, exemplifying different ways of thinking. These perspectives include: sociocultural, biopsychological, psychodynamic, behaviorism, cogn itive, and humanism. These approaches are critically essential in solving something as serious as murder, or simply even why someone acts the way they do. There are many instances where there will be shocking news stories about people committing murders—people thatRead MoreRethinking Marx’s Concept of Class: Does the emergence of the so-called identity politics indicating the â€Å"fall† of class politics?1716 Words   |  7 Pagescould ‘destruct’ their proletariat/working class collective consciousness in the effort of striving against capitalism (Ritzer, Modern Sociological Theory : 218). As Marx noted that class is social and political entity that plays major or central role in determining the social changes. The history of class struggles for time to time had given Marx empirical data about the significance of class in enforcing the antagonism and contradiction between the dominant class and the subordinated class that

The Themes Of The Joads Journey In The Grapes Of Wrath

The novel The Grapes of Wrath written by John Steinbeck uses analogies throughout the story to reinforce the themes of hardship, struggle, and danger of people heading west in search of a better life during the Depression of the 1930’s. Steinbeck devotes the time and pages early in the story to develop one analogy. The difficult journey of a turtle trying to make its way across the road foreshadows the tribulations of the Joad family’s venture to California. The innocent turtle crossing the highway serves to emphasize the Joads journey to California, full of hardship and struggle. The Joad’s family is looking for work and a new life in California much like the turtle wanting to continue his journey on the other side of the road, but†¦show more content†¦During the Joads journey, the family is faced with many hostile people. The turtle as he crosses the road is faced with lethal obstacles. These hostile people and lethal obstacles could threaten bot h their trips. The turtle finally reaches the pavement after his tough climb up the embankment and a â€Å"sedan†¦swung to the right, off the highway [then] skidded back onto the road†(11). The turtle avoided a near miss analogous to when the Joads entered into Arizona when a body guard had stopped to interrogate them and possibly turn them away. If the guard found unauthorized plants the Joads would have been forbidden to pass, but like the turtle they were able to continue. The second vehicle the turtle came to face, intentionally hit the turtle. The truck driver’s actions were deliberate and malicious, sending the turtle into a tailspin. When the Joads arrived in California they were faced with disgust and prejudice in the eyes of the authorities. They discovered that the sheriffs would â€Å"move [them] on† because â€Å"they hate [Okies]† (139). The sheriffs knew that if the Okies did not have a place to live they will not be able to find a st eady job and eventually will run out of money. Ma Joad promotes her faith and optimism in their future when she explains â€Å"having stepped forward, he may step back, but only half a step, never the full step back† (101). She shared that even if they come in contact with obstacles they are only takingShow MoreRelatedBiblical Allusions to The Grapes of Wrath Essay example1457 Words   |  6 PagesBiblical Allusions to The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, on February 27, 1902. He studied marine biology at Stanford University and then traveled east on a freighter through the Panama Canal. Steinbeck went to New York to work as a newspaper reporter but soon returned to California and held a variety of jobs while he wrote. Steinbeck published Tortilla Flat in 1935, Of Mice and Men in 1937, and The Red Pony in 1937, which established his reputation as a forcefulRead MoreThemes in the Grapes of Wrath2270 Words   |  10 PagesThemes in The Grapes of Wrath The Joads are on their way to California. The land which seems to be a heaven with great work, little white houses, and many acres of land. But the Joads soon find out that California may not be the paradise they dreamed of. Their journey to California will be full of hope and despair along with keeping their dignity in the midst of all the wrath. One of the biggest problems they will face is how poorly they will be treated. The one thing that made the Joads successfulRead MoreThe Use of Symbolism in The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck1052 Words   |  5 PagesThe Use of Symbolism in The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath is a novel by John Steinbeck that in my opinion illustrates the terrible conditions under which the migratory farm families of America during the 1930s were forced to live under. This novel in a very descriptive and emotional way tells of one familys migration west to California from Oklahoma (the Joad family) through the great economic depression of the 1930s. The story revolves around the family having toRead More The American Dream According to John Steinbeck Essay934 Words   |  4 Pagesreferred to the settlers and the adversities they had faced during the migration to the Salinas Valley area. With novels such as Of Mice And Men and The Grapes Of Wrath, Steinbeck explained the harsh reality of the severe hardships the settlers faced to accomplish the American Dream. These novels share many similarities in regard to their themes. To understand Steinbeck’s work, we must first understand Steinbeck. