Meltwater Group Blog header image 1

 

My thoughts on MEST and explaining “the dis tin”

Posted March 9th, 2010 By Guest Blogger  | 6 Comments

mest_graduates1

MEST's First Graduating Class

“The dis tin,” or “the this thing”, is a phrase frequently used in Ghana to describe something that either is difficult to describe, does not have a name, or a name that the speaker has just momentary forgotten. (Disclaimer: Please forgive me, all Ghanaians if I am translating this somewhat incorrectly.)

In 2008, I worked at Meltwater Entrepreurial School of Technology (MEST) as a Teaching Fellow – more on that later. This past January I was fortunate enough to go back to Ghana and attend the graduation of the first class of trainees.

So what is “the dis tin” that is MEST? What does it mean to me, to the Meltwater Group, to our employees, and most importantly, to the trainees in the program? Since joining MEST as a Teaching Fellow in 2008, many people have asked me these questions.

MEST is Meltwater’s non-profit program launched in Accra, Ghana two years ago. MEST follows the Meltwater Group’s deeply rooted belief that “talent is talent everywhere” and that when “talented people receive the right amount of support, guidance and encouragement, they can accomplish extraordinary things” as our CEO Jorn Lyseggen once put it.

MEST’s mission is to train young Ghanaians in order to enable them to start their own globally successful software companies.

What did I work on at MEST?

A Teaching Fellow at MEST is a hybrid between a teaching assistant at university, a coach, a technology expert and a mentor … so pretty much a jack-of-all-trades ☺

In my time at MEST my main focus was…

more...

→ 6 Comments


 

Stanford Conference on Entrepreneurship

Posted March 2nd, 2010 By Kimling  | 1 Comment

stanford-panel

Last Friday, February 26th, Meltwater CEO Jorn Lyseggen joined several other entrepreneurs, venture investors and academics at the 2010 Conference on Entrepreneurship at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Jorn participated in a panel, the “Top 10 Mistakes Made by Entrepreneurs,” alongside Gurbaksh Chahal (gWallet), Matt Cohler (Benchmark Capital), Carol Sands (The Angels’ Forum and The Halo Funds) and moderator Mark Leslie (founding Chairman and CEO of Veritas Software and current Lecturer in Management at Stanford). The panel discussed the ups and downs they’ve experienced as well as lessons learned.

One of the topics discussed were the main characteristics of entrepreneurs. Matt said passion makes or breaks a project. Gurbaksh said the ability to embrace rejection; being able to swallow rejection and deal with it, is a crucial characteristic. He cited how author J.K. Rowling was rejected seven times before her first book was published. Jorn agreed with the others and asserted that successful entrepreneurs have the following three qualities:

  1. An optimistic mindset
  2. The ability to absorb rejections
  3. An ability to impact and inspire the people around you

A final question was raised and the panelists couldn’t come to an agreement. Are entrepreurs risk-seeking or risk-averse? Matt said entrepreneurs are change-seeking, not necessarily risk-seeking. Jorn said he sees himself as risk-averse, attempting to minimize risk as much as possible. What do you think? Are entrepreneurs risk-seekers or risk-averse?

(More photos from the panel to come)

more...

→ 1 Comment