Northern Californians are paying more per unit of electricity than almost anywhere in the country. Here’s what’s going on.

Why is my PG&E bill so high? Here are answers to questions about the rate hike

On Thursday, Feb. 22, PG&amp;E Corporation announced its Q4 and Full-Year 2023 earnings, which are detailed in this news release

Top 10 Things to Know About PG&E’s Recent Earnings - PGE Currents

<strong>PGE</strong>’s exploration of a plan to clear trees and other foliage in the park came to light last week after WW reported on a phone survey asking respondents how they would feel if Oregon’s largest utility cut trees on 3 acres of land above Linnton on Highway 30.

Forest Park Conservancy “Deeply Concerned” About PGE’s Power Line Plans in Forest Preserve

Get the most recent info and news about PG&E on HackerNoon, where 10k+ technologists publish stories for 4M+ monthly readers.

PG&E Corporation, through its subsidiary, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, engages in the sale and delivery of electricity and natural gas to customers in northern and central California, the United States. It generates electricity using nuclear, hydroelectric, fossil fuel-fired, fuel cell, and photovoltaic sources. As of December 31, 2019, the company owns and operates approximately 18,000 circuit miles of interconnected transmission lines, 33 electric transmission substations, approximately 107,000 circuit miles of distribution lines, 68 transmission switching substations, and 760 distribution substations; and natural gas transmission, storage, and distribution system consisting of approximately 43,300 miles of distribution pipelines, approximately 6,300 miles of backbone and local transmission pipelines, and various storage facilities. It serves residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural customers, as well as natural gas-fired electric generation facilities. The company was incorporated in 1995 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. On January 29, 2019, PG&E Corporation filed a voluntary petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California.