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in 1902Read MoreEssay on The American Dream According to John Steinbeck968 Words   |  4 Pagesreferred to the settlers and the adversities they had faced during the migration to the Salinas Valley area. With novels such as Of Mice And Men and The Grapes Of Wrath, Steinbeck explained the harsh reality of the severe hardships the settlers faced to accomplish the American Dream. These novels share many similarities in regard to their themes. To understand Steinbecks work, we must first understand Steinbeck. John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in 1902. His father was a treasurerRead MoreJohn Fords Film is Almost The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck603 Words   |  2 PagesOne of the greatest novels of all time, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, is a well-known American classic. Renowned for its portrayal of the struggle of migrant families during the Dust Bowl; the novel not only details the Joad family’s 1500 mile journey from Oklahoma to California but that of all migrant workers. The Joad’s travels reflect the hardships migrant workers had to face while trying to survive in a country that hated and feared them. The novel was published in 1939, and one yearRead MoreThe Grapes Of Wrath By John Steinbeck1604 Words   |  7 Pagesmore stood up in the face of terror and took their place of power. In the case of John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath, these everyday heroes were women. By intermingling themes of nurture and power, portrays a shift toward matriarchal structure in the Great Depression era. Steinbeck first introduces the power structures of the Joad family just before they set off on their journey to California. The squatter’s circle not only introduces the land as a source of power for the men, it also providesRead More Grapes Of Wrath Biblical Allusions Essay889 Words   |  4 Pages John Steinbeck carefully molded his story The Grapes of Wrath to encompass many themes and ideas. He included several Biblical allusions to enforce his message of the migrating families coming together to form a community. Steinbeck alludes to Biblical characters through Jim Casy and Rose of Sharon, events like the family’s journey to California and the flood at the end of the novel, and teachings throughout the novel.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Biblical allusions represented by the characters in the novelRead MoreThe Grapes Of Wrath By Kathi Appelt1434 Words   |  6 PagesThe Grapes of Wrath â€Å"An entire nation, it seemed, was standing in one long breadline, desperate for even the barest essentials. It was a crisis of monumental proportions. It was known as the Great Depression.† (Appelt) As author Kathi Appelt describes, the Great Depression was an enormous economic recession that affected countless people all across the country. One of the most vivid depictions of the Great Depression is found in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Some may argue that whileRead MoreSymbolism Of The Steinbeck s The Grapes Of Wrath 2259 Words   |  10 Pages Symbols In The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family experiences many hardships on the journey to and in California, ranging from dying family members to a lack of sufficient food. In the third chapter of the novel, author John Steinbeck introduces a determined turtle who attempts to make its journey across a highway. The turtle is apparently nearly run over multiple times, and is actually hit by a car. This causes the turtle to be flipped on its shell, until it catches its footing and â€Å"little

Issues in Global Business Free Essays

Module TitleIssues in Global Business and Strategic Concepts Module Code6IM 501 Module Level6 Credit value40 Total Number400 of Learning Hours Key Words Implementation of Global strategy, strategy and the organisation, strategic development, globalisation, international business and the environment, internationalisation. Module Description There has been a fundamental shift in the world’s economy where national economies were once self contained, now cross border business activities and economies are much more inter-dependent on each other. This module brings together elements of the global business environment with an understanding of the strategy making process. We will write a custom essay sample on Issues in Global Business or any similar topic only for you Order Now The ability to take an overview of business problem-solving and decision-making processes is necessary for a successful career in business management and administration. This module provides a broad representation of different, and often conflicting, perspectives and theories that reflect the richness of current debate among academics and practitioners in the field. Initially the module focuses on enabling students to develop skills in the analysis of the strategic environment, development, evaluation and implementation of strategic concepts. These early stages of the module are designed to develop students’ analytical, problem-solving and decision-making skills. The module continues with a study of the global business environment and critical evaluation through the use of case studies to develop the student’s awareness and explore good and bad practices within the business process, content and context Using a consultative approach the module concludes by addressing contemporary global issues and the inter-dependence of national economies balanced with the strategic requirements of the global organisation. Module Learning On successful completion of the module, students will be able to: Outcomes 1. Demonstrate knowledge and a critical approach to the key contemporary theories and concepts recognised in the field of strategic management and globalisation. 