A bundle of mixed emotions engulfed me as I made my way to the train station en-route to Manchester airport for our flight to Heathrow. I was nervous, as I did not know anyone travelling on this trip except for a few familiar faces. As soon as I reached the train station, there were already a few fellow travellers. As we began chatting, the nervousness slowly turned into excitement as I realized all of them were in the same boat as me! It was a relieving to find out that most of them were very friendly!
After a good long 12 hours, we landed in Boston and were greeted by a very chilly evening. Another hour long journey until we reached 40 Berkeley- home for the next 5 days! We were all really tired and it was not until the next morning it hit me that we are finally here!!
Having always wanting to visit this country, I was grateful for this opportunity. This trip was a bonus as not only it is a chance to visit America but also learn about entrepreneurship in the most innovative country in the world!
The first day of our trip was a visit to Boston University, a large private university in the heart of the city. In the United States, education system is different from the United Kingdom where most universities are private. We were given a special tour around the university during which the staff shared more about Boston University. We were told that about half of the student population in Boston University engages in study abroad programs, which was impressive! It was fascinating to observe the diversity of old and new buildings around the campus. After the university tour, we had the opportunity to have lunch at the student cafeteria. There was an array of dishes from Asian cuisine to Mexican dishes served there and we were left free to indulge our taste buds!
Later in the day, we were invited to a Lancaster alumni event, which was held at the Boston University Castle. We heard an engaging talk by a professor in Boston University on the startup ecosystem as well as venture capitalists. He highlighted the recent technological ventures around the area and some of the technological developments he finds interesting such as educational technology. It was such an honor meeting Lancaster alumni who were so generous in sharing their experiences with us!
Day 2 was another university visit to Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). Before visiting the actual campus itself, we visited an outstanding innovation space, Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives (MBI). MBI provides affordable office and lab spaces, support and potential for commercialization for innovators. WPI is one of the pioneers in project-based learning and it also offered the first robotics-engineering program in the United States being the epicenter of robotics in the nation! It was truly a thrilling experience in WPI to witness the intersection between entrepreneurship with biomedical sciences and robotics! We also had the opportunity to interact with the President and the Vice President of the Entrepreneurship Society at WPI over lunch where they shared more about how student life is in the US and entrepreneurship events at WPI.
Our trip continued on day 3 with a visit to two outstanding businesses in this area; Dyn and Acquia. New Hampshire is an area with rich entrepreneurial history and one of the most successful being McDonalds that was founded here by Richard and Maurice McDonald! Both these visits provided us with massive insights into the technological companies Massachusetts is renowned for. Dyn focuses on traffic management as well as works on creating an optimal user experience on the internet. Their impressive client list includes the likes of Twitter, Spotify and LinkedIn. We also were fortunate to receive career advice from the recruitment leader as well as the chief marketing officer of Dyn over lunch. Acquia, another successful business is a company that provides support for open source web content management platform, Drupal. This essentially means they allow large operation launch websites such as Olympics, Al-Jazeera, Grammy’s and even Lady Gaga’s website! We were also given an in depth talk on how Acquia started from the initial phase market research to pricing criteria – a real example of how a software company develops and expands.
Day 4 was a fun-filled free day to explore the city of Boston!
A trip to Boston would not be complete without walking down the Freedom trail, which was a 4.0 km path through Boston that passes by 16 significant historical locations. We had so much fun being our own tour guides walking down the Freedom trail and taking turns to read about the historical significance of each location along the way.
We later had lunch Faneuil Hall that was part of the Freedom Trail which now operates as an indoor/outdoor mall and food eatery. The wide array of selection was a delight that includes dishes from every part of the world!
Day 5 was a relaxing day for us where we started with some shopping at Newbury Street- a street lined with historic 19th century brownstones with hundreds of shops and restaurants! We later visited one of the most famous universities in the world- Harvard University! The picturesque view of the buildings along the Harvard Yard was a magnificent sight and we later stopped by at the famous Harvard Bookstore.
All in all, the 5 days in Boston was truly an exciting learning adventure filled with picturesque views, valuable business insights and certainly great fun! Our USA trip continues with Part 2: Adventure in the City that Never Sleeps!