PG&E

When a culture of risk aversion creates risk of harm In a back meeting room, on a modest-looking floor filled with tall cubicles, It was a cue that I was dealing with a unique organizational culture and this wasn’t going to be an ordinary pitch. PG&E opened my pitch with a long safety briefing on emergency procedures for an active shooter, incident threats, emergency contact numbers, and the evacuation plan. The following is my December 2018 experience in presenting PG&E a technology concept for electrical arc prevention to mitigate the risk of wildfires. Background My call to action occurred when Camp Fire hit last November. The visuals of the mass devastation from the now truly unfortunate annual fall tradition of utility-triggered major wildfires made me want to be part of the solution. After consolidating some prior ideas, I wrote the senior leadership and technical teams at PG&E, California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), Cal Fire, California Governor and Lieutenant Governor. PG&E, CPUC, and Cal Fire responded with multiple groups from PG&E reaching out. First Impressions During my pitch, I was thanked by one of the management representatives for reaching out as he indicated it was It was an interesting comment that I now better understand. After multiple conversations with different groups, I found it very interesting that Reflecting back, I see a great strength in gathering these different points of view, but a possible weakness in seeking consensus decision-making at the expense of vision. uncommon for companies to approach PG&E due to their risk aversion. each time PG&E would send the proposal down to the technical teams for decision making, instead of to a central planning figure. The feedback I received after the pitch was that PG&E only collaborates with supply partners with a technology at TRL (Technology Readiness Level, NASA) 7 or 8, i.e. the technology needs to have been validated as part of a rigorous test at scale, which creates a chicken and egg dilemma. as a development requirement would be to have access to a high voltage research lab. The feedback I received after the pitch was that PG&E only collaborates with supply partners with a technology at TRL (Technology Readiness Level, NASA) 7 or 8, i.e. the technology needs to have been validated as part of a rigorous test at scale, which creates a chicken and egg dilemma , i.e. the concept of using hedging in uncertain environments. PG&E proposed engaging through an internal investment program known as EPIC that was off-cycle at the time and preferred single source arrangements with validated solutions, such as an existing relationship with in this same space. PG&E explained the TRL requirement was in place to avoid investing in technologies that could create a false sense of security in the grid. Sound rationale, but also incomplete in that it omits the opportunity of playing off small strategic investments in various idea teams to create a faster, more redundant total solution Exacter PG&E explained the TRL requirement was in place to avoid investing in technologies that could create a false sense of security in the grid. Sound rationale, but also incomplete in that it omits the opportunity of playing off small strategic investments in various idea teams to create a faster, more redundant total solution. The model of the Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) in my opinion is a progressive concept, but it’s implementation success thus far has been dismal. The understanding I developed from pitching PG&E is that they are quite strong operationally, but a laggard in adapting technology that doesn’t arrive in plug-and-play form. Early PG&E self-reported incidents suggest that despite the measure, the utility may have already triggered this season, including the recent , while the measures themselves have placed the community’s vulnerable at risk and created mass resource uncertainty and inconvenience throughout the state. five fires Kincade fire I believe backlash would be acclaim if these shutoffs were administered by a semi-automated system based on real-time deterministic data on the health of the transmission line, instead of probabilistic data by meteorologists and ground observations. One of the problems in this first conception is that PG&E is trying to administer it with manual operations, their strength, as opposed to technology, their weakness. . Currently, it’s an unreliable method managing an unreliable system, so the results are likely to continue. I believe backlash would be acclaim if these shutoffs were administered by a semi-automated system based on real-time deterministic data on the health of the transmission line, instead of probabilistic data by meteorologists and ground observations PG&E as a Function of Market Forces In addition to the values of its leadership, companies are a function of their sector economics and operating environments. The public works, utility sector incentivizes monopoly and scale, which explains PG&E’s operational strength and lack of openness to new ideas. . Today, this makes PG&E and the electrical utility sector ripe for disruption in California, since a decades-stable operating environment flipped to be incredibly volatile to the threat of wildfires and that same scale advantage, is now a strategic barrier to delivering expedient, meaningful, local solutions to the wildfire problem It also makes sense why the state government appears hesitant to step in and drive safety outcomes as the liability for intervening is so high it’s likely more strategic to work with PG&E, so the tough talk continues for now. That said, I can understand why San Francisco has offered to buy PG&E’s local infrastructure: the segment is high-density, urban, accessible, and therefore low-risk. The question is who wants to be responsible for the remote, high-risk infrastructure with the current economics? Today, this makes PG&E and the electrical utility sector ripe for disruption in California, since a decades-stable operating environment flipped to be incredibly volatile to the threat of wildfires and that same scale advantage, is now a strategic barrier to delivering expedient, meaningful, local solutions to the wildfire problem. Market Viability Despite the of PG&E’s Camp Fire, the venture community informed me the concentrated number of players in the electrical utility space with the problem would create a difficult path to scale and would offer less favorable growth terms as other investments. $10.5B single incident liability exposure Raising capital is possible, but it required tangent applications to make it interesting to the community, which diluted the potency of the project. For my solution the tangent space was 5G and continuous measurement, monitoring, and cleaning of electromagnetic interference (EMI) as higher speed, more EMI sensitive, frequency spectrum is assigned for consumer use. To scale without friction and for the public good, it made sense to such Cal Phoenix Re Ltd and Associated Electric & Gas Insurance Services Ltd who recently underwrote PG&E. Although today, I’m doubtful this model remains available from what would be an obvious reluctance to underwrite power transmission in California, there may be a time after system hardening where the operational risk would re-converge to acceptable. finance growth through a shared-benefit model of insurance premium reduction from underwriters For those interested in the idea: First Principles High voltage discharges (arcing) emit broad-band RF noise. Four primary arc-based failure modes have similar frequency response (<10MHz) [1]. These electric fields can be detected by the predicate corona: the iterative process of the high voltage source and ground finding a connection. The corona can be located by algorithm applied to neighboring sensors. The voltage signal can be used as confirmation [1]. Product Features Ultra-low-cost antenna arrays placed on transmission towers at defined spacing in a mesh-style network. Powered by transmission line harvesting (notionally 12V, 1A) with onboard battery. Operation in standard VHF frequency band (30MHz+). Key Challenges Measurement of edge cases and ensuring unrelated background events (e.g. lightning strikes) don’t trigger unnecessary blackout events, i.e. resilient to false positives. Robust high speed communication for relay or substation interrupt. A Year Later, Better Solutions I see PG&E’s current operational strategy as a positive development, but at immense cost and anxiety to the local community. It is likely in the coming years when deterministic solutions are deployed it will be too late. that will require a central authority to coordinate routing, which may be the next embodiment of the service electrical utilities provide in California. My sense is emergency investment may come shortly by way of a response from the Army Corp of Engineers or National Guard to harden the infrastructure, such as vegetation removal, burying cables, and deploying a similar established technology called synchrophasors . I also think the tertiary market is going to move faster than PG&E and government in creating a decentralized, distributed grid Hard-Won Advice My key takeaway from this experience is now the foundational value in my product team’s culture in that we lead every new conservation with product, not ideas. No matter how big or small you are, solutions are the great leveler for new entrants to a market. Simply, people acquire solutions to solve their problems, not ideas. People acquire solutions to solve their problems, not ideas. What do you Think? I’d love to connect and talk more. steve@athelas.com How can we as a tech community do our part? Thanks to Chris Wu, Louis Virey, Stew Moffatt, & Miriam Christoph for their help with this post! Technical References [1] F. Zoko Ble, “Novel Methods for Arcing Fault Detection and Location in Power Distribution Systems,” Ph.D dissertation, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland, 2017.

