In the interest of anti-stealth, I’m going to publicly announce one of the for profit ventures that I am currently working on. Incidentally, what exactly happened to the NextNY anti-stealth movement? There was a lot of activity at the end of October, and then the whole movement seemingly collapsed.

Anyway, a friend and I have started exploring the idea of a new campus based venture. Many of you who are students are probably familiar with the few awkward minutes that you spend every few hours in an elevator traveling to and from class. While you are in the elevator, wouldn’t it be nice to have a nice LCD displaying current campus events that might be of interest to you, or perhaps an ad telling you about the discounted food at Chipotle down the block this week?

Our idea is exactly that, we would like to create a network of LCDs in campus elevators that would stream both campus events as well as advertisements. A well established player, Captivate Network, currently does this in the office building market. We would like to stay away from office buildings at the moment, and focus purely on college campuses (Facebook vs LinkedIn analogy?).

Since both of us are current Columbia students, in fact both BME PhD students, we have decided to use Columbia University as a pilot site. I haven’t had time to put together a powerpoint presentation yet, but I will definitely post it in the next few days. For now we are tackling several thorny issues:

• Is it even possible to do it in NY? We are currently checking the New York Fire Code. Safety code for elevators and escalators : an American national standard by the American Society for Mechanical Engineers will be our guide. Looks like I won’t need sleeping pills tonight.
• We have done some back of the envelope calculations to see whether the idea is sustainable and scalable. If we intend to get more funding, we will have to produce a full financial projection. The projection itself is of course of no great importance to either investors or us, since reality almost always deviate significantly from the projections. Though it’s important to have one anyway, if nothing else than to show that due diligence was performed.
• To start campus based businesses that depend so much on campus infrastructure, we are clearly going to need a faculty champion. We have started approaching various members of the engineering faculty, the business school faculty, as well as Columbia’s Science and Technology Ventures group to begin soliciting feedback and buy-ins. We’ve had a lot of success getting people excited about the concept, but haven’t found a champion of the project yet. If you know of a Columbia faculty who might be interested, please let me know!
• I will also begin to approach NYU and CCNY about the idea as well, in case Columbia falls through as a pilot site.
• We will clearly need a powerpoint presentation down the line. I’ll put up version 1.0 of the presentation in a few days.

Since we are still very early in our planning stages, we are open to all suggestions and ideas. Let me know if any of you have any feedback or have seen existing implementations on college campuses! If you happen to be a college student / faculty, and are interested in joining our team, shoot me an email: mail @ jackpo dot org.

So once again I’ve vanished (even though I said I wouldn’t). Here is something amusing just to break the ice again. A few months ago I was leaving Columbia University’s iron gates when security handed me this flyer.

Larceny - Crime Prevention Tips

• Take extreme care of your personal property (e.g., backpacks, laptops, wallets, purses, etc.) while shopping and dining. Keep property in sight, and never leave it unattended, not even for a minute.
• Beware of any individual who attempts to distract you (e.g. asks you a simple question) because s/he or an accomplice may be looking to take your property.
• Don’t carry your purse loosely around your shoulder. Clutch it tightly under your arm or, better yet, avoid carrying a purse and keep a wallet (containing only items you need) in your pocket instead.
• Never leave valuable items unsecured at your work location. Secure them and immediately report any suspicious persons wandering about at your work place.
• The best and really the only way to prevent larcenies from motor vehicles is never to leave valuables in your car unattended (.e.g., electronic goods such as cellular phones, laptops computers as well as credit/debit cards).
• In addition to cash, thieves desire credit cards. Carry only credit/debit cards that you frequently use and properly safeguard them.

Now isn’t this advice just a bit extreme? Interestingly, the same advice was given to me when I was in Barcelona. In fact, every single time I asked for directions, the locals would always begin by warning me how dangerous parts of the city could be. Is crime really that rampant internationally?!

Amherst College has once again demonstrated why they are one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the world. Without external pressure or a committed donor, Amherst, a need-blind institution, have decided to do away with all financial aid and instead award scholarships only.

It’s quite unfortunate to have institutions like my alma maters Hopkins and Columbia getting literally billions in alumni donations and still can’t offer something so profoundly important.

Dear Amherst College Alumnus or Alumna:

I write to let you know about an important new change to Amherst’s financial aid practices. Acting on the advice of faculty committees, the Board of Trustees has decided that beginning in the 2008-09 academic year, Amherst College will replace all loans with scholarships in its financial aid packages. This should be especially helpful to students from middle-income families, who too often have had to take on significant debt in order to ensure access to an outstanding education, and who too often graduate feeling that their career choices are constrained by that debt. With this change of policy, Amherst is ensuring that we can attract the most talented students, regardless of their economic standing, while providing further, proactive leadership to higher education in this important area.

This new policy—one in place at only two other colleges and universities nationally—builds on Amherst’s longstanding leadership around accessibility and scholarship. Seven years ago, Amherst demonstrated its commitment to being a leader in making education more accessible to low-income students by eliminating loans for students from families with incomes of less than $40,000 a year. A few years ago, we expanded this policy to include families whose incomes were below $60,000 a year. The new initiative that will be implemented next year significantly broadens our commitment by eliminating loans for all families. Once implemented, this new policy will affect not only incoming students in the Class of 2012, but also current Amherst students.

Let me be clear about what this new policy will mean. Because Amherst is need-blind, every student admitted to the College receives financial aid that meets the student’s full financial need. Currently, middle-income students take on federal or college loans as part of financial aid packages that also include scholarships, grants and job opportunities. Beginning in the 2008-09 academic year, the loan component of this financial aid package will be replaced with scholarships; no Amherst student will be required to take out loans in order to come to Amherst. (We know that many families will still choose to take some private loans to cover their expected payment.)

This is a significant new financial commitment for Amherst. But, as our Board of Trustees chair, Jide Zeitlin ’85, noted in a news release about this program, for almost two centuries Amherst’s alumni, parents and friends have consistently demonstrated a commitment to supporting Amherst when it has taken steps to broaden access to the college by the most talented students from across the nation and the world. We believe that this new program, designed to eliminate barriers for middle-income families and allow an even greater number of students to graduate from Amherst without debt, will inspire new levels of commitment from those who know the College best. We hope, too, that our actions will encourage other institutions to take similar steps to open their doors to talented young people, regardless of circumstance.

With best wishes and thanks for all you do for Amherst,

Anthony W. Marx