Meet a Sandboxer: Rajeeb Dey
Rajeeb Dey is founder & CEO of Enternships.com. He is 24 years old and based in London. Rajeeb graduated with First Class Honours in June 2008 from the University of Oxford in Economics & Management. Whilst at University he was the longest serving President of Oxford Entrepreneurs, one of the largest networks of student entrepreneurs in Europe. Rajeeb on Facebook and Twitter and Enternships.com on Facebook and Twitter.
Tell us the story of your latest project / occupation
Enternships.com started as a simple listing service which I set up as President of Oxford Entrepreneurs (one of the largest networks of student entrepreneurs in Europe). Companies were approaching me to advertise opportunities as they were keen to reach entrepreneurial candidates. Over time it became evident that more and more small companies wanted to reach students and with no proactive marketing, word of mouth led to over 160 placements being advertised.
I realised that Small & Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) struggle to find talent and lack the recruitment budgets of “blue-chip firms” to undertake the traditional ‘milkround’. Enternships therefore provides these companies with visibility on campus and serves as a central place for start-ups to reach out to talent.
What are you doing and how did you get there?
I caught the entrepreneurial bug at a young age. At the age of 17, I became the Founder & Chairman of the English Secondary Students’ Association (ESSA)the first national student run organisation empowering secondary school students, giving them a voice in education. This gave me my first experience in enterprise (in ESSA’s case a social enterprise) and since then I didn’t look back and knew I would always look to do ‘my own thing.’
I spend a lot of time outside of Enternships engaging in community and voluntary work, especially promoting entrepreneurship and my work in promoting entrepreneurship has led to me becoming one of the first Ambassadors for the Enterprise UK’s “Make Your Mark Campaign”. My other roles include being a Trustee of UnLtd – the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs; Trustee of the Phoenix Education Trust; a Commissioner on the Carnegie UK Trust’s Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society; Education Advisory Board Member for Channel 4; and an Advisory Board Member of the UK-India Business Council (UKIBC).
Tell us about the biggest successes and failures in your life. What worked, what didn’t, and what did you learn?
I am not sure I’ve had monumental success or failures as yet; I make mistakes all the time but I do not consider them as ‘failures’ per se. I am still very early on in my entrepreneurial journey and it is not as though I’ve done something so monumental I’m in a position to retire…nevertheless I suppose one success would be to have got ESSA off the ground aged 17 and to a position where we now employ 5 members of staff and work with thousands of school students across the country. I could not have done this however without the support of people around me such as Anna Leatherdale from the Phoenix Education Trust who worked tirelessly alongside me to support me along the way and take a lot of the administrative burden away from me (as I was in full-time education during the time I was working to launch the organisation).
In terms of mistakes to date I suppose one is not having found myself a technical Co-Founder for Enternships. As an internet business it is clear to me I really have to have someone on board who is fully aligned with the vision and can focus totally on developing a world-class platform and complement my skill set. It is something I am rectifying now however I would say that the development of Enternships has definitely been slowed down by the fact I do not have the technical expertise in-house.
What do you want to achieve in the next week, the next year, the next 10 years?
I am on the hunt for a technical co-founder/lead developer to join me – this is my number one priority and if I can find one within the next week then that’d be amazing (though not realistic I know!) Within the next year (more precisely next six months) I will be looking to raise a round of Angel investment to help me scale up Enternships and ensure that the hundreds and thousands of graduates entering the bleak jobs market are aware of our service. In the next 10 years I want to have created a new word – so that doing an ‘enternship’ enters the dictionary and have exited the business and started my next venture
What was your most inspiring moment during the last two weeks?
A couple of weeks back I had the great privilege of being part of the British Council’s TN2020 Network Summit in Chicago. TN2020 is a network of leaders aged 25-35 from Europe and North America who look at ways of strengthening international relations between the two regions. I met some amazing people and heard some inspirational speakers including Brad Keywell (Founder of an extremely successful US startup called Groupon). In his talk he spoke about his numerous ventures and his attitude towards risk, failure, mentoring and entrepreneurship. Brad is a serial entrepreneur who has an admirable track record, his talk really resonated with me and he was a true inspiration. You can hear a part of Brad’s talk (in particular his view on mentoring) in my friend’s Chris’ blog.