Inside PG&E: What I Learned Pitching

Authors:
(1) Prabath Jayatissa, University of Colombo
(2) Roshan Hewapathirane, University of Colombo Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Methodology Results Conclusion & References 4. CONCLUSION Interoperability among health information systems is crucial for improving healthcare delivery in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) where access to quality healthcare is often limited. However, achieving interoperability in LMICs faces challenges such as limited resources, fragmented health information systems, and diverse health IT infrastructure. Strategies such as standardisation, consolidation, investment in health IT infrastructure, capacity building, and addressing data privacy and security concerns can enhance interoperability efforts. Collaborative efforts among governments, non-profit organisations, the private sector, and other stakeholders are essential for overcoming challenges and promoting interoperability in LMICs. Further research is needed to evaluate the impact of these strategies and identify novel approaches that are specific to the unique challenges faced by different regions and contexts within LMICs. Research on the cost-effectiveness and sustainability of interoperable health information systems is also crucial. Significant challenges include the need for more standardisation, fragmented health information systems, limited resources, and data privacy concerns. However, strategies such as standardisation, consolidation, investment in health IT infrastructure, and capacity building can help overcome them. Collaborative efforts are needed to address the multifaceted challenges of interoperability in LMICs and implement effective strategies. Further research and collaborative efforts are required to address the unique needs and contexts of LMICs and unlock the potential of health information systems to improve healthcare outcomes and advance health systems towards more integrated, patient-centred, and data-driven care in LMICs. REFERENCES [1] Adler-Milstein, J., DesRoches, C. M., Kralovec, P., Foster, G., Worzala, C., Charles, D., & Searcy, T. (2013). Electronic health record adoption in US hospitals: progress continues, but challenges persist. Health Affairs, 32(8), 1478-1485. [2] Adefioye, O. A., Adeleke, I. T., & Adewumi, A. O. (2019). Interoperability of health information systems in low-income countries: a systematic review of barriers and facilitators. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 19(1), 16. [3] Blaya, J. A., Fraser, H. S., & Holt, B. (2017). E-health technologies show promise in developing countries. Health Affairs, 36(12), 2168-2175. [4] Braa, J., Sahay, S., & Westerlund, M. (2017). The role of participatory design in strengthening community-based health information systems: a case study from Mozambique. Health Informatics Journal, 23(3), 180-189. [5] Kamadjeu, R. (2019). Impact of interoperability among electronic health records in low-resource settings: A systematic review. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 123, 27-34. [6] Karim, A. M., Ahsan, H., & Uddin, M. J. (2019). Interoperability in e-Health: A Systematic Literature Review. Health and Technology, 9(4), 687-697. [7] Seebregts, C. J., Mamlin, B. W., Biondich, P. G., Fraser, H. S., & Wolfe, B. A. (2017). Human factor considerations in developing and implementing information and communication technologies for health in low-resource settings. Yearbook of Medical Informatics, 26(01), 123-130. [8] Sharma, A., Wickramasinghe, N., & Gupta, D. (2017). Leveraging the capabilities of electronic health records for enhancing decision-making processes in low-resource settings: a literature review. Health Informatics Journal, 23(2), 89-99. [9] W G P T Jayatissa, Vajira HWD, Roshan H. Review of Master Patient Index. Dent Res Int J DRIJ. 2017;3(2):37–48. https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.00451 [10] Tchouaket, É. N., Charrier, R., & Henry, S. (2019). Addressing the lack of interoperability among health information systems in low-income countries: a socio-technical approach. Health and Technology, 9(5), 729-742. [11] Blaya, J.A., Fraser, H.S.F., Holt, B. (2017). E-health interoperability. In: Marschollek, M., Bauer, A., Wolf, K.H., Gradinger, M., eds. eHealth2016 - Health Informatics Meets eHealth: From Sensors to Decisions. IOS Press, pp. 9-14. [12] Tchouaket, É.N., Moine, M.P., Adedokun, A., et al. (2019). Challenges to Interoperability of Health Information Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Literature Review. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 264, pp. 1399-1403. [13] Adler-Milstein, J., Jha, A.K. (2013). Sharing Clinical Data Electronically: A Critical Challenge for Fixing the Health Care System. JAMA, 309(10), pp. 991-992. [14] Kamadjeu, R. (2019). Challenges of Implementing eHealth in Developing Countries: An Example of a Web-Based Asynchronous Telemedicine System. Health Informatics Journal, 25(1), pp. 62-71. [15] Sharma, A., Kamadjeu, R., Mirza, S., et al. (2017). Development of a National Health Information System in a Resource-Limited Setting: A Case Study from Liberia. Health Informatics Journal, 23(4), pp. 295-306. [16] Jayatissa P, Vajira HWD, Roshan H. Developing a functional prototype Master Patient Index (MPI) for interoperability of E-Health systems in Seri Lanka. Dent Res Int J DRIJ. 2017;2(2):9–26. https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.00451 [17] Seebregts, C.J., Mamlin, B.W., Biondich, P.G., et al. (2017). The OpenMRS Implementers Network. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 108, pp. 117-121. [18] Adefioye, O.A., Asaolu, I.O., Ajayi, T.A., et al. (2019). Ethical and Legal Issues in Health Information Exchange in Low and Middle Income Countries: A Systematic Review. BMC Medical Ethics, 20(1), pp. 84. [19] Braa, J., Hanseth, O., Mohammed, W., et al. (2017). Developing Health Information Systems in Developing Countries: The Flexible Standards Strategy. MIS Quarterly, 41(1), pp. 309-322. [20] Karim, A.M., Nematzadeh, A., Gombera, F., et al. (2019). eHealth in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Findings from the Center for Health Market Innovations. Health Affairs, 38(5), pp. 711- 718. [21] Jayatissa P, Hewapatirane R. Development of Minimum Clinical Data Set For Master Patient Index(MPI) for Sri Lankan Context. https://airccse.com/drij/papers/4422drij01.pdf .2022 Nov 1;4(4):1–18. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. Authors: (1) Prabath Jayatissa, University of Colombo (2) Roshan Hewapathirane, University of Colombo Authors: Authors: (1) Prabath Jayatissa, University of Colombo (2) Roshan Hewapathirane, University of Colombo Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Abstract & Introduction Methodology Methodology Results Results Conclusion & References Conclusion & References 4. CONCLUSION Interoperability among health information systems is crucial for improving healthcare delivery in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) where access to quality healthcare is often limited. However, achieving interoperability in LMICs faces challenges such as limited resources, fragmented health information systems, and diverse health IT infrastructure. Strategies such as standardisation, consolidation, investment in health IT infrastructure, capacity building, and addressing data privacy and security concerns can enhance interoperability efforts. Collaborative efforts among governments, non-profit organisations, the private sector, and other stakeholders are essential for overcoming challenges and promoting interoperability in LMICs. Further research is needed to evaluate the impact of these strategies and identify novel approaches that are specific to the unique challenges faced by different regions and contexts within LMICs. Research on the cost-effectiveness and sustainability of interoperable health information systems is also crucial. Significant challenges include the need for more standardisation, fragmented health information systems, limited resources, and data privacy concerns. However, strategies such as standardisation, consolidation, investment in health IT infrastructure, and capacity building can help overcome them. Collaborative efforts are needed to address the multifaceted challenges of interoperability in LMICs and implement effective strategies. Further research and collaborative efforts are required to address the unique needs and contexts of LMICs and unlock the potential of health information systems to improve healthcare outcomes and advance health systems towards more integrated, patient-centred, and data-driven care in LMICs. REFERENCES [1] Adler-Milstein, J., DesRoches, C. M., Kralovec, P., Foster, G., Worzala, C., Charles, D., & Searcy, T. (2013). Electronic health record adoption in US hospitals: progress continues, but challenges persist. Health Affairs, 32(8), 1478-1485. [2] Adefioye, O. A., Adeleke, I. T., & Adewumi, A. O. (2019). Interoperability of health information systems in low-income countries: a systematic review of barriers and facilitators. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 19(1), 16. [3] Blaya, J. A., Fraser, H. S., & Holt, B. (2017). E-health technologies show promise in developing countries. Health Affairs, 36(12), 2168-2175. [4] Braa, J., Sahay, S., & Westerlund, M. (2017). The role of participatory design in strengthening community-based health information systems: a case study from Mozambique. Health Informatics Journal, 23(3), 180-189. [5] Kamadjeu, R. (2019). Impact of interoperability among electronic health records in low-resource settings: A systematic review. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 123, 27-34. [6] Karim, A. M., Ahsan, H., & Uddin, M. J. (2019). Interoperability in e-Health: A Systematic Literature Review. Health and Technology, 9(4), 687-697. [7] Seebregts, C. J., Mamlin, B. W., Biondich, P. G., Fraser, H. S., & Wolfe, B. A. (2017). Human factor considerations in developing and implementing information and communication technologies for health in low-resource settings. Yearbook of Medical Informatics, 26(01), 123-130. [8] Sharma, A., Wickramasinghe, N., & Gupta, D. (2017). Leveraging the capabilities of electronic health records for enhancing decision-making processes in low-resource settings: a literature review. Health Informatics Journal, 23(2), 89-99. [9] W G P T Jayatissa, Vajira HWD, Roshan H. Review of Master Patient Index. Dent Res Int J DRIJ. 2017;3(2):37–48. https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.00451 [10] Tchouaket, É. N., Charrier, R., & Henry, S. (2019). Addressing the lack of interoperability among health information systems in low-income countries: a socio-technical approach. Health and Technology, 9(5), 729-742. [11] Blaya, J.A., Fraser, H.S.F., Holt, B. (2017). E-health interoperability. In: Marschollek, M., Bauer, A., Wolf, K.H., Gradinger, M., eds. eHealth2016 - Health Informatics Meets eHealth: From Sensors to Decisions. IOS Press, pp. 9-14. [12] Tchouaket, É.N., Moine, M.P., Adedokun, A., et al. (2019). Challenges to Interoperability of Health Information Systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Literature Review. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 264, pp. 1399-1403. [13] Adler-Milstein, J., Jha, A.K. (2013). Sharing Clinical Data Electronically: A Critical Challenge for Fixing the Health Care System. JAMA, 309(10), pp. 991-992. [14] Kamadjeu, R. (2019). Challenges of Implementing eHealth in Developing Countries: An Example of a Web-Based Asynchronous Telemedicine System. Health Informatics Journal, 25(1), pp. 62-71. [15] Sharma, A., Kamadjeu, R., Mirza, S., et al. (2017). Development of a National Health Information System in a Resource-Limited Setting: A Case Study from Liberia. Health Informatics Journal, 23(4), pp. 295-306. [16] Jayatissa P, Vajira HWD, Roshan H. Developing a functional prototype Master Patient Index (MPI) for interoperability of E-Health systems in Seri Lanka. Dent Res Int J DRIJ. 2017;2(2):9–26. https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.00451 [17] Seebregts, C.J., Mamlin, B.W., Biondich, P.G., et al. (2017). The OpenMRS Implementers Network. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 108, pp. 117-121. [18] Adefioye, O.A., Asaolu, I.O., Ajayi, T.A., et al. (2019). Ethical and Legal Issues in Health Information Exchange in Low and Middle Income Countries: A Systematic Review. BMC Medical Ethics, 20(1), pp. 84. [19] Braa, J., Hanseth, O., Mohammed, W., et al. (2017). Developing Health Information Systems in Developing Countries: The Flexible Standards Strategy. MIS Quarterly, 41(1), pp. 309-322. [20] Karim, A.M., Nematzadeh, A., Gombera, F., et al. (2019). eHealth in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Findings from the Center for Health Market Innovations. Health Affairs, 38(5), pp. 711- 718. [21] Jayatissa P, Hewapatirane R. Development of Minimum Clinical Data Set For Master Patient Index(MPI) for Sri Lankan Context. https://airccse.com/drij/papers/4422drij01.pdf .2022 Nov 1;4(4):1–18. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. This paper is available on arxiv under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv

Enhancing Interoperability in LMIC Healthcare Information Systems

Let's learn about via these 24 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the to find the most read stories about any technology. Disruption /Learn Repo 1. True Cost of Cybercrime: What Organizations Should be Prepared For Cybercrime is on the rise and, despite the cost of cybersecurity being a stumbling block for many, here is why businesses must implement security measures... 2. Never Stick To The Same Angle Why always looking for a twist or a difference makes all the difference when marketing your products and trying to grow your brand especially at the start. 3. Disrupt Founder Tony Delgado Launches Coding Bootcamp In Puerto Rico Tony Delgado is a Puerto Rican-American software developer, businessman, activist, philanthropist, and tech entrepreneur who has started multiple online and software-based businesses. 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Inside PG&E: What I Learned Pitching When a culture of risk aversion creates risk of harm 16. 4 Ways Startups Entered the Lending Space In times of social distancing, most people spend more time at home. A short series I can recommend for your next evening on your couch is Bad Banks. In the second season, the investment banker Jana Liekam and her team of trusted accomplices move to Berlin to take over a sustainable robo-advisor. The viewer is pulled into the power struggle between the incumbent Deutsche Global Invest with its fintech incubator in Berlin, and the rivalling robo-advisors fin21, and Jana’s Green Wallet. 17. Four Ways Blockchain Technology Will Disrupt Telecommunications In March of this year, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, unseated Bill Gates for the position of richest man in the world. The feat was the result of a massive $40 billion jump in net worth — the largest ever, according to Forbes. 18. Why Apple Will Become More Powerful Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic Apple will emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic as an even more powerful and important company. Indeed, COVID-19 may prove to be Apple’s finest hour. During the first 30 days of the pandemic’s escalation in the United States, Apple stepped up in significant ways, the most notable example being the formation of a relationship with Google to contain the virus with contact-tracing technology. In addition, Apple has, among other actions: 19. Building Great Things Before They're Built Do It Before It's 'Cool' 20. Passion Economy Shall Be The Disruptor of 2021 and Beyond Clayton Christensen's disruption theory and what it means for the Passion Economy 21. Disrupting the Global Healthcare in Web3 Keep Disrupting the Global Healthcare in Web3 Together 22. Tech Must Disrupt the Mental Health Hotline Industry Venture funding in mental health and wellness companies has seen healthy growth this past year, with $321 million raised across 26 deals in the second quarter of 2019, which is a 141% jump from last year’s $227 million raised during the same quarter. The impact of this growth in popularity is having its much-desired changes in the US, with the use of meditation growing 3 folds from 2012–2017, making it as popular as yoga according to the Center for Disease Control. 23. 5 Major Marketing Disruptions Expected To Take Shape in 2020 Marketing has evolved a lot over the centuries, and it will keep on changing. There are various factors, such as fashion, culture, technology that contribute to the changes. It will not be a wise decision to sit back and relax, particularly if you own a business or if you are working in a marketing field. If you do not update yourself, you will cease to exist. 24. Unbundling New Markets: Who is Doing What Airbnb Did to Craigslist? Every great empire in the history of mankind eventually disintegrated and fragmented into smaller states. Some of those states became empires of their own, sometimes larger than the predecessors. Thank you for checking out the 24 most read stories about Disruption on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

