eClub Demo Day 1.

we are meeting for the first dry run Demo Day next Wednesday. Come to present and test your business idea in front of the viewers. Get the first feedback. 
We have seen already six presentations in the eClub in this season. Olda Neubeger has attracted almost two hundred viewers.

Last eClub presentation

Last Wednesday we have met in the HUB again and we have been streaming to seven other universities. Olda Neuberger was the invited speaker. He talked about his many Internet projects. Mainly he focused on his most successful portal libimseti.cz. He started deep in the history and explained how was the Internet changing, how were the users interests developing.  He was also commenting on the technological advances required to respond to these changes.

Olda was then talking about the business on the Internet. He has been involved in almost fifty different projects in the last decade and it makes him one of the most experienced entrepreneurs on the Czech Internet. I am sure he has inspired lot of the eClub visitors. As usually at the end lot of questions popped up from the audience and also from the remote locations. After the presentation we enjoyed little refreshment combined with networking. Great success! Olda thank you, very inspiring. Check out the eClub video page, we will soon publish the link to the recorded video.

eClub Demo Day 1

Next week we are getting ready for the first demo day. The first teams will present their fresh ideas and business proposals. The purpose of this dry run is to share your idea, to learn how to present it and how to attract the audience. We do not expect you will present finished products, we do not expect even a pilot. The purpose of the dry run is ideas review. We welcome wide range of projects we are not limited to Internet projects only. As usual I expect many questions from the audience and many follow up discussions. This is actually the most important part of this exercise. Starup after all, is an organization created to search for a working business model. It is a search for customers, who will buy the product. For many teams it will be for the first time to present their idea and get the public opinion. Do not forget, the viewers are the  potential customers. This is the ideal time to get the first customers opinion, to find out and understand what they want. Secondly you can try to find colleagues who may join your team or help you to expand or modify your idea.

The rules are very simple. Let me repeat the basics. Any team is welcomed to join us. There has to be at least one student in the team. The teams should ideally have at least two members. How to prepare the presentation? You can find the basics on the eClub pages. It should not be longer then 10 minutes. It will be presented in English. You can use any presentation manager. It will be useful if you can send us the files in advance. To get better idea about the presentation format you can check the finalists from the last season on the eClub page. Your presentation will be recorded too. Watch yourself in the recorded video, this will help you to uncover problems in your presentation.

What is most important? In the presentation you should try to focus on the essential idea. Try to explain what is the added or new value your product is bringing to customers. Do not hesitate to step in front of the crowd even with a simple idea, they are easy to explain, easy to understand and it is big advantage.

Come and join us, you cannot loose! Present of join other team. Let us know and register at eClub.

Gesture recognition - New research plan

End of April is the deadline for applying for PhD study at our faculty. I am putting together new research team. The target is the gesture recognition. I am looking for PhD, and MSc. candidates with a strong statistical and programming background. 

What is the story? Students are approaching me with suggestions for a diploma theses or suggesting doctoral research. Tomas Tunys came recently  with an idea of working on phone gestures. He is interested in recognizing gesturing with your phone in hand. Tomas Gogar on the other hand is interested in dead reckoning for his startup application. His goal is improving positioning even in locations without GPS. Working on these problems we have identified lot of similarities, at least they both use the phone sensors. Reading the literature I discovered that the gesture rocognition is based on the same mathematical framework as speech recognition, what a surprise.

All smart phones are equipped with many different sensors, which are helping the OS automatically switch the screen between the landscape an portrait, they turn the phone to pedometer, they track our bike trip, they record gestures etc. Drawing a gesture on the touch screen, gesturing with the phone or walking with the phone in the pocket are movements generating a time series produced by the motion sensors. Time series analysis is well established mathematical discipline. I was very lucky to work for twenty years in speech recognition and suddenly the smartphone sensors gave me a great chance to refresh my math. Fantastic, I can again use the vector quantization and the Linde Buzo Grey algorithm for generating the k-means vector quantizer. Check it out in Wikipedia they have published the algorithm 1980. My first US patent is partly using this algorithm. The gesture modeling relies on Hidden Markov Models. HMMs are the core of all current speech recognition systems using the old well known Viterbi algorithm. I remember all this from the times I had the privilege to work with a fantastic team in IBM led by Fred Jelinek. I worked with Raimo Bakis, David Nahamoo and other researchers who pioneered this mathematical background and applied it for speech recognition.