How could other Sandboxers and the outside world support you and why would that be exciting for them?
Firstly if you know someone who may wish to join me as a Technical Co-Founder that’d be immensely helpful; introductions to potential angel investors are always welcome too!
Other than that we’re always on the look out for people to spread the word about Enternships and whilst we do not have the capacity to be in every country from day 1; we have a network of great Country Advisors who are passionate about start-ups/entrepreneurship and love the Enternships vision and mission and want to help us spread the word. In return you get to be part of an awesome community of people and be part of the ‘Enternships family’ (and hence get a warm fuzzy feeling ) You will also be part of creating a new word in the dictionary!
Over time there will be more formal opportunities to help us expand in new regions so always on the lookout for supporters and partners.
Rajeeb’s favorites:
-Book: I rarely finish a whole book – terrible I know!
-Movie: 3 Idiots (a Bollywood movie which touches upon problems related to the education system) -Place on earth: home!
-Travel destination during last year: India
-Food: Thai (seafood in particular)
-Drink: Mango lassi (which is basically an Indian mango smoothie!)
-Quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi
Weekly inspiration #40: Be an optimist
Over the weekend, I read a long interview [German only] with author Matt Ridley, who just published his book «The Rational Optimist». In it, Ridley argues that humanity’s progress not only has been remarkable over the last 45′000 years or so, but that the chances that we will continue on that path are very good - and that humanity will therefore be able to solve all the looming problems that lie ahead, from climate change to overpopulation and energy shortages.
I haven’t had a chance to read the book yet, but it has been widely reviewed. Most reviewers try to poke holes into Ridleys overly optimistic view. And there certainly is a lot to critize: Ridley’s argument that the driving force of all human progress is trade, and that periods of slow innovation where caused by governmental overregulation is simplistic at best (especially considering that Matt Ridley was chairman of British bank Northern Rock which went bankrupt in 2008). Ridley also excludes much of the 20th century and its devastating war from his happy history of human progress.
But if Ridley is right or wrong on certain issues is not even the point. I found reading about his book very refreshing, if only because it provides a counterargument to all the doomsayers that seem to be everywhere since the financial crisis started. Of course, we also need the pessimists: They point out the problems we may than try to solve. But it does seem to me that, especially at the moment, we could use some more optimists. We need innovation to tackle challenges - and innovation, I believe, needs optimism.
It might be naive to suggest, as David Eagleman does, that the internet will literally be the solution to most of humanity’s problems. And I’m not sure if Jamais Cascio is right when he proclaims that the humanity (thanks to internet, and drugs) is constantly getting smarter. But each of these statements contains at least some truth - and that’s enough to feel optimistic about the outlook we have.
What makes you feel optimistic? Or do you feel that optimism is misguided?
Nico is one Sandbox’ co-founders. He feels it’s easy to be optimistic when the summer is as beautiful as it currently is in Zurich.
From The Sandbox: Nollywood: touched by a figurine
Every day, our community manager Katrin Winiarski, reads through her feed of all Sandboxers’ blog posts. Every Thursday, she chooses the most inspiring, funny or brilliant one and reposts it on this blog. This post has been written by Sandboxer Onyeka Nwelue. This is only a shortened version, the original version can be found here.
I travelled down to Nigeria from Delhi to attend the 2010 AMAA Awards. I got tickets and went for the glamorous event. I was not disappointed. Even as the event started late, I was impressed by the organisation of the event. More support should be given to the organisers and I also believe that such Jury should be sustained. They were, in my opinion, very fair.
The Figurine, directed by Kunle Afolayan went home with the biggest number of awards, including Best Motion Picture.[...]
A lot of people didn’t know about this movie until the AMAA. Most people have not seen the movie. They just know it stars actor of Israeli-Lebanese descent, Ramsey Nouah and people got to see Omoni Oboli, that beautiful actress, as very promising.
Nollywood movies rank as the most poorly made movies in the world, still the directors easily attack their critics, believing they should be praised. How do you praise a child that shat on his cloth?
I’ve seen a Nollywood script. It’s laughable. I’ve been on set of a Nollywood movie. Sometimes, the actors ‘direct’ the director. The actors and actresses want to wear whatever pleases them. The costumier has to sit and watch them pick what they like and not what the part they are playing requires of them. Who cares if a girl raised in the countryside wears a lipstick and rides in a Jeep, without stepping out of her village? Hey, the viewers are senseless. They know nothing. They won’t cringe at all. [...]