24 Stories To Learn About Disruption

In this tutorial, we are going to build a web application using and integrate it with to create a real-time dashboard based on streaming data using standard SQL. AdonisJS Materialize Materialize lets you define views you want to maintain on your data, just as you would with any SQL table, and then get the results in real-time, unlike traditional databases which frequently act as if they've never been asked that question before. Prerequisites You need to have the following things installed before getting started: Install Docker Install Docker Compose Install Node.js What is Materialize that takes data coming from sources like Kafka, PostgreSQL, S3 buckets, and more and allows you to effectively transform it in real-time using SQL. is a streaming database Materialize Unlike a traditional database, Materialize is able to incrementally maintain views on top of streaming data, providing fresh and correct results as new data arrives. This means that, instead of recomputing the view from scratch every time it needs to be updated, it only does work proportional to the changes in its inputs, so it is fast and efficient. In the context of web development, Materialize can be used as a backend to power real-time applications (as we'll see in this demo)! Running a Materialize Demo For the sake of this tutorial we are going to run the following Materialize Demo: Materialize - Log Parsing Demo The setup of the demo is the following: We would not get into too much details here, but if you have not gone through this demo before, make sure to read it! To run the demo, follow these steps: First things first, before you could run the demo, you need to clone the repository: Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/bobbyiliev/mz-http-logs.git Once that is done, switch to the repository directory: cd mz-http-logs Then start all services: docker-compose up -d With that, you would have your Materialize instance up and running. Next we will prepare our AdonisJS installation and use AdonisJS to create our Materialize sources and views! What is AdonisJS? AdonisJS is a web framework for Node.js. It includes everything that you would need to create a fully functional web application or an API. AdonisJS has been inspired by Laravel and it has its own ORM, Auth support, and a CLI tool called Ace which is very similar to Artisan. At the end we would extend the Log parsing Materialize demo and have the following setup: Install AdonisJS Let's start by installing AdonisJS. To do so, you would need to run the following command: npm init adonis-ts-app@latest hello-materialize Once you run that, you will be asked to select a project structure. You will be able to choose between an API, Web App, and a minimal possible AdonisJS app: CUSTOMIZE PROJECT
❯ Select the project structure …  Press <ENTER> to select
  api   (Tailored for creating a REST API server)
❯ web   (Traditional web application with server-rendered templates)
  slim  (A smallest possible AdonisJS application) For this tutorial let's go with the app! Using your arrow keys select and hit enter. web web After that you will be asked to choose a name for the project, I will leave this as but feel free to choose a different name. hello-materialize I will then press enter and say yes to the rest of the settings: ❯ Enter the project name · hello-materialize
❯ Setup eslint? (y/N) · y
❯ Configure webpack encore for compiling frontend assets? (y/N) › y This will instantiate the project and might take up to a minute to complete: Once ready, you can into the new project directory: cd cd hello-materialize And then start the webserver: node ace serve --watch If you are coming from the Laravel world, this would be just like running . The CLI tool is just like and comes with a lot of the same functionalities. php artisan serve ace artisan To check all of the commands, you can run: . ace node ace Installing Lucid Lucid is the AdonisJS ORM. It is quite similar to Laravel Eloquent. Lucid comes with an Active Record ORM, Query Builder, Migrations, Seeds, and Factories. Let's go ahead and install it! To do so, just run the following command: npm i @adonisjs/lucid Once done, you would need to do a quick configuration. Configuring Lucid In order to configure Lucid, you need to run the following command: ace node ace configure @adonisjs/lucid You will be asked to select the database driver that you want to use. As Materialize is wire-compatible with PostgreSQL, you can connect to it using any driver; here, make sure to select PostgreSQL! pg ![AdonisJS lucid configuration](https://cdn.hackernoon.com/images/ckwysasxk-004-m-0-as-6-d-20-z-32-q-0.jpg) Next, you will be asked to select where you want to display the configuration instructions. I chose , which prints out the necessary environment variables that you have to add to your file. In the terminal .env Configure the Materialize env variables In order to let our AdonisJS application connect to Materialize, we need to change the details in the file. PG_* .env With your favorite text editor, open the file and update the environment variables to: .env PG_ DB_CONNECTION=pg
PG_HOST=localhost
PG_PORT=6875
PG_USER=materialize
PG_PASSWORD=
PG_DB_NAME=materialize This will allow AdonisJS to connect to Materialize just as it would when connecting to PostgreSQL. One thing to keep in mind is that Materialize doesn’t yet support the full system catalog of PostgreSQL (we're working on it!), which means that ORMs like Lucid, Prisma, Sequelize, or TypeORM might fail during some attempts to interact with Materialize. As we work to broaden coverage, the integration with these tools will gradually improve! pg_catalog Creating a Controller Let's create a controller where we will add the functionality that would allow us to connect to Materialize! As the Materialize demo is simulating an application log with a lot of visitors, let's call our AdonisJS controller : VisitorsController node ace make:controller VisitorsController This will create a controller file at: app/Controllers/Http/VisitorsController.ts Next, let's create the routes that we would need! Creating the AdonisJS routes Your routes file is stored at . In there we can specify our application URLs and map them to different controllers and methods! start/routes.ts We do not yet have the methods ready, but we know that we would need the following routes: : When visited, this route would create a Materialize /source source : When visited, this route would create a /view materialized view : This route would return an event stream with all of the latest changes to our materialized view /visitors : This will be the landing page where we will display the streaming data that we are getting from the endpoint and Materialize / /visitors Open your routes file at and update it so that it has the following content: start/routes.ts import Route from '@ioc:Adonis/Core/Route'

