Reflecting Back on DSV 2019

In one word, The Ronald & Carrie Ludwig Duke in Silicon Valley program was phenomenal. In late May, 24 students entered as the 2019 cohort. One month later, one family returns to Duke with unparalleled experiences, opportunities, skills, connections, memories, and friendships.  The diversity of interests and backgrounds strengthened the uniqueness of our cohort. To give you the numbers, we

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DSV Week Four: Making the Connections

On the fourth and final week of Duke in Silicon Valley, our group continued with visits to Accenture, Facebook, Goodby Silverstein and Partners, Instacart, and Carbon 3D. It’s baffling that in spite of the multiple visits and class sessions preceding this week, we are still learning something new. Many times the advice and guidance we hear from the alumni and

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DSV Week Three: Innovation is Everywhere

Week three of Duke in Silicon Valley found our group of innovators and entrepreneurs visiting companies around the Bay Area, learning about tech companies, ranging from Uber and LinkedIn, to industries like venture capital. In addition, we continued to be mesmerized by Professor Salman Azar and the way in which he allows us to learn through his entrepreneurial experiences and

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DSV Week Three: The Power of Mission & Vision

This week, we continued our visits to tech companies including Uber, LinkedIn, Palantir, and innovative start-ups, including Impossible Foods and Rothy’s. The common thread that I found between these companies is their mission-driven culture to solve critical problems. Uber aims to bring smarter transportation to the world, LinkedIn connects the world’s professionals to make them more successful, Palantir helps institutions

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DSV Week Two: Unconventional Journeys to Disruptive Innovation

We continued our second week by visiting YouTube’s main offices in San Bruno. YouTube is the world’s largest video-sharing website founded in 2005. YouTube innovated quickly and grew larger than even Google’s own video streaming service, so Google acquired the company in 2006. Under Google, the company has been growing continuously and is now being used by millions of people

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DSV Week Two: There’s a Place for Everyone

Our visits this week truly focused on the idea that people from all different types of backgrounds can find their home in Silicon Valley. Tech and consumer companies need team members from a variety of disciplines like sales, marketing, finance, and software engineering to operate, and it’s the combination of these skills that truly make a firm successful. Understanding how

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DSV Week One: Kicking it off on the Cutting-Edge

“Using knowledge for the service of society!” -Brenda, Tesla Tour Guide regarding the amazing opportunity of DSV Week one of Duke in Silicon Valley took our cohort of students around the Bay Area, presenting learning opportunities in and out of the classroom. There’s no better place to start than with our professor Salman Azar. Prof. Azar’s unique approach to teaching

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What We Learned: DSV in Three Words

It feels as though it was just yesterday that we were meeting each other, making our first trip to Safeway, and touring the Plug and Play Tech Center where we would have class for the next month.  We were in awe, curious, and invigorated by Mountain View’s beautiful and homey scenery and by the remarkable list of companies we were

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Bringing it all together: Lessons from Silicon Valley

As our Duke in Silicon Valley experience comes to a close, I am ready to go home, but also reluctant to leave this amazing place and program. These past four weeks have been challenging, thought-provoking, exhausting, invigorating, incredibly valuable, and everything in between. We have spent days tested by Professor Azhar in class, bonding with my classmates on long bus

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DSV Week Four: Embrace the Impossible

“It’s not a course. It’s an experience.” These are the words we see on the screen every day we walk in our class that teaches us how to build and sustain a successful enterprise. These words could not be more true. Since starting Duke In Silicon Valley, I have been introduced and exposed to many things inside and outside of

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