Bad movies are made, not because there’s limited fund. It is because the writer has produced a very worded and verbose script (with so much proverbs). The director reads and can’t just pass the first few pages, but because he has discussed the idea with the writer, he goes on with it.
But with movies like Kunle Afolayan’s The Figurine and Stephanie Okereke’s Through the Glass, movies are beginning to have release dates and are being premiered at cinemas. The ’soundtracks’ are now being called ‘theme songs’ and are being made innovative and classical.
Nollywood might be witnessing a rebirth. I see a Nollywood movie getting a nomination at the Oscars in a very short time… [...]
Onyeka Nwelue grew up in Nigeria and was trained as a scriptwriter in a film-school in Delhi. His first novel “The Abyssinian Boy” became a national bestseller and won the 2009 TM Aluko Prize for First Book and second prize in the Ibrahim Tahir Prize for Fiction.
Launching the Sandbox Summer Dialogues
From a recent Sandbox event in Berlin hosted by our Ambassador Rainer Scheerer, also author of the Sandbox podcasts.
As many of you probably have already heard, we have started in addition to our monthly (and often even more frequent!) events in 25 cities across the globe organizing small and intimate dinners / breakfasts / lunches with 5 or 6 Sandboxers and one experienced leader. Whenever we work with senior people, we try to apply the same principles we also do for our own community: we carefully select people that truly inspire us, we love diversity and try to bring them from as many backgrounds as possible and we try to create a setting where people can build real relationships (vs. “networking) and eventually collaborate.
The discussions we had at past events for example when meeting with the Swiss Ambassador to the US, the Cambodian Secretary of State, a cofounder of the Feed Project, or experienced entrepreneurs like Lars Hinrichs (founder of XING), has really brought us to a new level.
In the next few weeks Sandboxers will have the pleasure to meet with Johannes Matyassy, Ambassador of Switzerland and Head of Präsens Schweiz, Hansueli Maerki, currently board member at ABB, SwissRe, former Chairman of IBM EMEA and member of our Advisory Board, Martin Naville, Chairman of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce, David Bosshart, CEO of the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, Thomas Held, CEO of Avenir Suisse and Nick Beglinger, Co-Founder and CEO of the Foundation For Global Sustainability.
Who else should we invite?
Kosta providing a Human Right: Internet Access to the Entire World
Currently, 4 out of 5 people in the world do not have internet access. Kosta Grammatis plans to change that. Through A Human Right, the Global Internet Access Initiative, this Sandboxer has made it his mission to provide free internet access to 5 billion people. He has already shown his ability to execute on astounding projects such as Eyeborg. Kosta and Rob, his project partner, have embedded a video camera and a transmitter in a prosthetic eye. That eye is going in Robs eye socket, and will record the world from a perspective that’s never been seen before. You can check out his other work here.
The proposed network for internet access will fill in the coverage gap with a constellation of micro-satellites, ground stations, and end user devices. The idea is not new, but their perspective is, information can no longer come at a cost. The end result would be astounding: 5 billion disconnected people will have equal access to a ubiquitous, free, and reliable information service. Can you imagine a future where everyone on Earth has a voice?
As of 2009, 83% of the world is literate, and another 79% has access to electricity. These two factors are all that is required to make use of an information service. Unfortunately only 25.6% of the world has internet access. Kosta believes that every human deserves the right to make improvements to their condition by utilizing the great breadth of human knowledge available on the internet. After all, the future of a sustainable world depends on responsible decision-making made by a well informed human population.
By enabling 5 billion people with access to information tremendous improvements will be made in the following realms: resolving the information disparity, providing disaster relief, facilitating remote education and remote medicine, as well as encouraging democracy.
So what’s the plan? A Human Right is already working closely with NASA Ames, and an Australian company which has already started a satellite design to meet the demands of this project. Low cost satellites, inexpensive ground stations, and an end user device that turns into a wireless hot spot wherever it is set up, are all parts of the system they are designing. A pilot study to test new business models around this idea is currently underway in Nairobi.