2. Apply and critically discuss the appropriateness of relevant theories to complex business situations. 3. Apply consultancy principles and relevant theory to create, develop, plan and implement the Business Case Study Proposal recognising the importance of opportunity realisation and integrating implementation. Module Content * History of the field , evolution and development of strategic management; * Strategic Decision-Making * Formulating and analysing strategy;- The Strategy of International Business * Positioning Analysis – prescriptive and emergent approaches * Levels of Strategy and specifics of the strategy-making practices * Strategy development, evaluation and implementation International expansion and globalisation strategies – Exporting Importing * Collaboration and competition: Knowledge creation through collaboration/network strategies * Developing and implementing customer-driven strategy * Globalization * National Differences in Political Economy * Ethics in International Business – Values, morality, ethical considerations, CSR * International Trade Theory * Foreign Direct Investment * Multi Nationals HRM * International Labour Relations * Regional Economic Integration revision Foreign Exchange Market * Political requirements of International Trade Theory * Research Methods * The Organization of International Business * Entry Strategy and Alliance * Global Production * Financial Management in International business * Ecological Challenges for Business and Society * Consultancy Techniques Module Learning Learning Teaching Methods and Teaching Via lectures and/or tutorials or seminars to cover substantive areas of knowledge, supported by audio/visual and web materials. Guest lectures and industrial visits – where appropriate – will be included. Students will be encouraged at all times to read widely for this subject, and to use both personal experiences from work placement(s) – where relevant – and their knowledge gained from their specialist prescribed and elected subjects. Use of interactive media and materials will be widely encouraged to provide the student with a fully rounded perspective and understanding of the module in ‘live’ situations. Module Assessment Method CW1: 30% weightingStudents will be asked to demonstrate their understanding of this by firstly critically evaluating an organisation through a given case study and applying their knowledge gained in the lectures and tutorials. They will produce a management-style report showing application, evaluation and evidence of further reading focusing on specific areas of the module. CW2: 70% weighting Students will be required to act as a business consultant and prepare a report analysing a modern day scenario. This element requires students to utilise appropriate models and techniques, from the whole module content, advising on strategic intervention and its impact on the global environment. Reading list Core Text: Hill, C. (9th Edition), International Business, Competing in the Global Marketplace. (Global Edition) Mc Graw-Hill . Recommended Reading Baranova P. , Knight T. , Milligan J. (2011), Strategy Concepts and Applications, Customised Text, Pearson Education. Cavusgil, S. Knight, G Riesenberger, J. (2008) International Business, Strategy, Management, and new Realities. Pearson Prentice Hall. Daniels, J. Radebaugh, L Sullivan, D. (2009) International Business, Environments and Operations, 12th Edition, Prentice Hall. De Wit , B. and Meyer, R. (2010), Strategy: Process, Content, Context – An International Perspective, (2010), 4th Edition Text and Cases, South-Western, Cengage Learning. Drucker, P. (1985), Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Heinemann, London Goffin, K. Mitchell, R. (2005). Innovation management; strategy implemementation using the pentathlon framework, Palgrave, Basingstoke. Johnson, Whittington and Scholes (2011), Exploring Strategy: Text and Cases, 9th Edition, Prentice Hall, Essex, UK. Lynch, Richard (2009). Strategic Management, 5th Edition, Prentice Hall, Pearson Education Limited, Essex, UK. Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel, (2009), Strategy Safari – Your complete guide through the wilds of strategic management. , 2nd Edition, FT Prentice Hall. Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel, (2005), Strategy Bites Back, FT Prentice Hall. Mintzberg, Lampel, Quinn and Ghoshal (2003), The Strategy Process – Concepts, Contexts, Cases, Global 4th Edition, Prentice Hall. Morrison, J. (2009) International Business, Challenges in a Changing World. Palgrave Macmillion. Morrison, J. 2009) Global Business Environment, Meeting the Challengers, 3rd Edition. Palgrave Macmillion. Inductive Derivation of a Consensus Definition of the Field, Strategic Management Journal, Vol 28, pp 935–955. Pettigrew, Thomas and Whittington (Eds. ), (2006), Handbook of Strategy and Management, Sage. Porter, M. E. â€Å"Competitive Strategy† and â€Å"Competitive Advantage†, (1 986), Free Press. Rugman, A. M. Collinson, S. (2009) International Business 5th Edition. FT Prentice Hall. Wild, J. Wild, K. Han, J. C. Y. (2003) International Business 2nd Edition Prentice Hall. RELEVANT JOURNALS – via Emerald or EBSCO Business Premier Harvard Business Review Long Range Planning Sloan Management Review Journal of General Management Strategic Management Journal The Journal of Business Strategy Journal of General Management Administrative Science Quarterly OTHER RESOURCES Where applicable videos, business simulations, case studies etc. will be used to enhance and support the module content. 24/09 | Introduction to the Module| Chapter| Case StudiesVenezuela| 01/10| Employability | | Tesco| 08/10| The Concepts of Strategy| | IBM| 15/10| Value Creation| 13| Assignment Launch| 2/10| Strategic Options for International Business| 14| Wal-Mart/Coca-Cola| 29/110| Organisational Structure and Architecture| 14| Unilever| 05/12ncing/11| Entry Strategy| 15| JCB/General Electric| 12/11| Strategic Alliances| 15| JCB/General Electric| 19/11| Review Strategic concept| | Assignment Review and Workshop| 26/12| Globalization| 1| The Globalization of Health Care| 03/12| Na tional Differences in Political Economy| 2| Indonesia| 10/12| Ethics in International Business| 5| Knights Apparel | | | | | Issues in Global Business and Strategic Concepts Autumn 2012 Week Commencing Hand-in-Date for Assignment One 19th – 26th November 2012. Session | Title| Chapter| Case Studies| 21/01| Welcome Back. Assignment Feedback. Semester 2 Introduction| | Feedback Group Seminar1-1 Tutorials| 28/01| International Trade Theory| 6| Bangladesh`s Textile Trade| 04/02| The Political Economy| 7| The Global Financial Crisis| 11/02| Foreign Direct Investment| 8| Spain’s TelephonicaAssignment Launch| 18/02| Regional Economic Integration| 9| NAFTA/Mexican| 25/02| Assignment Discussion| | Assignment Seminar/ workshop| 04/03| Exporting Importing| 16| MD International| 11/03| Global Production| 17| Boeing| 8/04| Global Marketing and R D| 18| Microsoft| 15/04| Consultancy Review| | Assignment Seminar/ workshop| 22/04| Global HRM| 19| AstraZeneca| 29/04| Closing/Review| | Review| | | | | | | | | Issues in Global Business and Strategic Concepts Spring 2013 As the module progresses through this semester, more time will be allocated to assignment study within the tutorial period. This assignment is worth 70% and requires application of the module content to achieve a good grade. Hand-in-Date for Assignment Two 26th – 3rd May 2013 How to cite Issues in Global Business, Essay examples

U.S. Governmentt Federalists Vs. Anti-Federalists Essays

U.S. Governmentt: Federalists Vs. Anti-Federalists The Federalists vs. The Anti-Federalists When the revolutionary war was over, the American colonists had found themselves free of British domination. Due to the fact that they were free from British control, they wanted to create their own system of government where tyranny would be practically diminished. Originally, the separate states were connected by The Articles of Confederation. But this document gave the central government no power of their own. Because of this, the states had many problems in international politics since they had just found freedom and did not have the respect of other countries. This caused a lot of thinking and it was decided that a document needed to be created to strengthen the central government and at the same time ensuring the safety of the states. So came to be the constitution. The constitution brought about a division between the American people. These two groups were the federalists, who believed that the constitution was good, and the anti-federalists who thought that the constitution would not be able to protect the rights of the people. These two groups had conflicting views but together, they both wanted the same thing. The same thing was that America should be controlled by the people by the principles of federalism. Both groups, the federalist and anti-federalists recognized the fact that power was being abused. They witnessed what had happened in the war and that their had been negative effects of power and the result was very clear. British vocation had made them very aware of the threat of corruption. Therefore, they wanted to make a government that would ensure the duration of an just republic. The federalists exclaimed that the constitution was the only way they could reach this goal of a just society. As James Wilson had said, the constitution would not give all the power to the legislature unless it was legally written down to ensure power was not mistreated. In the constitution, it does allow congress to make laws that help out the government in the area of execution of foreign powers. The view of the anti-federalists were obviously different. They believed that the power given to the congress was not safe since it put them too much in control. Hence they created the Bill of Rights to "establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity and provide for the common defense..." The