Start your year with a stack of new skills and tune into the following sessions – from the comfort of your home sofa. Here’s a selection of the offering, hand-picked by Aaltoes-peeps, to get you going:

Launchpad class by Steve Blank 

What: Remember Steve? Oh yes you do! Now it’s your chance to take part in his infamous Launchpad class and hear how feedback is really given

When: Class starts in February 2011.

More: http://www.launchpad-class.org/

Technology Entrepreneurship

What: Chuck Eesleys teaches the undergrad course on Technology Entrepreneurship. Really good overview into the world of information, green/clean, medical and consumer technologies.

When: Class starts in January 2011

More: http://www.venture-class.org/

iPhone application development 

What: The full walk-through class on how to learn iPhone development. A little pre-knowledge on C required.

When: Start right away! The videos are all there.

More: http://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/iphone-application-development/id384233225#ls=1

You can also check out the Stanford Open Classroom collection for more computer science courses as well as Stanford Engineering Everywhere. There are course available on Machine Learning, Databases or even on Artificial Intelligence.

The Stanford – Aalto partnership is progressing: do check out the recent updates on the new minor that will start
in fall 2012. Keep an eye also on Startup Life if you’re dreaming of interning in a Silicon Valley startup as well as physically taking part in Stanford classes. The next round will begin in January!

On Sunday evening we enjoyed a great dinner with the Aalto faculty, orchestrated by Will Cardwell and Linda Liukas. There was a lot of mingling despite the jetlag of many, and the excitement to see each other here in the “Mecca” was tangible for us.

We began Monday jogging around the Stanford Dish. (Ok, some of us were lazy and walked.) The views were fabulous, no wonder Steve Jobs got inspired by the scenery and Zuckerberg holds his exec interviews there. It’s kind of overwhelming to see the HQs of major companies while standing on hill watching squirrels and deer families doing their thing.

In fact, the first startup we visited makes technology that aims to rescue the world. They want us to abandon oil by 2020. We visited Better Place, a startup that is building an entire ecosystem around electric vehicles and so accelerating the transition to EV’s. In the OECD countries, half of oil demand is for vehicle fueling; we’re still very heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

Fueling vehicles is still the most profitable industry today, with a $2 Trillion market per year. Our host explained their strategy to an audience of eager listeners: gas price shooting up, battery costs sinking. Any questions?

Better Place has launched internally already, launching commercially next year in Denmark, Israel and Australia. Denmark is a major transport “island” and Australia is the size of the US -they are serious about reaching their aggressive goals.

After driving around Palo Alto and some of us getting thrown out from Google (wanting to visit their shop but going for a too guerilla approach), we visited the Hacker Dojo, a co working space filled with founders in the making. The community has 300 members who can freely arrange events at the place. Tonight they are hosting a workshop on human relationships, like how to flirt and stuff. We think the guys from room 220 could take a look into that workshop now that they have their convertible mustang to ride…

Some of the luckier of us got to meet Krista’s classmate from ME310 Stanford course, Kent Frankovich, founder of Revolight. This light system is utterly cool and will save lives. It’s something you’ll want if you ever bike in the dark! Revolight is still at a very early stage, their office and workshop is in a living room, but they’ve already been featured on CNBC, BBC, Wired and other media. They got a lot of feedback and “orders” on Kickstarter, so now besides the bike expo in SV this weekend and displaying at the Wired store in NYC next week, they have 900 orders to fill… Rock on Kent&team!!

Then on to the Startup Grind Meetup hosting seed stage investor Jeff Clavier Managing Partner of SoftTech VC. We were pretty tired by then, but when Clavier said that “selling apps sucks as a business model, unless you’re Angry Birds”, all faces lit up in smiles as we we looked around at each other.

Mingling afterwards, we heard from the German guys from PionierGarage at Karlsruhe University that our beloved Garage was one of their inspirations. It seems like people in Central Europe are convinced that Helsinki is happening. What music to a Helsinkispringer’s ears!

At last,  quick one in downtown Palo Alto with Richard from BASES the Stanford equivalent of Aaltoes, then off to sleep.. Waking up early tomorrow to a damn long day.

Excited, tired, sure that this was just a peek at what the Valley has to offer. Every moment here is pure awesomeness. And this is just Monday.

Light out, peace and love from the silly valley

Writter by Henrietta (@PHenriettaK) and Heini (@Heinider)

We started the day off with a “pilgrimage” to Google and Facebook. It was lame. Neither one let us in (perhaps because it was Saturday and they had no idea we were coming) but at least Google had some smooth little bikes to ride and Facebook offered us some free soda.

Next we headed to Stanford Stadium which was closed, but entrepreneurially we found a way in. The place was jaw-droppingly huge. Imagining the place packed to the rafters with students cheering on their own brought some insight into the type of togetherness and sense of community that Stanford students experience. We need to figure out a way to instill this sense of belonging at Aalto.

