Earlier this week I hosted Brad Gillespie on a visit to the UNH ECE department. Brad, an ECE alumnus (MS EE ‘94), is a veteran of Microsoft, where he was the Technical Assistant to Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Craig Mundie. Currently, he advises early-stage technology companies, focusing on strategic issues at the intersection of business and technology.

Brad had a busy two days at UNH. He visited the Project54 lab and led a discussion about entrepreneurship, career options and similar topics with P54 students and staff (see picture above and more on Flickr). Brad also gave a talk on this same topic to about 50 ECE graduate and undergraduate students. Here are the slides from this talk:

One message from the talk that I thought was very important is that for the majority of the people on Earth the Internet will be accessible through a mobile phone and not a PC. In fact, the PC is unlikely to be part of our computing future. Brad returned to this point the following day when he led another discussion with students, this time in John LaCourse’s ECE 444 Bionics course. Brad described some of his experiences in India, and again stressed that PCs, reliable power sources and wired Internet connections are not available in most places on our planet. Also, this state of affairs cannot change too quickly, since the infrastructure to provide power and communications to remote places is expensive and slow to deploy. Companies that want to provide Internet-based services to developing countries will have to take this fact into account. More generally, they will have to deal with what Bell and Dourish call the messiness of the (ubicomp) world.

It was great to have Brad at UNH and I’m looking forward to his continued involvement with the ECE department. Thanks Brad!

Andrew Kun

As a senior at UNH, I’ve seen countless of students (including myself) stressing out about nothing to do with academic work! It seems that much of the stress that has descended about the senior class pertains with life after school. Everything from finding jobs, interviews, graduate school applications and details such as where am I going to live next year have been topics of discussion among many of my peers. Help is always appreciated and one place to receive guidance to transitioning to the “real world” is the website, Students 2 Business.

So what can you do on the Students 2 Business (S2B) website? Yes, you can of course find jobs from employers ranging from Microsoft, to Verizon, and even the CIA. You can post not only your resume for potential employers to find, but also talk about some of the important experiences that have shaped who you are as a professional and colleague. Networking has always been important and sometimes the saying is true, it is about who you know instead of what you know! The S2B website allows you to network and connect with not just employers but fellow colleagues as well. Who knows, maybe one of your friends can help you get a job at his/her company or vice versa. Lastly, moving into the real world is an exciting but anxious process and the S2B website shares lots of tips on everything from moving to different cities to providing information about different fields.

Take a look at the slides to learn more about the benefits of Students 2 Business, how to sign up, and how to connect with fellow S2B members!

Mark Taipan

See what Matt Cookson, Associate Vice Chancellor for External Relations for the University System of New Hampshire, has to say about opportunities for young professionals in NH:

I fully agree with his assertion that NH is a great place to live and raise a family.

Andrew Kun

How many of you

• are curious about entrepreneurship?
• would consider working for a startup after you graduate?
• have an idea and would like to start your own business?

Brad Gillespie, a UNH alum, works with startups and will be visiting UNH this April. If there is enough interest, he’d be happy to talk about

• starting your own company,
• working for a startup,
• engineers as entrepreneurs,
• building a team,
• ideas and execution,
• getting your startup funded,
• things you might consider in the current economic climate, and more.

He could also informally chat with individuals or small groups to discuss questions you might have about startups or talk more about your ideas and next steps you might consider. If this sounds interesting, let us know by either commenting on this post or emailing me (andrew dot kun at unh dot edu) or Dr. Gillespie (b at gillespie dot fm), and please mention if you would be interested in hearing a talk, chatting individually, or both. Also if there are topics you are particularly interested in (or not interested in) please mention those as well.

Brad Gillespie’s biography

Brad Gillespie, a UNH alum, works with early-stage technology companies. His focus is on board and strategic advisory work at the intersection of business and technology. Recent projects include working with the founders of the pioneering online real estate company Redfin,  the augmented reality company Total Immersion, and Allyall among others. Dr. Gillespie is also a mentor at Seedcamp, which focuses solely on European growth companies and their unique challenges and opportunities.

Previously Dr. Gillespie was the Technical Assistant to Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Craig Mundie. Dr. Gillespie worked alongside Mr. Mundie and other senior executives to formulate and drive long-term corporate strategy. He has been involved with many initiatives across the company including health and wellness, robotics, new programming techniques and applications to exploit heterogeneous many-core processors, and a number of yet-to-be announced products.

He received a PhD from the University of Washington where he was both an Intel and Microsoft Graduate Fellow.