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Nepal Summer 2018 Blog

Ncell and Kathmandu University
June 15, 2018 to Aug. 3, 2018

Program Pages

Week 5

Sisam Bhandari

Sept. 5, 2018

 

 

OVERVIEW


This is the detailed view of the fourth week of MIT GSL NEPAL. The fourth week was not a retreat week so we had classes from 5 - 9:30pm everyday including 1 hour of dinner;  Dinner was served after the class times. One thing that was different from the other weeks was that for the fourth week, we realized that many of the students needed more help with their business models. So we designated July 13-15 as a three day intense entrepreneurship course focused on their Primary Market Research to lean out the ideas. Kailash Bijayananda (CTO of Leapfrog), Abhash Thapa (Senior UI/UX Engineer), and Ankur Sharma (Director of UX at Expresiv Studios) came to give the fireside chat and feedback on studetns prototypes.




July 10: Tuesday


Tuesday was the first day of our fourth week classes. From the second week, we had the students do technical pitches to help them improve their pitching. For this Technical presentations, the students presented their learnings from the user testings that they did on their on paper prototypes. For more input on these presentations, we called Kailash Bijayananda (CTO of Leapfrog), Abhash Thapa (Senior UI/UX Engineer), and Ankur Sharma (Director of UX at Expresiv Studios) to get real feedback from their own experiences working in the technical field focusing on UI/UX. Along with feedback we also did a fireside chat with them.


July 11: Wednesday:


On Wednesday, we had a lesson on Version Control, now that the students’ next step would be to build a digital prototypes. We taught version control focusing on Git and GitHub along with a lab. The rest of the day consisted of the students starting their digital prototypes which they would present on the next technical presentation.


July 12: Thursday:


On Thursday, we had check-ins with each team separately to go over their thoughts and feeling about their journey as well as seeing how each team has progressed in the program. While each team was doing a check-in, other teams were in the classroom working on their Digital prototypes.



July 13 Friday - July 15 Sunday:  


We decided that July 13-15 was going to be a three day intense entrepreneurship course focused on their Primary Market Research to lean out the students ideas, since we realized the many ideas had problems that needed to be sorted out.

 

Week 4

Sisam Bhandari

Sept. 5, 2018

WEEK 4: Hotel Himalaya, July 17 - July 21

 

 

 

OVER VIEW

 

This is the detailed view of the fifth week of MIT GSL NEPAL. The fourth week was not a retreat week so we had classes from 5 - 9:30pm everyday including 1 hour of dinner;  Dinner was served after the class times. Saturday we have a full day of class from 9am - 5pm. The teams iterate on their web prototypes, learn heuristic evaluation, graphic design, and how to acquire a paying customer. 

 

July 17: Tuesday


Tuesday was the first day of our second week classes. From the second week, we had the students do technical pitches to help them improve their pitching. For this Technical presentations, the students presented digital prototypes. The instructos gave their feedback from their own experiences learning in the technical field focusing on UI/UX. 

 

 

July 18: Wednesday: 


On Wednesday, the students had their “Iron Gate presentations”, which was very serious because we wanted to know which teams were in the right path to building a feasible MVP with a business model. We invited MIT alumni, Sumana Shrestha for critique which helped the students a lot as she was very critical and observant. 

 

July 19: Thursday: 


On Thursday, We did a lesson on graphic design and layout and expanded on learnablilty. We also had check-ins with each team separately to go over their thoughts and feeling about their journey as well as seeing how each team has progressed in the program. While each team was doing a checkin, other teams were in the classroom working on their Digital prototypes. 

 

July 20 Friday: 


On Friday, the entrepreneurship lesson on dilemmas in founding New Ventures was taught. 

 

July 21: Saturday: 


On Saturday, we had technical check ins with each times while other teams worked on their digital prototypes. Then, we continued to a presentation workshop that focoused on soft skills needed for their upcomding demo day. Then we had lunch then went on to continue with public speaking activities. Then the entrepreneurship lesson on TAM size of follow on markets was taught along with designing a business model. Later in the day we invided a guest speaker, Mr. Shiva Dhakal for a fireside chat. 