anti-federalists feared that the actual people would not be fairly represented by their new government since they would have the power to get rid of the individual rights of the people. The Bill of Rights claims it is for and by the people. Especially since America is so large, it does not ensure everyone's opinion would be heard. Many people did not like the idea of having representatives from each state because one man can not bring forth many different opinions. Anti-federalists believe that liberty only is present when there are few people and they can actually get their voice projected. In a large population, like America, the citizens do not get individual freedom and are deprived of their rights. Yet, Madison a federalist stated that in a small republic, tyranny could be much more assessable since it would be easier to dominate others. Unlike in a large republic which is made up of many views where as it is less chance that a few can dominate others. Even in individual states it is easy to elect officials since people can be easily controlled when there aren't many people. In other word, the more the people, the less chance of bribery and inducement. Another benefit of a larger republic is that there would be a variety of people representing them and their would be many candidates to pick from. Ensuring the highest quality government. In a small republic, options would be very select making it an unfair election. Besides finding officials to best represent the people, there were many other controversial topics that faced the American people. The topic of taxation brought about many different ideas of what should be. The anti-federalists believed that by forming a new system would be very challenging because that is what they know and use. The first problem they found was that states would not want to have two state taxes. This is unfair to the people. They also argued that a state tax was unfair since each state was different with different needs. This could very well destroy a state economically

What is Early Decision Should You Do It

What is Early Decision Should You Do It SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips If you've heard the term early decision in college admissions, you've probably heard it with the word "binding." What exactly does binding early decision mean, and why do schools offer it? This guide will clear up all your questions around early decision, from what it means to how it works. To begin, what is early decision and what makes it different than other college application options? As you may know, Early Decision applications are typically due in November, much earlier than regular decision deadlines. You get to know early on if you'll be going to the college you apply to. But there's something really special about ED college admissions. What's Unique About Early Decision? Early decision, unlike regular decision or evenearly action, involves abinding agreement of enrollment.When you apply, you sign a contract agreeing to enroll in the school if you get accepted. Since this contract's a big commitment, you'll also need a parent and your school counselor on board to sign it, too. Because it's binding, you should only apply ED if you're completely, absolutely, positively sure you want to attend the school. You should havestrong, concrete reasons for wanting to go there, like the high quality of the program you want to major in (rather than the high quality of the cafeteria food). You can only apply to one school early decision (for obvious reasons). If you're accepted, not only will yousend your deposit soon after you get accepted, but you're also obligated to withdraw any other applications you made to other schools. If you, like the majority of students, will be applying for financial aid, then you might be asking one big question right about now. How can you agree to enroll in a schoolbefore getting to see your financial aid offer? Fair concern, and one that early decision, unfortunately, doesn't provide for. Some schools claim to meet all demonstrated financial need, and it may be possible to negotiate with the financial aid office if your offer isn't what you hoped it would be. For the most part, though, early decision asks you tosign the contract regardless of financial aid.This condition makes ED an application option that's just not available for every student. Apart from the fact that it involves a binding contract, you also want to learn what your deadlines are for early decision. Fun (if somewhat confusing) fact:not all early decision deadlines are actually early!Read on to find out what I mean. Is early decision binding? Yes. But it may or may not have an "early" deadline. When Are the Deadlines for Early Decision? Most early decision deadlines are in the fall. The most common ED deadline isNovember 1.Usually, you'll hear back a month or two later, like in mid-December. You might receive one of three responses:accepted, denied, or deferred.If your application gets deferred to the regular applicant pool, then you're no longer bound to the ED contract and can apply wherever you want (at that point, probably under regular decision deadlines). Some schools also offer a second, later ED deadline in January. This later deadline, which is still binding, is calledEarly Decision II.If you decide you want more time to work on your