Route.get('/', 'VisitorsController.index')
Route.get('/visitors', 'VisitorsController.visitors')
Route.get('/source', 'VisitorsController.source')
Route.get('/view', 'VisitorsController.view') Next, let's add a method that would allow us to create a Materialize source as described in the ! Materialize Log Parsing Demo Creating a Materialize Source from logs If you were accessing Materialize directly via a SQL client (like ), in order to access data from a continuously produced log file, you would execute the following statement: psql CREATE SOURCE requests
FROM FILE '/log/requests' WITH (tail = true)
FORMAT REGEX '(?P<ip>\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}) - - \[(?P<ts>[^]]+)\] "(?P<path>(?:GET /search/\?kw=(?P<search_kw>[^ ]*) HTTP/\d\.\d)|(?:GET /detail/(?P<product_detail_id>[a-zA-Z0-9]+) HTTP/\d\.\d)|(?:[^"]+))" (?P<code>\d{3}) -'; Let's see how we could do that via AdonisJS! First, open the file with your favorite text editor. app/Controllers/Http/VisitorsController.ts The file would have the following content initially: // import { HttpContextContract } from '@ioc:Adonis/Core/HttpContext'

export default class VisitorsController {} There are a few things that we would want to do: Import Lucid: import Database from '@ioc:Adonis/Lucid/Database' Then inside the VisitorsController class, let's create a method called and source // import { HttpContextContract } from '@ioc:Adonis/Core/HttpContext'
import Database from '@ioc:Adonis/Lucid/Database'

export default class VisitorsController {

    public async source({request, response}) {

        //Using Ludic to connect to Materialize, we are executing a CREATE SOURCE statement
        const res = await Database.rawQuery(
            `CREATE SOURCE requests
                FROM FILE '/log/requests' WITH (tail = true)
                FORMAT REGEX '(\\?P<ip>\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}) - - \[(\\?P<ts>[^]]+)\] "(\\?P<path>(\\?:GET /search/\\\?kw=(\\?P<search_kw>[^ ]*) HTTP/\d\.\d)|(\\?:GET /detail/(\\?P<product_detail_id>[a-zA-Z0-9]+) HTTP/\d\.\d)|(\\?:[^"]+))" (\\?P<code>\d{3}) -';`
            );
        return res;

    }

} Now, if you were to visit the URL via your browser ( ) it would create your Materialize source: /source http://127.0.0.1:3333/source Creating a Materialize View You may be familiar with materialized views from the world of traditional databases like PostgreSQL, which are essentially cached queries. The unique feature here is the materialized view we are about to create is automatically kept up-to-date. Let's do the same thing as before, but to create a materialized view based on our file source! To do that, let's create a method called with the following content: view Add this right after the end of the method source public async view({request, response}) {

        //Using Ludic to connect to Materialize, we are executing a CREATE VIEW statement
        const res = await Database.rawQuery(
            `CREATE OR REPLACE MATERIALIZED VIEW unique_visitors AS
             SELECT count(DISTINCT ip) FROM requests;`
            );
        return res;