After a little state of the art analysis we have found a lot of articles focusing on gesture reco and the similarity with speech reco was immediately obvious, they use the same algorithms. The other surprise is that many of the gesture reco algorithms are still utilizing only a fraction of the sophistication developed for speech. How much more can we improve gesture reco using better algorithm? Can we build better sensing software recognizing your gestures or your movements? Can we build well recognizing system learning from a single instance? Can we build software recognizing complicated movements of your hands, the whole body or other even more complex movements? Can we build fusion systems combining many different inputs from GPS, compass, WiFi AP, cameras, speech etc?

What is the motivation? There are many applications, which would benefit from sensors. With the introduction of iPad the whole UI is being redefined today. I can imagine an iPad of a size of an office desk serving for everyday office tasks, helping graphical designers, helping CAD designers etc. Wrist watch may monitor your daily movements or predict what you want to do. You can gesture control your TV, HiFi or other home devices. Dead reckoning for robots or people etc. is also very challenging problem. Gestures combined with image or speech recognition we can create smarter devices with simpler more intuitive UIs. Gesture UIs for medicine are envisioned and tested already several years.  Rehabilitation, aids for handicapped etc, is another segment where smarter sensors will make change. The list of opportunities is very long. I have mentioned only a fraction. Just look around and you will find many.

I am looking for students at the MSc and PhD level who will be interested in joining the new team focusing on enabling all these capabilities. I’d like to apply old and study new algorithms improving and uncovering the sensors possibilities. I am interested in deep research with the clear vision for practical deployment. I am looking for people who are committed to show by building pilots the power of research. I want to build practical applications changing the way of live.

If you are interested let me know.

eClub - great presentation

Karel Janecek has visited  eClub. The presentation was streamed to nine locations. The total number of viewers is around 250. The response is fantastic.

Almost hundred people met in HUB Prague last Wednesday to meet Karel Janecek and listen to his RSJ computing story. Karel was great, with enthusiasm he has explained  the up and downs of his company crowned by phenomenal success. RSJ algorithmic trading is the market maker at two major stock markets London and Boston. The importance of education especially mathematics for running technological startup is the most valuable message. Karel is a scientist in is heart: “If I did not start my company I would have end up in a research institution” he says. The presentation was very lively with lot of interesting details. At the end Karel answered many questions and met a lot of viewers for a personal talk. If you missed the presentation find the video on eCl;ub pages. Great success.

We will meet Jan Sova owner of the Workswell startup next Wednesday. The MediaLab, which is the eClub sponsor,  helped with a small sum of money to his success. He is going to show the practical side of running startup in the Czech Republic. He will explain the legal requirements to run a startup. His company develops HW too and this is requiring extra law compliance. This time we will meet again at the Karolovo namesti. We will record the presentation. You will find it at the usual place.

eClub has funded seven top teams from the winter 2011 competition. All received mentors and scholarship for three months. We are approaching the first check point. The mentor and the eClub representative will review the progress and decide about further funding. So far all the teams are doing well.

We are planning new competition for the best startup project again. I hope, we will see lot of new teams and especially lot of new ideas. The competition has the following steps steps:

• Register
• Dry run
• The presentation in front of an international jury. 
• win, get seed money and execute

The dry run is a sort of a test, you will find how well you can explain your idea. Your performance in front of the crowd will also bring you first feedback and in many cases it will help you to improve the business idea. In the final presentation session the international jury will select the winning teams. Winners will receive a mentor and get a scholarship for the summer to develop their projects. I am also hoping we will attract students from other locations to enter the competition. Register the team on our pages, please, it is really simple. Entering the competition you can not lose you can only win. We need to know what needs to be prepared for dry run. See you next Wednesday at Karlovo namesti.

eClub strikes again

See the opening eClub 2012 presentation. It shows the eClub goals, program of presentations, explains the competition and awards.

