Tuesday, August 31th : Second day in VT

QuaterBack Matthew at the bookstore!

Hey Hokies!

Today, we spent the whole morning with our host company (Modea). We actually split into two groups : one went with the design team and the second with the development team. If you have some time, you should check their website and see how creative their digital solutions are.

Then, after the lunch, VT students took us on a tour of their huge campus with the other participants of the challenge. Thus, we were able to see the main buildings gathered around the Drillfield, a huge lawn (around 1 mile long) in the center of the campus.

We also went on a shopping trip downtown and especially in bookstores, kind of shops where you can buy almost anything linked to Virgnia Tech or the Hokies (local sports teams), even sofas or paving stones !

Finally, we had a pizza party at the Squires Student Center, a building where all student organizations or clubs have their own room.

Tomorrow is a special day : we will go to Roanoke (1 hour drive from Blacksburg) very early to participate in the Global Student Business Concept Challenge. Things are getting serious!

See you soon,

The Artbeating team.

Monday, August 29th : First day in Virginia Tech

Welcome back everybody!

After long flights from all over the world (well... Paris, Miami and Montreal), we finally arrived in Blacksburg, Virginia on Sunday and met our host families.

Romain and Mathieu are hosted by Vinny and Jane Argentina, Perrine by Richard Hammer and Catherine Fae, Hugo by Sharon Day, and Martin and Charles-Eric by Iain and Anne Clelland.

Today, after recovering from the jet lag, we went to Virginia Tech to have a welcome buffet lunch with the organizers of the challenge (Joe Meredith, Jim Flowers, Lindsey Eversole) and our host company, Modea, which is a growing digital services agency.

Then, we spent the afternoon practicing our speech for the challenge and attending to VTKW member companies presentations. During these lectures, we learnt many things about entrepreneurship and how to start a business here in the USA.

For the dinner, we were invited with our host families by the VT Office of Outreach and International Affairs represented by John Dooley at The Inn, a hotel and conference center. It was a very formal dinner : for instance, we were impressed by students of VT who marched carrying the flags of every teams country. We had a great evening and enjoyed our meal together. We also saw the trophy ;-).

See you soon,

The Artbeating team.

The VTKWGSBCC

From August 29 to September 4, Artbeating will fully experience the VTKWGSBCC, also known as VT KnowledgeWorks Global Student Business Challenge Concept, in Blacksburg and Roanoke, Virginia.

What is the Global Challenge ?

It is the first international student business concept competition with student teams from all over the world ! To date, teams from England, Northern Ireland, Finland, France, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Uruguay and USA which have already won a significant entrepreneurial competition in their respective country are going to compete for this international entrepreneurial challenge to win a $25,000 grand prize !

The contest finals will consist in a 10 minutes stand-up presentation followed by 10 minutes of questions/answers in front of a panel of judges and a large audience.

Above all, the competition finals are part of student entrepreneurship week in Virginia, where we will establish a global network, spend time with successful entrepreneurs and local families.

What is our business concept ?

Artbeating.com is an online marketplace which promotes students’ skills and creativity in communication, product, fashion and interior design as well as CGI animation. Brands can submit their brief to the community through a rewarding contest.
It enables not only them to get a wide range of creative solutions but also the students to get worthy references to start their career. Artbeating also provides information and various collaborative tools in order to enhance their opportunity to win and thus become essential to their day-to-day artist life.

Follow our departure to VT in the next post ;)

The Artbeating team.

Once upon a time...

The Artbeating team (Charles-Eric, Romain, Perrine, Hugo, Mathieu and Martin)
at the “11th Entrepreneurial Project Challenge” winning ceremony of Telecom SudParis & Telecom Business School.

The Entrepreneurial Project Challenge has been organized every year since 1999 in our schools, Telecom SudParis and Telecom Business School and took place this year from April 16 to April 22. During this week, 50 student teams were in competition to think and build up a business plan for their start-up concept.

We were selected with 3 other teams for the final round of the competition on June 18, hosted by Ms Jego-Laveissière, CEO of Orange Labs. Among the audience of our stand-up presentation were Sebastien Cauwet, Augustin Radu and Sandrine De Groot from the Business Incubator, the administration of our schools and the Challenge partners :

• Société Générale
• Orange
• SFR
• Bouygues Telecom
• Telindus
• Communauté d'Agglomération Evry Centre Essone
• ENSIIE
• Linagora
• Telecom & Management Alumni
• Virginia Tech KnowledgeWorks !

We finally won the 1^st prize, and thus, one week of leisure, business relationship and celebration of student entrepreneurship at VT KnowledgeWorks in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Keep in touch !

The Artbeating team.

One blog, two stories

Hello everybody !

Welcome back to the official blog relating the Annual VT KnowledgeWorks International Week.

Last year, the winning team of the 2009 Entrepreneurial Project Challenge, MulteeGaming, created this blog to let you follow them during their amazing week in Blacksburg, VA.

The time has come for us - Artbeating – to follow their lead and share with you this great experience we’ll be living during our trip in Virginia Tech, and particularly for our participation to the first VT KnowledgeWorks Global Student Business Concept Challenge (we'll talk about it later).

Enjoy the reading,

The Artbeating team.