While they have already built a global team of volunteers, donors, companies and advisers who are all pitching in, A Human Right is constantly looking for new partners to involve themselves. The beauty of this project is that it is all about connecting people all over the world. If you believe you can contribute, reach out to Kosta.
Hello from the Swiss mountains
The whole Sandbox Zurich team is currently working out of our mountain “office”. We have been here now since two days and found that the possibility to work together out of a completely different environment has been a great source of inspiration and has brought us a big step forward. Here are some quotes that people shared with me, about what has inspired them in the first two days:
Most start ups are naturally drawn to tools that allow them the ability to work remotely, regardless of whether they exercise the option regularly or not… even still setting up a virtual office wherever you happen to be with your laptop gets easier with preparation, practice, and commitment… and the Klosters days will help you test the later for sure. Mike Radparvar, Sandboxer currently visiting from NYC, co-founder of Holstee and Incubaker.
One thing i learned from an old lady in the village: the cows go on vacation over the summer - to the mountains:). Sandboxer Eva Mohr.
liebe geht durch den magen. Lilly, one of our lovely community managers.
Check out some more pictures here.
Fabian is Sandbox co-founder, working these days on the long-term strategy of Sandbox and as part of that leading lots of inspiring discussions with team members and Sandboxers across the globe. Fabian was responsible to cook lunch today but found out that the shops actually close from 12 to 2pm…
Meet a Sandboxer: Anna Lee Anda
Anna Lee Anda is from New Zealand residing in Australia while completing her MSc in Information Systems. Anna Lee on Twitter.
Tell us the story of your latest project.
Currently my thesis is exploring ways technology can encourage people to exercise more, the focus with my research is using mobile applications, a running program specifically for young people with mental illness, I will also be looking at motivating young people without mental illness. I’m also involved with The Hive as I’m interested in entrepreneurship and fostering in the community. I help with the online communications to the members. We are a not-for-profit and we volunteer our time to organise it, as do the speakers who come and pass on the pearls of wisdom to the members.
What are you doing and how did you get there?
I moved to Melbourne to do my Masters after having a difficult time graduating at the peak of the global financial crisis and used the move to get involved with as many things as this beautiful city has to offer.
Tell us about the biggest successes and failures in your life. What worked, what didn’t, and what did you learn?
When I completed my undergraduate studies, during my summer vacation I took the initiative to organise a fundraising cocktail party for the Christchurch Community Hospital a local hospital desperately in need of funds of which my friends and I got everything sponsored and all money was able to go directly to the hospital. I think it was great to get business support, have fun and in turn give it all back to the community. I haven’t had major failures, touch wood. I believe you can turn any failure into an opportunity, lesson or simply put turn it into an experience.
What do you want to achieve in the next week, the next year, the next 10 years?
Next week - I’d like to get more reading done related to my research Next year - It’s time for me to do more travel and also find a job which is aligned with my studies. I love the idea of working for a start up, the culture really suits the way I think and how I do things.
What was your most inspring moment during the last two weeks?
I went to the Hive talk from the founder of a social entrepreneurship which he is trying to make self sustainable, all profits going to both local and foreign aid. I think it’s great when people go for it, risking it all for a quite unselfish goal.
How could other Sandboxers and the outside world support you and why would that be exciting for them.
It would be good to talk to other people who have the same interests in HCI or it would be those who know about work opportunities in the future.
Anna Lee’s favorites:
- book - The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
- movie - Amelie
- place on earth - Spain
- travel destination during last year - Cairns, Australia
- food - my mother’s cooking - failing that, char kway teow (fried noodle dish originating from my mother’s home town)
- drink - non-alcholic - ginger tea, alcoholic - 42 Below Manuka Honey with Ginger beer
- quote - And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. - from The Alchemist
Weekly inspiration #39: World Cup visualizations
Something we love at Sandbox is discovering new ways to look things. Like all big events, the World Cup 2010 comes with its lots of visualizations. We have picked the 4 best ones for you below:
Lego Replays
Fabian Moritz, a young German football fan, is creating Lego replays of some of the World Cup games, with the original television commentary. The full collection can be found here.
New York Times visualizations
The New York Times offers an analysis of every game, including lineups and heat maps - decomposed minute by minute.
Another great feature by the New York Times presents the World Cup players by size, depending of the number of their Facebook mentions on a specific day.