I have opened next round of the eClub on Wednesday. The presentation explains the eClub basic: the main goals and how can students benefit from joining us. I have introduces all our great speakers. I also have looked a the rules for entering the competition. They are still very simple, therefore it is easy to enter the competition. You can not loose anything, you can only win. Presentation lists the scholarships as a form of seed money. Every winner will also benefit from a mentor. The number of mentors who cooperate with us constantly grows.

I was very happy to find that almost all students joining the first presentation were new to the eClub. They had many good questions at the end. Check the eClub program page, I will soon publish the video recording. Vojta Meta TV is still working on it. We have also welcomed Petr Koci from lupa.cz. Read his interesting article describing our first meeting.

The best at the end. Next Wednesday presents Karel Janecek, who is going to tell us about the importance of high education and research for creating a successful startup.
This presentation is opening a new page in the eClub history. We will be streaming to many sites at universities across our country. I am very happy the community of students interested in startups grows.

See you next Wednesday, Feb 29 at 18:00 we will meet in HUB. Prepare good questions. The presentation will be followed by networking. Do not forget, the refreshment will be served …

eClub starts this Wednesday

eClub schedule 

eClub starts with the opening presentation on Wednesday 22.2.2012. Let’s hope this magic date will be sign of a successful series. In the first presentation I would like to inform all our fans about what we are offering in the coming series. 
For eClub newbies: the main mission is to bring together students enthusiastic about new technologies, innovation and entrepreneurship. We want to help students who want to change their dreams to reality, to a product, help others, be successful and earn money.

Presentations at two different places.

Join us! We have great speakers in the coming series. You will learn about the success and the misstates too. Each session is followed by networking, come and meet people with the same interest! See the schedule we will meet at two places: HUB and the traditional CVUT FEL location. We are inviting students and friends from other Czech universities for three presentations from HUB Prague. These presentations will be streamed.  We have to do lot of preparations. We had to work with local champions and locate suitable rooms, prepare advertising, publish on blogs and in media etc. We have tested the streaming on Tuesday to make sure all is in place.  Our friends from streamhosting.cz are helping us with setting up the video. We have tried to stream the video in HD quality and all the data lines sustained the bandwidth. Keep the finger crossed to not get surprised during the transmission. We want to deliver a top experience.

As in the last series we also will record all sessions. The HUB recordings will show on the web with a one week delay. We will try to put the CVUT presentations on web as soon as we can. The HUB presentations will be delayed by one week, because we want to get all students at universities together to discuss with the speaker and network after the show. We want to make very lively idea exchange.

Join the competition!

Similarly as in the previous series we will have a competition for the best startup idea. The rules for joining the competition are quite simple. The first rule is: at least one student of a Czech university in a team. Certainly the PhD. students are mostly welcomed too. If you were successful in other startup competition do not enter, let the chance opened for starting teams. The winning teams will get a scholarship for three months during summer to work on their projects. We will fund maximum two students in a team and the award will be between 15-5K/month. We will also try to get you a mentor and this is even bigger value. We constantly work with our industrial partners to get more donations to CVUT Medialab Foundation. May be you will be surprised as in the last series. We got very lucky, in the last minute Czech ICT Alliance helped us funding seven teams. They are currently working on their projects. To join the competition we ask you to register your project. Do not hesitate, even if your project is not ready and polished. eClub is here to help you to bring up your project. We are also looking forward to see teams from other than Prague universities in our competition. If you are interested let me know. I will answer all questions and will help with the organization.

Learn in eClub.