Co-working

Last stop in Palo Alto was Hacker Dojo. It is, quite possibly, the most “hackery” space we’d ever visited. Totally ‘bootstrappy’, totally techie, with a pure focus on working and a love for all things technical. Very cosy if you like that sort of thing.

Making our way back to San Francisco, our next visit was with Dogpatch Labs. The place was unique. An old pier remade into a mellow and very open co-working space, with a harbour view and an awesome decor. It was by far the coolest “office” we’ve ever seen. Sadly, the place has been condemned and will be gone in two weeks. Hopefully the atmosphere can be preserved at their new spaces.

Rocket Space was the largest co-working space we visited. Divided over 3 floors, with a mix of private and open offices, the space houses around 500 people. Original brick walls and timber elements gave it a unique feel. I/O Ventures was a mix of wifi-café and office space with a capacity for 200-ish people. It was located in the ‘hipster‘ area of San Francisco, which gave it a very trendy yet laid-back vibe. On the bar you can see a guy working on CAD, someone else coding away and another designing fashion, i.e. a diverse mix of people.

Seeing a variety of spaces over here gave us perspective into what we are trying to establish with the Garage. Creating a welcoming sense of openness is of the utmost importance and in this sense we need to cater to a really diverse bunch of people.

California dreaming

This week has been a series of realisations, new perspectives, new comfort zones, and intensive learning; a week of draining long days, hard work, little sleep and re-calibrating our thinking. The week has left a mark on us all and we strongly recommend it to everyone. “Get out of the country, not just the building“, is what Steve advised during his visit. Not only does this give you perspective but it is also a great, great source of inspiration.

Standing on a cliff, looking over the Golden Gate, the San Francisco skyline and the incredible sunset over the Pacific Ocean, made us all very philosophical. The simple beauty of this world was humbling and mixed with this week’s experiences, somehow made us all look inward. It had been an amazing, awe-inspiring week and on the drive down we came to thinking about how most things you achieve in life depend on yourself. Perhaps this is really the most valuable take-away this week’s had to offer: it made us dream like never before.

- J, N, R & J

We met up with Rebecca from the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP). She was hired recently to take care of STVP’s external partnerships and told us of the future ambitions of the program, Stanford and Aalto cooperation. An interesting point she made is that Stanford is very intent on learning from everything that’s going on with Aalto, as they would like to see students engage in the same way. Stanford wants to cultivate its partnerships to be more than just business relationships and Rebecca is truly great with people.

One of the STVP’s programs is called “Mayfield Fellows”. It starts with classes in the spring, continues with internships in startups over the summer and concludes in the fall when students teach case studies to each other based on what they’ve learned during the summer. This idea made us instantly think that Startup Life could have an important role in the new Aalto entrepreneurship curriculum.

One of today’s highlights was definitely the d.school, Institute of Design at Stanford. The variety of spaces, people from multiple disciplines, the cross-pollination of ideas, a true sense of openness and ambitious projects create a unique vibe with a “change-the-world” mentality. The enthusiasm and joy that exuded from open-minded people creating with an aim to have an impact was purely inspiring.

In the evening we met up with Nruthya from Bases (Business Association for Stanford’s Entrepreneurial Students). She was awesome. They have a great energy going and collaboration with them looks promising. She also provided us with some insight into the student world at Stanford.

Today’s valuable insights

Today was truly an enriching experience for many reasons. Firstly, it was amazing to see what one of the world’s top universities looks and feels like. Secondly, it really broadened visions of what education can be. Particularly the integration of design thinking into education across disciplines, left a lasting mark. The ME310 course is taking a breather at Aalto this year, which feels incomprehensible based on what we saw today. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, today’s visit gave us invaluable insight into what Aalto is striving for, what Aalto can become and, to some extent, what we need to do in order to get there. It made us think, more than ever, about what we really want to get out of our education and what we can do to make great things happen for ourselves and our community.

Big day tomorrow, spirits high, feeling motivated,

J, N, R & J

We were lucky to have Ramine coach us “a bit“ yesterday. The four hour session included so much new information to remember, advice, tips and hints that I don’t actually remember the last time I’ve felt that overwhelmed. Still, I had the feeling that now I actually understand some of the realities of this conference. With the help of Ramine, we created a hit list of 15 speakers to (attempt to) have a chat with, including e.g. Vinod Khosla, Tom Conrad, Richard Wong (coming to Slush!), Chris Sacca and Roelof Botha.

The schedule for the week will be really tight. At Disrupt we will promote Startup Sauna and Startup Life and hopefully generate interest and maybe even leads. In addition to promoting these two products and gathering contacts, a valuable lesson will likely be learned in seeing what it actually takes to be a startup here. The bar is set at a level none of us has personally witnessed before.