application and apply ED II, then you'll hear back from your school sometime in February. There's along list of schoolsthat offer early decision. For the purposes of this guide, I'll just list some of the most popular ones. Schools with Early Decision Some schools with aNovember early decision deadlineare Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, and the University of Pennsylvania. Their deadlines are all November 1, except for Johns Hopkins with its November 2 deadline. These schools don't offer ED II. Some colleges that offerboth ED I with a November deadline and ED II with a January deadlineare American University, Boston University, Bowdoin, Brandeis, Colby Pomona, Smith, Vanderbilt, and Wesleyan. The ED II for most of these schools is January 1 or January 15. While these schools offer two options for early decision, neither deadline is flexible. You still have to get all your materials in bythe stated date. So what else besides the enrollment agreement do you need to submit to apply early decision? How Do You Apply Early Decision? Applying early decision is pretty much the same as applying regular decision. The one addition is the enrollment agreement thatyou, your counselor, and one of your parents must sign.A large number of early decision schools use the Common Application, and this form, plus everything else you need, can be foundthere. If your school uses its own application, then the contract will be found on their individual online portal. Either way, you'll fill out your application, provide your test scores, paste your personal essay, and invite one or tworecommendersto upload letters. Make sure to send yourofficial score reportfrom your College Board or ACT account, since self-reporting won't be sufficient by itself. Similarly, you'll need to request that your school send your official transcript as a record of all your high school grades up to that point. Applying ED can have a lot of perks for you as an applicant. You finish applying to your dream school early and hear back months before regular notification whether or not you got in. Butwhy do colleges offer this option?What's in it for them? ED gives colleges an accurate sense of their yield, or of how many accepted students will enroll. Why Do Colleges Offer Early Decision? Early decision is an appealing option to colleges for a few reasons. For one, itspreads out the application review process. Instead of reading thousands of applications all in one or two months, early decision deadlines space out the process between the fall and the winter. For smaller schools with fewer resources and less staff, this can be extremely helpful. A second reason that early decision is useful to colleges is that it gives them a more precise idea of how many accepted students will end up enrolling. Under regular decision, admissions committees offer more spots than they have available, since only a certain percentage of applicants will end up taking those spots. With early decision, though, all ED applicants agree to enroll if accepted. Therefore,colleges gain a clear sense of their ultimate yield, or of how many accepted students will attend the school. Finally, early decision is attractive to colleges because early decision candidates tend to besome of the most qualified candidates.Students who are prepared to commit to a college have done their research and have a strong sense of their goals and purpose. Those who apply in November are usually organized and prepared. Most students don't apply early to a reach school; instead, they apply early if their grades and scores are at least on target with the school's expectations. Some colleges, likeHarvardand the University of Virginia, spoke out against early decision and early action, nothing that early admissions tend to favor students from higher SES backgrounds. They argued that early admissions predominantly benefit white, wealthy students with greater "cultural capital" and access to early college counseling. While this may be true, especially with early decision since it's binding, other colleges didn't follow suit. Harvard and UVA have since reintroduced early action, likely for the very reason mentioned above. They weremissing out on the qualified and competitive students who apply early.Some schools have switched from early decision to early action to address this financial concern, but plenty of schools do still offer early decision for students able to apply this way. Clearly, early decision has some advantages for colleges, but what about for you as an applicant? Do you have a better chance of getting accepted if you apply ED? Does Applying Early Decision Give You an Advantage? Besides receiving your admissions decision earlier than normal, does applying early decision give you any other advantages? Some people think it does, because there's evidence ofhigher early decision acceptance ratesthan regular decision acceptance rates. Compared to regular decision candidates, usually a larger fraction of early decision applicants get in. Does this mean that you have a better chance of getting in as an ED applicant? Not necessarily. It could simply reflect the fact that a higher percentage of ED candidates were qualified, whereas a lot of regular decision applicants applied to the school as a reach and didn't realistically expect to get in. On the other hand, applying ED