 

Week 3

Sisam Bhandari

Sept. 5, 2018

Week 3: Hotel Himalaya, July 3 - July 7

MIT GSL Instructors pose for a picture with the CEO of Tootle, Sixit Bhatta after his fireside chat. 

OVER VIEW

 This is the detailed view of the third week of MIT GSL NEPAL. The third week was not a retreat week so we had classes from 5 - 9:30pm everyday including 1 hour of dinner;  Dinner was served after the class times. The technical instruction took place on alternating days from the entrepreneurship instruction because we believed it would be more beneficial for the students to have continuous instruction on either technical or entrepreneurship on a specific day. On Saturdays we had class from 9am - 7pm; with technical instruction in the mornings and entrepreneurship in the evenings.

 

July 3: Tuesday

 

Tuesday was the first day of our second week classes. From the second week, we had the students do technical pitches to help them improve their pitching. The paper prototypes from last week did not meet our expectations so we had the students re do their paper prototypes over the weekend and present on tuesday. For the presentations, we gave feedback for each team and gave a demo on user testing. The rest of the day was for the teams to work on their one final paper prototype that they could test on users on the upcoming thursday. 

 

July 4: Wednesday: 


On Wednesday, the day consisted of entrepreneurship lesson. 

 

July 5: Thursday: 


On Thursday, we had the students do user testing on the instructors and their peers where each team member had different roles to assist with the user testing of their paper prototypes. After the first user-testing, the students received feedback and we gave them some time to implement changes in their paper prototypes and then led another set of user testing 

 

July 6 Friday: 


On Fridays, we have Entrepreneurship Presentations from the students. 

 

July 7: Saturday:

On Saturday we have both technical and entrepreneurship lessons; We have the technical lessons before the entrepreneurship for the same reasons mentioned before in week one. Technically, we focused on the students paper prototypes and gave them feedback on their prototypes through more user testing on their paper prototypes. After Lunch we held a tshirt  design competition .

 

Schedule for the week 3:

Here are a few memories from the week:

 

Week 1: Gokarna Forest Resort Retreat

Sisam Bhandari

Sept. 5, 2018

Gorkarna Forest Resort, June 16-24, 2018

MIT GSL studetns pose for a picture! 

The First week, the students and the instructors lived in Gokarna Forest Resort. We had classes and activities every day for that week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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WEEK ONE: GOKARNA FOREST RESORT OVERVIEW: 

This is the detailed view of the first week of MIT GSL NEPAL. The first week was a retreat where the 35 students were required to stay with us in Gokarna Forest resort for 8 days, 7 nights. We had classes from 9-7 everyday including 1 hour of lunch; Breakfast andDinner were respectively before and after the class times. The technical instruction took place earlier than the entrepreneurship instruction because we believed the students would be more energetic in the morning and more responsive to coding/programming exercises and labs. After the Technical lessons, we all had lunch and proceeded to the entrepreneurship lesson until dinner.

June 16. Saturday:

 

We all arrived in Saturday to Gokarna Forest Resort which is only 10 kilometers from Kathmandu. We had a talk from Saman that day, and left the rest of the day to get to know each other; The instructors gave presentations of themselves.

 

June 17: Sunday:

 

On Sunday, we had our first Fireside chat with Professor Rupesh from Kathmandu University. After the fireside chat, we had our first technical lesson. We started Introduction to Python and helped students with their first python Lab.

 

June 18: Monday:

 

On Monday, we continued with python. We gave a lesson on Variable Data types, and Data structures including lists, and dictionaries. The students also had to complete corresponding python labs.

 

June 19: Tuesday:

 

On Tuesday, we continued with python yet again. We gave a lesson on Control Structures, and Functions. The students also had to complete corresponding python labs.

