Happy Mexican Independence Day to all my Chicano readers! I hope your celebrations were as festive as the one here on campus sounds like it was…
Here’s a brief rundown of yesterday’s events…Yesterday morning, my Strategic Philanthropy group and I visited Eastside College Prep School and I was amazed by what i saw there. The school was founded 10 years ago by a Stanford alum (undergraduate degree and graduate degree from the School of Ed) to bring a high school back to East Palo Alto after the city had closed its own high school a few year before. As a result of that school’s closing, kids from EPA had to be bussed to schools in other communities and 65% of those bussed kids subsequently dropped out of high school. Since their opening class of 8 9th grade students in 1996, they’ve grown their student body up toa total of 210 kids in grades 6-12…Eastside Prep is a true story about the power of being focused on a mission. They’ve got a 100% college acceptance rate for their students, which is remarkable in itself, but is even more remarkable when you consider that 97% of their kids are first-generation college bound. My group and I were floored by the story of the place and were even more floored when we visited some classrooms and saw how on-point and interested all the kids were in learning. I sure hope we can get them the $5000 grant that we’re gunning for with our class project because this place certainly deserves it.
Yesterday was also a big day for one of my classmates because her parents came to visit…but her parents aren’t just anybody. Her dad is Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys, and her mother is Sudha Murty, the founder and executive director of the Infosys Foundation. Basically, her parents are hitters and they both spoke at a View From The Top presentation in Bishop Auditorium. Mr. Murthy gave us a lot of information about how he founded Infosys with $250 in seed capital and grew it into a $20billion-revenue company and some great tips on management techniques. While Mr. Murthy was good, but his wife was the one who really captivated the crowd. She’s this little lady but she did so many things in her life, from being the only woman in her class of 250 at IIT and graduating #1 in her class to moving on to a several-decade-long career as a software engineer and teacher to creating a foundation that helps poor people all over the world. They are a great example of a power couple who have used their success to help others.
Finally, before I go, I’ve got to tell y’all to go see “Mission Impossible III”. I saw it last night with a group of my classmates and it was great! I usually hate to see movies come out with more than a single sequel, but this one was definitely worth them making. I hope they don’t do a 4th one though because that would just be taking it too far and it would likely end up being a straight-to-DVD joint. I won’t give away any details, but this is one that you don’t want to miss. Next big movie…”The DaVinci Code”…and then “X3”
Here’s a brief rundown of yesterday’s events…Yesterday morning, my Strategic Philanthropy group and I visited Eastside College Prep School and I was amazed by what i saw there. The school was founded 10 years ago by a Stanford alum (undergraduate degree and graduate degree from the School of Ed) to bring a high school back to East Palo Alto after the city had closed its own high school a few year before. As a result of that school’s closing, kids from EPA had to be bussed to schools in other communities and 65% of those bussed kids subsequently dropped out of high school. Since their opening class of 8 9th grade students in 1996, they’ve grown their student body up toa total of 210 kids in grades 6-12…Eastside Prep is a true story about the power of being focused on a mission. They’ve got a 100% college acceptance rate for their students, which is remarkable in itself, but is even more remarkable when you consider that 97% of their kids are first-generation college bound. My group and I were floored by the story of the place and were even more floored when we visited some classrooms and saw how on-point and interested all the kids were in learning. I sure hope we can get them the $5000 grant that we’re gunning for with our class project because this place certainly deserves it.
Yesterday was also a big day for one of my classmates because her parents came to visit…but her parents aren’t just anybody. Her dad is Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys, and her mother is Sudha Murty, the founder and executive director of the Infosys Foundation. Basically, her parents are hitters and they both spoke at a View From The Top presentation in Bishop Auditorium. Mr. Murthy gave us a lot of information about how he founded Infosys with $250 in seed capital and grew it into a $20billion-revenue company and some great tips on management techniques. While Mr. Murthy was good, but his wife was the one who really captivated the crowd. She’s this little lady but she did so many things in her life, from being the only woman in her class of 250 at IIT and graduating #1 in her class to moving on to a several-decade-long career as a software engineer and teacher to creating a foundation that helps poor people all over the world. They are a great example of a power couple who have used their success to help others.
Finally, before I go, I’ve got to tell y’all to go see “Mission Impossible III”. I saw it last night with a group of my classmates and it was great! I usually hate to see movies come out with more than a single sequel, but this one was definitely worth them making. I hope they don’t do a 4th one though because that would just be taking it too far and it would likely end up being a straight-to-DVD joint. I won’t give away any details, but this is one that you don’t want to miss. Next big movie…”The DaVinci Code”…and then “X3”
Infosys notched up a little over $2 billion in revenues and not $20 billion!
Hmmmm…I could have sowrn Mr. Murthy said $20B in his speech, but I did write my entry a day later so I might have remembered it incorrectly.
Cinco de mayo is not Mexican Independence Day–that’s on September 16th. Cinco de mayo celebrates a battle against the French. It’s mostly an American consumer holiday–a reason to sell more coronas and tacos