Guardian’s Twitter replays
The Guardian offers a Twitter replay of every game, showing the importance of a range of keywords as the game progresses. Usually at the beginning, people are looking for “free” places to “watch” the game “online”, then the initials of the team burst in different sizes depending of the action.
Antoine is a Co-Founder and the CEO of Sandbox. He is currently enjoying 3 offsite days in the Swiss mountains with the Zurich team and is on a high energy level!
Sandbox Mountain Office
At Sandbox we’re dreaming about being a totally mobile company. We all love traveling and we’ve talked a lot about not just having teams based in New York, London and Zurich, but to be constantly moving from city to city every few months. We are fortunate to know so many inspiring people allover the world that we find it hard to stay at one place for too long. And the nature of our global community allows us to work wherever we have a (fast) internet connection, electricity for our laptops and a voip phone.
Next week, we’ll be relocating for the first time. The whole Sandbox team in Zurich (together with Sandboxers Mike Radparvar and me visiting from New York and Eva Mohr from Maastricht) we’ll work out of my parent’s apartment in the Swiss mountains. It’s our first test to see how relocating as the whole team feels like. It’s not Rio de Janeiro yet. But the views are just as great :-)
From the Sandbox: Why You Can’t Get More Happiness, Money and Love By Pursuing Them Directly
Every day, our community manager Katrin Winiarski, reads through her feed of all Sandboxers’ blog posts. Every Thursday, she chooses the most inspiring, funny or brilliant one and reposts it on this blog. This post has been written by Sandboxer Max Marmer. The original version can be found here.
Many things people strive for are actually byproducts of what the real goal should be. But by focusing on the byproduct instead of the goal, the desired byproduct is ever elusive.
Let’s look at a few examples:
Happiness
The real goal is finding activities you’re passionate about and consistently engaging in them.
That definition skews towards work, but consider spending time with people you enjoy being around an ‘activity’ and it can encompass romance and family time.
Becoming “Networked”
Lots of people want a big network, full of powerful influential people, but if you focus on that is the end goal it’s probably not going to work out very well and you’ll come off as very insincere.
Having a large, powerful network is the byproduct where the end goal is helping other people, building relationships or trying to make an important vision happen that others can get behind.
Making Money
Making money is a byproduct of focusing on creating value.
If you focus on making money, you might end up making a lot if you’re very driven, but if that drive was applied toward how you could create the most value, you’d make a lot more money.
The one caveat with making money is that it only captures the economic spectrum of “value”, but a lot of people are working on how we can measure other kinds of currencies and make them more fungible so that in addition to financial capital we can measure things like social capital and emotional capital.
Confidence
I can’t become more confident by saying to myself, “C’mon Max, be more confident”.
Confidence is a byproduct of being really good at something, which is only obtainable through practice and repetition.
Though often people can practice and practice and not improve. That’s why people will tell you, “practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.” While that’s directionally correct, a better answer is “practice in pursuit of perfection will allow you to increasingly approach perfection and achieve excellence”
Conclusion
The list goes on and on of things that many people try to achieve directly but are actually byproducts: Enlightenment, Love, Creativity, Status, Success, etc. etc.
It’s not wrong to want byproducts, but they are not things we can get, in the capacity we want, by focusing on achieving them directly. Byproducts are the rewards we get for living our lives the right way.
And by recognizing how byproducts break down into corresponding end goals it becomes clear there are no short cuts. When we care about other people, other people care about us. When we create value for others, we are rewarded financially. When we do amazing work, we gain respect. To live a rich life where we are happy, financially abundant, surrounded by amazing people and confident in our own abilities, requires cultivating curiosity, persistence, self-reflection, self-discipline, compassion, character, drive and many other esteemed traits.There is truth in the words that our external reality is a manifestation, or a byproduct, of our internal reality.
I encourage you to look at the things you want, and figure out what’s a byproduct and what’s the actual end goal that you should authentically commit to.
Max Marmer is a student at Stanford University, a young entrepreneur and Sandbox Ambassador in San Francisco, USA. He founded Force For the Future, a network that helps entrepreneurs with their first steps of the start-up life by mentoring, networking and more. Max is also resident of Palomar 5 and working for the Youth Noise Leadership Council.