In addition to TC Disrupt there will be a huge amount of events in the Bay Area during the week (Plancast actually seems quite handy, thanks Ramine!) so we’ll have plenty of events and hopefully follow-up meetings to attend as well. During Thursday and Friday we’ll head to Stanford to meet BASES people and faculty at STVP.

Our journey started today at 8a.m., at Aalto Design Factory preparing cheat sheets on speakers, bloggers, organizers and startups, printing quite of a pile of paper to read on the flight, gathering Startup Sauna gear and training the pitch that goes straight to the point without being arrogant.

Here we are, 25 hours later, sitting in Nelli‘s living room (Nelli is a StartupLife intern extending her stay at Eucalyptus Systems, thanks for hosting us!) exhausted, going out for pizza and grateful to be here. The week ahead of us seems daunting. As none of us have really been here before, the feelings now can be likened to being thrown into cold water and told to learn how to swim. And swim we shall!

Stay tuned!

J, N, R and J

Two years ago Aaltoes left for the very first Silicon Valley Journey. Since then, a flow of students and startups have visited the Bay Area. We’ve met Google’s Eric Schmidt,  visited Y-Combinator, pitched to VCs and ridden the wave with Angrybirds. Now it’s your chance to be a part of this.

The weeks spent here in California have changed us and many others for good. Aaltoes and Venture Garage have taken around 50 people to experience Stanford and Silicon Valley twice. The impact of these visits has been huge: Aaltoes, Venture Garage and many startups have been originated and shaped during these trips.

Back in 2009 we started building a relationship with Tina Seelig from Stanford Technology Ventures Programme. A year ago she was invited to the Garage advisory board. Impressed with the development of the grassroots startup culture our students have been driving in Finland for two years, Stanford decided to partner with Aalto. The culture change from grassroots is unique in world-scale. The partnership is supported by TEKES (the finnish funding agency for technology and Innovation) and is led by Will Cardwell and Aalto Center for Entrepreneurship who have worked hard to make it happen.

Stanford is the startup-heaven: the world leading eco-system of entrepreneurship and venturing has formed around the campus. Many of the headquarters of big, fast growing technology companies are located within a 10-minute drive from campus: Google, Apple, HP, Intel, Facebook and so on. Most of them are also originally started by students of Stanford. The famous Sand Hill road, where most of worlds Venture Capital funding is waiting for next big thing, crosses the University. The place is full of talented engineers waiting for joining or starting the next Google.

The partnership Aalto is building with STVP will open great new opportunities for ambitious students and entrepreneurs. Already this spring ACE, Aaltoes and Garage are piloting an internship program, hosting pilot startups here and bringing awesome entrepreneurs to give talks and work with you.

Startup Life in Silicon Valley is an eight week programme for students and researchers of Aalto University. It offers the experience of living and working in the startup community of Silicon Valley. Participants will also take part in Stanford entrepreneurship lectures and activities.

Startup Sauna programme winners, hosted by Aalto Venture Garage, will be sent to Silicon Valley for one to three months. Startups will get feedback for their products by pitching in several events. They’ll work from local incubators and be mentored by local serial entrepreneurs. The first startups to arrive to California in March are Audiodraft and Dealmachine from previous programs.

Workshops in Finland. Some of the brilliant people from the Stanford faculty we are welcoming in the following months, include the creative-mind and executive director of STVP, Tina Seelig, father of customer development Steve Blank and serial-entrepreneur gone VC Donna Novitsky. They will be helping the entrepreneurs and startups at Aalto by giving feedback, hosting talks and workshops.

We are building this partnership help you and the Aalto entrepreneurial community to become the leading one of Europe. All feedback, ideas and recommendations are very welcome and appreciated. Also if you are interested in taking part in any of the activities please let us know.

Kristo Ovaska (@kristoovaska) & Linda Liukas (@lindaliukas) are Aaltoes alumni and spending the spring in Silicon Valley, CA preparing the programme. Follow their journey through Twitter. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us at firstname.lastname@aaltoes.com

To get you going, check out:

>> What Aaltoes team has to say about 2009 – 2010 trips?
http://aaltoes.com/siliconvalley
>> A visitors guide to Silicon Valley
http://steveblank.com/2011/02/22/a-visitors-guide-to-silicon-valley/
>> Silicon Valley Journey
http://www.tekes.fi/fi/community/Etusivu/307/Julkaisun_tiedot/1308?id=130274
>> Who are we involved with here : STVP faculty
http://stvp.stanford.edu/about/faculty-staff.html
>> How to be Silicon Valley by Paul Graham
http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html
>>36 Hours in Silicon Valley
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/travel/05hours.html?hpw