Saket Vora

Man, what a busy awesome few days. On Wednesday morning I met with a group of MBA students from Oxford. They were visiting the Bay Area, and a mentor of theirs is from Stanford who told them about BASES. In particular, these MBA students were very interested in social entrepreneurship, so officers with the Social E-Challenge met them for breakfast along with Parul and Peter (the leaders of two semi-finalist teams in this year’s competition) to talk about social enterprise, what BASES does on campus, etc.  Great group of folks coming from a variety of backgrounds, who asked good questions and we got to learn about some neat programs that Oxford has.

In the afternoon, I had an opportunity to chat with Steve Baker, a writer for BusinessWeek (and author of The Numerati). Steve was visiting Stanford to learn about what entrepreneurial minded students were up to these days amid an economic climate, and BASES was a natural place to start. I also invited three other Stanford entrepreneurs to give Steve a diverse look at the kinds of ideas people are pursuing…with a bent towards social ventures of course. Steve was wonderful to talk with — easy going, perceptive, and curious. Props to Eli for making the intro. 

On Thursday I was to have coffee in the morning with a colleague of a VC friend of mine, but it fell through. But in the afternoon, Nick Anderson from UNC stopped by campus. Nick is a remarkable senior at Carolina – interested in development, energy issues, and social enterprise. I had worked (only marginally, admittedly) on a solar installer idea that Nick was submitting to the Carolina Challenge, and we have several mutual friends. Nick was actually admitted to Stanford as a senior, but chose Carolina. We did a walk and talk around campus and talked about future plans.

On Friday, I had a lunch discussion at the Mayfield offices. I was invited by a recent Stanford colleague who works there now, and he gathered some other Stanford students to talk about opportunities in power and smart grid space. It was an engaging discussion – I was impressed at the level of knowledge around the table, from the business case to the engineering. I was the one with the least experience there…I’ve got to match my passion and interest in this space with some actual projects and experiences.

Back on campus, I spent the afternoon talking with Mark and Jennie. Dr. Johnson was in town for the Materials Research Society conference in San Francisco, and they had come down to visit Stanford. We had coffee at the Cantor Art Center then spent the rest of the time walking around campus, taking advantage of the superb weather. It was so great to catch up with them — we talked about NC State, about smart grids and energy opportunities, about the FREEDM center, about schools, etc. Mark is truly into energy research now and is very well connected. I always learn a lot from talking with him and Jennie. 

After they left, I went over to White Plaza where they had a big art exhibit going with live music. Met up with Amit there, and we ran into Kamal, Jimmy, Nader, and even Jonathan. Buca di Beppo was being catered in so we scored a free meal too. Afterward Amit and I hit up the ‘energy social’ gathering at the Sigma Nu house, and I got to meet three new people – onewas a Stanford student working at the Hewlett Foundation and interested in climate change policy and social enterprise (she knew Josh of FrontlineSMS:Medic, Nathaniel Whittemore at Northwestern, Acumen Fund, etc); one was visiting Stanford Law School from ASU and is a Truman Scholar interested in public policy and politics, and the other was a Sigma Nu in in economics & math and MS&E who did a summer at McKinsey and will be joining their SF office after graduation. Good times. 

Even at a place as out-of-this-world as Stanford, you don’t get a lot of days like these, at least for me.