could impress admissions officers. It shows howcommitted you to a school and excited you are about going there.As discussed above, schools benefit from gaining a more accurate sense of their yield and of course, are looking for the most qualified applicants. If you show that you're both qualified and committed to attending, then you may gain an upper hand as an ED candidate. Overall,sending the strongest application you can should be your top priority.If your school only has a November ED deadline and that feels like a rush, then you'd probably benefit from taking a few extra months to prepare and maybe take the SAT or ACT again. If you do feel prepared and want to apply ED, make sure first to give thought tothe following questions. Are You Sure the College is Your Number One Choice? Is your heart set on attending this college? If you answered no, then early decision probably isn't for you. If you're set on a certain school, then that's a good foundation to start considering early decision. If you do have a school in mind, you shoulddefine your reasons for wanting to attend.Does the school have a program you want to study and an environment that suits you? Make sure you've done research into the school's academics, social scene, and culture to ensure it's the right fit for you. Learn whether your school has the opportunities that will help you grow and succeed over the next four years. Visit campus, speak with students, faculty, or admissions officers, and gain a strong sense of what college life would be like. Applying early decision on a whim or because you feel pressure that you should are not good reasons to apply ED. You also should take pause if you're someone who changes your mind a lot. You should sign a binding contract to enroll becauseyou're sure that you want to go to that school if you get accepted.Once you've answered this question, you want to think abouthow prepared you areto put together your application. Are You Ready to Apply Early Decision? If your school offers the later Early Decision II deadline in January, then you don't have to worry too much about a change in timing. However, if your school only offers the early decision deadline in November, then you want tomake sure you're organized and ready to go in time for the early deadline. As I mentioned above, your top priority should be sending off the best application you can. Even if a school accepts more ED applicants than RD applicants, applying ED won't magically make your application appear any stronger. To make an early deadline, you want to push your planning back a few months. For instance, September or October would probably be your last opportunity to take the ACT or SAT. Ideally, you'd have your test scores all finalized by senior year. You could take your test in the spring of sophomore year, fall of junior year, and spring of junior year to have three opportunities to test, with a fourth "just in case" testing date in the fall in senior year. Make sure to considerhow many test dates you want to leave yourself to achieve your target scores if you're trying to make a November deadline. In terms of yourrecommendations, you want to ask your teachersat least a month in advance.You could also ask your junior year teachers at the end of junior year. You also want to make time to meet with your school counselor and request official documents from your guidance office, like your school transcript, at least a month in advance of deadlines. Finally,work on your personal essay over the summer, giving yourself a few months to revise through several drafts before reaching its final form. Since the personal essay's a very important piece of your application that takes time to brainstorm and write, you want to start planning it a long time before your November deadline. I mentioned that early decision candidates tend to be some of the most competitive, so you want to plan early and submit the most impressive application you can. If you'd benefit from waiting a few more months, then it may make sense to wait for regular decision deadlines (or Early Decision II, if your school offers it). If you start planning your tests, rec letters, and personal essay early, then you'll be prepared to apply early. Then you can relax a little before any regular deadlines since you'll have gathered all the important pieces of your application! Let's say you do have a dream school and you feel prepared to apply by the early decision deadline. You still have one more question to ask yourself:how much does financial aid play into your decision of where to go to college? Are You Concerned About Financial Aid? Does the amount offinancial aidyou receive make or break your decision of where to attend college? If so, then early decision might be a tough option. Unlike early action or regular decision, youcan't compare financial aid offers before deciding where to go.Early decision requires you to agree to enroll regardless of themoneyyou're offered. If you absolutely can't make college tuition work, no one is going to throw you in jail for breaking an early decision agreement. However, breaking the contract would be a rare and unwelcome occurrence, and it's possible that other colleges could find out. To prevent this stressful situation from taking place, you shouldthink about this question before you apply early decision. On the other