January 10th & 11th - Barcelona Activa, KIC Innoenergy & KING Videogame

Day 3:

This when the exhaustion really began to hit me, but I did my absolute best to persevere! I was especially excited for this day because I had done the company overview on Barcelona Activa with Ilya, and looked forward to hearing about how they operate on a day to day basis. I appreciated having done the company overviews at this point because it is important to walk into these sorts of environments with some sort of knowledge in order to better align and prepare and questions or comments you may have.

The resources provided by this organization really emphasized providing opportunity and service to the citizens of Barcelona in order to create a more sustainable and progressive economy in this city. I love this idea and find this common theme of building up the economy, and stimulating it's development through offering programs to enrich and teach those looking to start innovative new business ventures. I loved seeing how many people were attending these training seminars, because often times, people do not want to take the time to learn and acquire the skills needed to make them the most efficient in their sectors (speaking moreso about the American milennial generation). This also leads me to think about how technology and internet capabilities have allowed for the process of acquiring and learning how to manage aspects of a business are way more accessible to society now than they have been in the past.

Hutchinson's Port was such an exciting experience for me because I have seen a great number of ports on television and in the news, and never thought about it's operations or the service it actually provides. I think it is interesting to think about how technology and workers of the port worked together in order to provide a more effective means for the port's operations. You would typically think that automation on it's own would provide the most effective means of productivity, but here it was not the case. The tour guide explained that in order for the port to operate at top productivity, that the two must work mutually for the greatest result.

KIC Innoenergy gave me an insight to what funding businesses looks like from the venture capitalist point of view. This was especially significant to me in that I have goals of starting my own business in the future, so very much so needed to understand how funding works on both ends of the spectrum, the investor and the startup.

Day 4:

I have never actually played Candy Crush in my life, so almost underestimated how impactful this particular meeting was going to be for me. King Videogames absolutely solidified for me, the importance of advancing with technology in order to maintain and advance in your industry, regardless of whether you prefer it or not. If you do not, you or your industry can very much so become obsolete. I have dabbled in and out of programming and coding, but it is something I have struggled to stay consistent in. After meeting with King Videogames, I now see and understand fully, the amount of value that it holds, especially in moving forward in this technologically advancing age that we are currently in.

The facilities at King were exactly the type of culture and environment that I strive for in a professional setting. It is very comparable to Tech City, in that it is promoting the diversity and creativity of those engulfed in the resources it has to offer. Though important to an extent, I appreciate them not being concerned with the appearance of a worker externally (aesthetically; referencing to casual dress code - Ferran's nose piercing specifically) and being more concerned in what they internally are willing to learn, and can offer a business or organization. Both Ferran and Xavi were excellent speakers, and taught me a great deal as far as Data Science and being an Agile Manager. Learning about different metrics and models that real world businesses use in order for the greatest output was so important to me, because it gave me a perspective of Marketing outside of the typical classroom setting. This was by far my favorite presentation of the week.