Learn from our sessions, we will show case studies of different startups to give you motivation for your own projects. Hear from successful entrepreneurs what to do in the initial phases of the startup.  See the links on our eClub pages with some helpful links. We would like to help you to deliver best performance in front of our international jury. All teams will have a chance for a dry run of their presentation to test how it feels and how to put together a catchy presentation. Register, come and deliver the presentation, you will get a very helpful feedback, viewers will ask you questions and this will help you clarify your idea. The teams will also be able to get feedback from their peers to improve the pitch.

Work with us!

I am looking forward to see you next Wednesday. I will try to explain the details, present the speakers and comment how the program was put together and what is the focus. Prepare your questions, because I am also looking forward for questions and suggestions. Come to join us and take your friends with you.

eClubs starts in two weeks

eClub starts with a new series of presentations and the Best Startup Project competition. We have a great news. Students at universities in Brno, Ostrava, Olomouc, Hradec Kralove and Zlin are joining us. 

I have managed to get together a list of very attractive speakers for this eClub round, see below. As usual we will be meeting on Wednesdays. The big news is: three presentations (blue boxes) will take place in the homely HUB, Prague environment, the rest as usual at CVUT. I believe, we will attract larger crowd of students and their friends. On top of that I am very happy to announce we will stream the three selected presentations to universities in Brno, Ostrava, Olomouc, Hradec Kralove and Zlin. We will list the Universities and the locations on the eClub pages very soon. I am sure, all the new locations and students will make the competition for the best startup plan even more challenging and I am looking forward to share the presentations and new ideas with more enthusiastic people. Spread the news and join us. please.

22.2. Jan Sedivy Introduction, What is eClub, what will you learn, what can you get, how are we going to be organized in this semester.

29.2. Karel Janecek RSJ algoritmic trading owner. The presentation will show the importance of high education and research for creating a successful startup. This will be demonstrated on a phenomenal success of the RSJ algorithmic trading.

7.3. Jan Sova Workswell.cz CVUT Media Lab helped starting this company. Jan is going to tell us how is his company organized and you will also learn what are the basic legal requirements. 

14.3. Jakub Nesetril apiary.io After he has been working in the web industry for 15 years as a developer, team leader, director and product manager, he lives his dream of 90-hour work-weeks as a founder of a web startup, now. Come to learn how to do it too.

21.3. Jan Zdarsa google.com. will visit us and show all the magics of AdWords. How to promote your application, attract more users, boost your sales ...

28.3. Jan Rezab Social Bakers owner. This presentation will describe the initial startup steps. Good idea, creating a team, developing the first application and getting funding. The Social Baker received 2.5 mil USD and is rapidly growing.

4.4. First Demo Day this is the dry run of all new teams, with new projects

11.4. Daniel Franz unisona.com. Some soft skills for you. Dan will tell us how to create well working team, how to successfully communicate in the team and customers too.

18.4. Olda Neuberger libimseti.cz How to build a 30 people company, miss the selling sweet point and than shrink it back to 10. Case study.

25.4. Patrick Zandl the editor in chief of Lupa.cz is following the the Czech Internet startup and the whole community from the early beginnings and will show the up and downs of the most important players. He will also present his future visions.

2.5. Marek Johanes  How to create a new startup and how to grow it, what are the employees benefits, what are the employees options, how to distribute them, how much is your company worth. 

9.5. Demo day presentations of the teams competing for the awards

16.5. Announcing winners

Create a new mobile app – first steps

This blog is listing and explaining the first steps for inventing and verifying a new mobile application. It shows the systematic steps you need to take before the coding should start.

There are hundreds of thousands of applications on iTunes or Android markets these days and it becomes more and more difficult to come up with a new idea. On the other hand there are many situations where simple and focused applications can help. Smaller communities of users may need very specialized or customized applications because of their job, hobby, disability etc. These are niche applications but world-wide they may address an interesting number of customers.