hand, don't automatically assume you can't apply early decision because you need financial aid.Speak to people in the financial aid office of your school of interest about how they meet demonstrated need.You might be able to gain a clear sense of what your financial aid package will be, allowing you to still make the binding agreement based on this information. In closing, let's go over the most important points to remember about applying early decision to college. To Sum Up... Early decision is an application option for studentsready to make a binding agreement to their dream school.If you're accepted early decision to a school, you will enroll there. If your application is deferred to the regular applicant pool, then you're no longer bound to that agreement and can apply to other schools. Some schools offer an Early Decision II deadline in January in addition to the Early Decision I deadline in November. This can be helpful if you want to communicate your enthusiasm about a school by applying ED, but could use a few more months to put together your application. Applying ED can be a great option if you prepare early. If all goes according to plan, you could have your college plans all finalized by December of your senior year! What's Next? Now that you know all about how early decision works and how to plan for it, check out thiscomplete list of deadlines for all the schools with early decision.Deadlines for both Early Decision I and Early Decision II are included. Are you also considering early action?This guide has thefull list of schools with early action and their deadlines. Feeling concerned about getting everything done in time?This guide givesawesome advice for understanding what makes you procrastinate and learning how to overcome it.While it's geared towards studying for the SAT or ACT, its strategies can also be applied to your schoolwork or the college process. Want to improve your SAT score by 240 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Free Online Public Schools in Georgia

Free Online Public Schools in Georgia Georgia offers resident students the opportunity to take online public school courses for free. Below is a list of online schools currently serving elementary and high school students in Georgia. Most programs are free to residents, but one program may require students to pay a fee. To qualify for the list, schools must meet the following qualifications: Classes must be available completely online.They must offer services to state residents.They must be funded by the government. Virtual schools listed may be charter schools, statewide public programs, or private programs that receive government funding. Georgia Connections Academy This website for this online school notes that: Students throughout Georgia have the opportunity to thrive at Georgia Connections Academy Charter School, a tuition-free public cyber school. (The online program) gives students the flexibility to learn at home with an online curriculum that meets rigorous state  education  standards.   The school offers: A  curriculum  developed by leading education expertsInstruction from state-certified  teachers  experienced in  online instructionSupport from trained counselors, principals, and administrative staffCurriculum materials  needed to participate in a dynamic online learning environment Georgia Credit Recovery The Georgia  Credit Recovery Program gives students who did not initially succeed in obtaining course credit the chance to earn credit toward  graduation. The school notes that it provides: Flexible  schedulesComplete core courses, aligned to state standards, for which the student will demonstrate mastery before receiving a gradeSome elective courses The courses, however, are not taught by a teacher, and even though the program is publicly funded, students may incur a fee. Georgia Cyber Academy The Georgia Cyber Academy is for kindergarten through 12th-grade students and offers: Full-time, tuition-free online public educationSupport from state-certified teachersStudents a chance to earn college credit while in high school in select coursesHigh-interest courses that introduce a variety of possible careersA range of extracurricular activities Georgia Virtual Academy A tuition-free, online public school, Georgia Virtual Academy offers: Individualized  learning plans  targeted to each students strengths and weaknessesGeorgia-certified teachers who guide progress and tailor teaching to student needsAn advanced-learner programThe opportunity for qualified high school  students to earn college creditsField trips, social activities, and clubs  help students connect Georgia Virtual School Georgia Virtual School is sponsored by the Georgia Department of Educations Curriculum and Instruction Division. The program, operated in partnership with schools and parents across the state, offers over 100 middle and high school courses in the core content areas, world languages and electives as well as a number of AP courses. The school also has  online media and guidance centers The school also offers some flexibility in course schedules, including: For fall and spring, students can choose an 18-, 16-, 14- or 12-week  schedule.For fall and spring,  Advanced Placement  courses are only offered on the 18-, 16- or 14-week schedule.For summer, students can select either a six- or five-week schedule.