The participants are entrepreneurs who are using the trip as an opportunity to benchmark their products, gain insights for business planning, meet people and make valuable contacts.

Seeing how business is done in the buzzing Silicon Valley business environment will be exciting and educational. The trip will include visits to local startups, as well success stories. We will meet local VCs and lawyers, and some successful Finnish entrepreneurs in the area.

The trip is important in many respects.  Taking Aalto University students to see how one of the world’s best university technology ventures programs works will show us how things could be done, and be a lesson in what we need to do to change the university’s culture.

Aaltoes is using the week to build our relationship with our Stanford University counterpart BASES. We will workshop on how to get students involved in startups, and what kind of needs student entrepreneurs have and how to best support them.

Of course there is also time to relax and socialize, the week finishes with the biggest party of the year, Halloween, and we have many mixers and dinners were we will get to meet entrepreneurs and students.

The programme  is due to changes, the most recent changes can be seen at the Google Calender

MONDAY
Technology and Teams
How the Stanford’s Technology Transfer system works and how the university supports students’ entrepreneurship ambitions.

TUESDAY
Startups
Visiting Berkeley University and upcoming startups.

WEDNESDAY
Angels, VCs and Lawyers.
What it really takes to get funding for your ideas. Meeting VCs and lawyers to get a look inside their business.

THURSDAY
Big companies, exits.
What international success looks like.

FRIDAY
Summing it all up.
Visits to Y-combinator and other interesting forms of support for early stage startups.