 

June 20: Wednesday:

 

On Wednesday, our technical lesson focus was on Web development. The students learned HTML, JS, and CSS overview and the lab consisted of a exercise where they had to make their first website HTML, JS and CSS.

 

June 21: Thursday:

 

On Thursday we continued with a deeper dive into Web-development where we taught students more about how JS can be used to make  static website into a dynamic website.

 

June 22: Friday:

 

On Friday, we continued with the Web development theme. We gave a lesson on web frameworks such and introduced the students to use jquery and bootstrap. We helped them learned the and practical aspects of web frameworks through the lab.

 

Schedule for the week at Gokarna:

Here are a few memories from the week:

Something very cool we did was go on a forest walk. It was really nice and a calming experience!

In the resort, we found some deer and monkeys. Side note: A monkey entered my room!

On top of all the activities we did together, for most of the day, we learned! 

MIT GSL NEPAL WEEK 2

Sisam Bhandari

July 17, 2018

MIT GSL NEPAL WEEK 2, June 26 - June 30, 2018

Sisam gives feedback to the students after their first Technical Presentation in week 2. 

 

 

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OVERVIEW

This is the detailed view of the second week of MIT GSL NEPAL. The second week was not a retreat week so we had classes from 5 - 9:30pm everyday including 1 hour of dinner;  Dinner was served after the class times. The technical instruction took place on alternating days from the entrepreneurship instruction because we believed it would be more beneficial for the students to have continuous instruction on either technical or entrepreneurship on a specific day. On Saturdays we had class from 9am - 7pm; with technical instruction in the mornings and entrepreneurship in the evenings. 

 

 

June 26: Tuesday

 

Tuesday was the first day of our second week classes. From the second week, we had the students do technical pitches to help them improve their pitching. We also had a lesson on Introduction to User Interface Design. 

 

June 27: Wednesday: 


On Wednesday, we continued UI lesson, focusing on the Under centered design and helped the students start on their Paper prototypes which they would later present. The homework for this week was to overall prepare for their next weeks technical presentation including their 12 paper prototypes per team and a presentation. 

 

June 28: Thursday: 


On Thursday, we had the fireside chat with Dr. Tshering Lama and the Entrepreneurship lesson. 

 

June 29: Friday: 


On Fridays, we have Entrepreneurship Presentations from the students. 

 

June 30: Saturday:


On Friday we have both technical and entrepreneurship lessons; We have the technical lessons before the entrepreneurship for the same reasons mentioned before in week one. On Saturday we focused on the students paper prototypes and gave them feedback on their prototypes. We also had user testing on their paper prototypes which allowed them to get more feedback from the instructors as well as their peers.  

Here are a few memories from the week :

The students recieved "Disciplined Entrepreneurship" by Bill Aulet.

Dr. Tshering Lama came and gave an amazing "fireside talk" to the students. 

Jackie and Suresh give a talk in Idea Studio. 

We went to Sangha, to visit the tallest Shiva statue in the world.

Jackie and the students discussing about technical content.

Opening Ceremony

Sisam Bhandari

July 3, 2018

Opening Ceremony, June 15, 2018

"WE MADE IT!"... We made it on the Himalayan Times.  

The opening ceremony was held in the Hyatt on June 15th, 2018. We met lots of amazing people on this day: The most important being our 34 accepted students! However, we also met one student who was not accepted but came all the to the opening ceremony and pitched himself to us; Since we had one spot open, we gave it to him. Other amazing people we met on this day include the MIT alumni in Nepal, distingushed professors of Kathmandu University, current entrepreneurs of Nepal and representatives of NCELL. 

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Here are a few memories from the day:

Jackie and Sisam get ready in Nepali formal clothes for the Opening Ceremony.

Sisam, Jackie, Mala, Suresh, and Hem at the Opening Ceremony. 

Sisam, Jackie, Suresh, and Hem at the Opening Ceremony.