
A week at VT KnowledgeWorks
Frenchies blogging during the VT KnowledgeWorks Global Business Concept Competition 2012
8/31/2011
The big day

3rd day at Virginia Tech
Another day, the same trip… This day started with high emotions. When preparing the bags, we ranged our suits hoping to be prepared for the big day.
“Did I learn my speech by heart?” That’s what every one asked himself when we took the WIFI-equipped bus to Roanoke. After leaving our luggages in the hotel, we went to the Taubman Museum of Art just next to the hotel. A volunteer showed us the museum. Very interesting tour I have to say! Some artworks had nice stories. That was what captivated us the most.
The tour was followed by a quick launch in the sunny yard of Norah’s Café outside the Museum. We joined the hotel after that to sit in for Jim Flowers’ presentation. The main topic was, of course, entrepreneurship. We got many tips about how to succeed in a start-up. The conference was illustrated by a lot of examples showing the keys of the success.
We checked in the hotel by 4:00 pm. Well, this day especially, most of the teams had chosen to get to know more about the others. You could see many groups of different teams wandering together in the hotel or having diner together. Speaking of diner, it was an incredible prestigious reception, quite formal. The mayor of
In fact, we were waiting for the demo to be sent to us, so we can illustrate our presentation with a concrete application. Once we received it, we put all the slides together. We spent a long time rehearsing and trying to refine, as much as we could, our 10 minutes presentation. We couldn’t sleep without making sure that no detail was neglected.
To wrap up this long day, we went to bed for few hours before the big day…
8/30/2011
2nd day at VT
The second day… The wake up was a bit earlier. We had to get ready to our first presentation in front of our host company: “Adaptative Technology Inc”. Our host families drove us to their headquarter at 9:00. 5 persons cheerfully welcomed us. We recognized 3 of them. They shared our table yesterday in launch. We timidly started our presentation. Some parts were missing. But, it was a first real attempt of it. Then we exchanged some points with “our dear company”. Every one of them tried to improve some points. Well, we hadn’t got to change the thread of our presentation but we got to highlight the points that we had neglected. The conversation was very fruitful. Our second attempt to present was obviously better. At 11:30, our coaching company’s member invited us to a Mexican restaurant in Christiansburg. There, we talked more about Adaptative Technology Inc when eating a very tasteful meal. Our meeting with Adaptative Technology Inc ended there. Well, it is an opportunity to thank them through these words.
The afternoon seemed to be very entertaining. It was a nice discovery of a huge campus with outstanding sports facilities worthy of a professional club. The biggest surprise was a 65 000 places football stadium: The Lane Stadium. We had a detailed presentation of it before going for a short tour in downtown.
Meanwhile, an earthquake hit Blacksburg and other places. All the media talked about it, but strangely we just didn’t feel it.
The day ended with a very lovely dinner with our host families. It was another opportunity to get to know more each other. Then, we just went to sleep. It was a quite a tough day before leaving to Roanoke the next day.
The WePulse Team
8/24/2011
First day in Virginia Tech, the contest looks hard!
On the Monday, at 11:00 AM, Jim Flowers welcomed us and explains the program of the week. He also showed us the amazing prize of the Challenge and the big 25 000$ cheque reserved for the winning team!
We met the other teams, from US, Canada, England, Chile, Austria and Italy that quickly presented their speech elevator. All the projects are original and the contest looks difficult.
We also met our host company, Adaptive Technologies Inc that develops intelligible communications systems and hearing protection. We shared our lunch with five people from their staff and they enjoy our project !
On the afternoon, Jim Flowers explained us what was expected by the judges, and we worked the whole afternoon.
For the dinner, we went to a restaurant with all the teams and the host families. We met Artbeating members who are spending some months in Virginia Tech. An acapella chorale band came to sing several amazing songs.
We went back at home, wainting for the next day, and the approaching contest...
8/21/2011
New summer, new blogger
Finally, after a great competition, it is WePulse (formerly impulse) who won the special prize of the 2011 Entrepreneurial Project Challenge and succeed to Artbeating and MulteeGaming. As well, we would like to thank all the partners and organizers of this great adventure.
It is now time for us – WePulse – (and we are glad to do it) to resume control of this blog. We hope we will make you live this week at Virginia Tech as if you were here with us.
We will present our project there on Thursday and for those who don’t know it, here is a little summary :
With We Pulse you can buy tickets for a festival or cultural event, or make donation for charitable organizations from your Smartphone, in front of an ad in the metro or in a newspaper and in just 2 steps. Scan the QR Code on the advertisement and We Pulse will provide you with information on the product and lets you buy it! Thanks to We Pulse, shopping has never been so easy...and advertising has never been that effective!
You can follow us on twitter !
The WePulse Team
3/15/2011
Qui sera lauréat du Challenge Projets d'Entreprendre 2011 ?
- Grinetis : Plateforme d'échange autour du marché des déchets agricoles entre les producteurs, les recycleurs (sociétés de transformation) et les industriels,
- BeTrend : Solution de simulation sur Internet de son habitat en 3D et d'achat en ligne de mobiliers et de produits de décoration adaptés,
- Impulse : Application de M-commerce d'achat de billetterie utilisant la technologie des codes-barres 2D (QR Code).
9/07/2010
Thank You
