Youth Entrepreneurship Service (YES) 2.0
Class 2: From Idea to Product

Time and Place

8:30am - 12:30pm, 3/10/2007, Saturday, Room E51-345, 3rd floor, MIT Tang Center, 70 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA (Map). There is a parking lot next to the building.

Agenda

  • 08:30 - 09:00 Get Ready
  • 09:00 - 09:15 Program Updates
  • 09:15 - 10:15 First Session by Instructor Eric Silberstein
  • 10:15 - 10:25 Break, Student Networking
  • 10:25 - 11:30 Second Session by Instructor Eric Silberstein
  • 11:30 - 12:00 Speech from Speaker Michael Y. Lu
  • 12:00 - 12:30 Speech from Speaker Mark Gelfand

Instructor

Eric Silberstein - Chief Technology Officer, Founder & Chairman

Eric Silberstein founded Idiom in 1998 and is the company's visionary, focusing on globalization practices and product direction. He takes personal responsibility for customer relations and for maintaining a company culture that is committed to customer success and team enrichment.

While completing his Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science at Harvard University, Silberstein served on the founding team of Chipshot.com as vice president of technology. During summer positions at Microsoft, first in the Redmond office and then in their Beijing office, Silberstein worked on the localization of Microsoft Word. Silberstein has founded and directed several volunteer youth programs, travels extensively in Europe and Asia, and speaks Chinese and Russian.

Speaker

Michael Y. Lu - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

As the founder and CEO of the Company, Mr. Lu continues to serve as the Company's visionary and driving force in commercializing the MailDefender and bringing the product to mass market. Prior to establishing BioDefense Corp., Mr. Lu was the founder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President of two successful start-ups - Medical OnLine, Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts, and Laser Medical Corporation in Burlington, Massachusetts. Through both of these ventures, Mr. Lu was instrumental in developing the initial products, closing multi-million-dollar U.S. and international sales transactions, creating profitable operations, and directly investing and raising more than $70 million in investment capital.

Mr. Lu started his career at Siemens as a systems software engineer, and then went on to become a senior systems engineer in the Computer Engineering Advanced Development Division of Honeywell Corporation. Mr. Lu has obtained three U.S. patents, as well as a number of international patents. He did his graduate and advanced studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School. His research focused on computer image and graph processing as well as speech and vision recognition, radiology, magnetic resonance imaging, advanced x-ray, CT, and nuclear imaging. Mr. Lu received a B.S. from the University of Massachusetts, earned straight A's from the MIT Graduate School, and earned two graduate degrees in Robotics Engineering and Computer Sciences, both from Harvard University.

Mark Gelfand

Mr. Gelfand grew up near Cleveland, Ohio. He attended Carnegie-Mellon University, earning a BS in Physics in 1973. After graduation, he worked at the National Bureau of Economic Research as a computer programmer for the Troll econometric modeling system. In 1979, he co-founded Integrated Planning, Inc., which produced software that combined econometrics and marketing analysis. He co-founded Intex Solutions, Inc., in 1985, which has become a leading supplier of analytical solutions for the structured finance markets.

His personal and philanthropic interests promote connecting students with science, engineering, and electronics. His three sons are in or have graduated college.

Lecture Slides/Abstract

Download lecture slides here (to be uploaded soon).

References

Homework

  • Download and browse through Business Plan Homework Template or a simplified version here
  • Prepare questions for next class "Company Structure and Team Building"
  • Finalize the business idea and start to draft the product/service section

Contact Us

Send your questions to daryl.luk@necina.org or erika@whizkidsfoundation.org.