The motivation to write new apps may have different inspirations. Many developers are writing the applications for themselves. This is a fortunate situation since the developer understands very well the needs. Sometimes a developer is asked to write an app for his friends. This is also good, friends will be able to explain their needs and they will help with testing. Writing an application for a customer is a little bit more adventures. Customers sometimes do not know how to formulate the problem. Communication may be demanding. Agile software development is the answer, but requires cooperative customers. You may also spark an innovative idea. Everyday you face many situations and problems, which are difficult to solve or overcome. Make a note, may be a mobile app can solve them.

First, check the existing applications. It is very likely someone has already written an app you need. Finding and reviewing the apps is a tedious process. It is difficult to understand the functionality. They don’t come with a description, because they mostly rely on intuitive interfaces. To understand you would need to test them and this has its shortcomings. In many cases the apps are social or use data sharing. You must register and you need to find some friends who will cooperate, share the data. All this takes lot of time but it will help you to differentiate or enhance your new idea. Don't skip this step but do not spend too much time on it either. Remember your idea doesn’t need to be completely new, but it must bring at least some new features to be competitive.

If you don't find any existing app you may have hit a new idea. Start with describing it in the simplest terms. Select the application name and try to describe it using this template:

(project name) is developing (this offering) to help (an audience) solving (a problem).

Keep all very simple don’t start inventing new features. Work on a brief application description. Once the simple sentence is ready, explain your idea to your friends. Use web, twitter, blogs etc to get feedback. Explaining and getting feedback is the best way to understand the customer’s needs. Don't forget asking your friends for how much they would buy your product. You also may decide to provide the application for free for non-profit or humanitarian purposes. In any case you have to be sure someone will use it. Don’t be secretive. Many people have the same idea in the same time. Your task at this point is to make the problem formulation as simple as possible, understanding the essentials. You may need to modify the idea and repeat the process. What is the result? Either you will discover no one needs your app or you have a clear case.

Now, you know who are your customers, what they need and how much they would pay. The full featured application may have a lot of branches, it can be quite complex. We need to focus on basic features. Identify the essential action and its outcome. Sketch an app flow diagram describing a sequence of actions the user needs to go through to get the outcome.  To each action draw by hand a graphical elements. i.e. screens, buttons, pictures, icons, menus etc. Don't forget the errors pop ups, dialog boxes etc. The diagram will show the first scenario of your application.

Once the logistics is clear, it is the best time to try it on real users. Create the necessary buttons, text fields, etc. from the app flow diagram. Use some wire-frame tools, that let you create a clickable static screens. For example Keynotopia provides templates in Powerpoint for different apps. Export the screens in a clickable pdf and with a proper pdf reader you can simulate the whole app on a mobile device. HTML is also easy for creating static pages. Get back to your friends let them face your clickable mock up and observe how they accomplish the first simplest task. Get prepared, the interaction with the testers has two basic steps:

• Quickly explain the task. 
• Observe and note the problems.

Do the same with three to four people. It should be enough to discover the biggest design problems.  Fix the UI problems and do the same one more time. Most of the developers are skipping this stage. Don’t do it. This exercise will save you lot of time while coding.  You may repeat this stage several times but you will converge to a sensible solution. If you are patient and you successfully finish all the steps you are ready to start coding. As a reward you will produce much cleaner code.

I have reviewed very simple, known steps for inventing and testing usefulness of a new app. They may not apply for all apps, but they are showing how to systematically think about apps development. One more comment: this steps  don't need programming, but soft and organizational skills, therefore people with expertise in the targeted field will typically produce much better results then programmers.

The main reason why I have put this blog together is the course I’ll be teaching in the next semester. Students will learn the basic programming skills in Java. I believe, students need motivation, they need to understand what is the purpose of the course.  Main programming language for Android is Java and I hope, combining development of simple apps and learning Java will be attractive enough for most of them. I am really looking forward how this would work. Stay tuned I will be reporting how we are doing ...