    } Our materialized view would show the count of the unique visitors flowing through our demo application. To create the view, visit the URL via your browser (eg. ). /view http://127.0.0.1:3333/view With that, our view will be created and we can move on to the next step! Creating an event stream You can query the new materialized view, that we've just created, as usual with a standard statement: SELECT SELECT * FROM unique_visitors; However, in order to take full advantage of the incrementally updated materialized view right from our AdonisJS app, rather than querying Materialize with a standard to get the state of the view at a point in time, we will use a statement to request a stream of updates as the view changes. SELECT TAIL public async visitors({request, response}) {

        // First we set a header to identify that this would be an event stream
        response.response.setHeader('Content-Type',  'text/event-stream');

        // Then we declare a TAIL cursor
        await Database.rawQuery('BEGIN');
        await Database.rawQuery('DECLARE visitors_c CURSOR FOR TAIL unique_visitors');

        // Finally we use FETCH in a loop to retrieve each batch of results as soon as it is ready
        while (true) {
            const res = await Database.rawQuery('FETCH ALL visitors_c');
            response.response.write(`data: ${JSON.stringify(res.rows)}\n\n`)
        }
    } For more information about , make sure to check out the official documentation here: TAIL statement. Materialize TAIL If you were to now visit the URL via your browser, you would see the following output: /visitors Next, let's create a view where we would use the endpoint as an event source and continuously update our web page. /visitors Displaying the number of unique visitors on the frontend First, before we get started, make sure that you've executed the following command to configure Encore which is used to compile and serve the frontend assets for your AdonisJS app: node ace configure encore Then create a new file at: resources/views/visitors.edge And add the following content: <!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <title>Materialize and AdonisJS</title>
  @entryPointStyles('app')
  @entryPointScripts('app')
</head>
<body>

  <main>
    <div>
      <h1 class="title"> Hi there! </h1>
      <p class="subtitle">
        The number of unique visitors is: <strong><span id="count"></span></strong>
      </p>
    </div>
  </main>
  <script>
    var eventSource = new EventSource("http://127.0.0.1:3333/visitors");

    const count = 0;
    eventSource.onmessage = function(e) {
        const data  = JSON.parse(e.data)
        //const count = omit(data, 'mz_timestamp', 'mz_diff', 'mz_progressed')
        const { mz_diff, mz_progressed } = data;
        data.forEach(entry => {
          if(entry.mz_diff == -1){
            console.log('Old count: ' + entry.count)
          } else {
            console.log('New count: ' + entry.count)
            let countDiv = document.getElementById("count");
            countDiv.innerHTML = entry.count;
          }
        })
    };
  </script>
</body>
</html> A quick rundown of the main things to keep in mind: : First we define a new and specify our endpoint. new EventSource EventSource /visitors : Then we listen for new messages to show in the EventStream. eventSource.onmessage : After that we parse our data JSON.parse(e.data) : Finally we run a loop and update the total unique visitors counter on the page. data.forEach Now if you were to visit your AdonisJS application you would see the following output: As you can see, rather than making a huge amount of AJAX requests, we just tap into the stream and keep our web page up to date with the latest changes from Materialize! Conclusion This is pretty much it! You've now built a web application using AdonisJS that connects to Materialize and pulls the number of unique visitors from your application as new data is logged. As a next step, make sure to head over to the Materialize Docs and try out some of the available demos: Materialize Demos To learn more about AdonisJS, you can also find the documentation here: AdonisJS documentation You can find a link to the AdonisJS source code from this demo here: Streaming Data wiht Materialize and AdonisJS Demo files To learn more about Streaming SQL, make sure to check out this post here: Streaming SQL: What is it, why is it useful? Hope that this was helpful! First published here

Stream and Display Data in Realtime with Materialize and Adonis

The Heat Index Of Questions About PHP

MySQL FAQs

I should start off by saying that I am not a car guy. If you know me, you’ve probably never heard me talk about a car, and you likely will never hear me talk about one again. My dad is a car guy. He rebuilt Porches before I was born. At some point, he sort of tried to teach me how to change belts and brake pads and things that you could do on cars before they were 95% electronics, though little of that stuck. For all my car-guy pedigree, I could just never really care less about cars. In fact, I would really rather not own one at all. When we lived in Paris, we never needed one. You can walk most places and there’s public transit for the rest. We lived for a year with no car and no real need of one and it would be amazing if we could do that in America, but it’s sadly not very practical here. So, own a car we must. This post is my simple love letter to the first car I’ve ever really liked owning, the Chevy Bolt. The story starts when we bought our first house recently. When we moved into the house, we decided that we should try getting an electric car. We live in Berkeley, we now have a driveway and a place we could easily install a charger, it seemed like a good call. We owned a Tacoma, but it’s big and gas-guzzling and impossible to park in Berkeley and San Francisco, and overall just not a very good . car We researched everything out there and decided that the only two electric cars that currently get anywhere near the range we wanted were the Telsa and the Chevy Bolt. Now, I do love the . Tesla For our 14th wedding anniversary, we rented a Tesla Model S for the weekend and drove it to Napa. It’s a great car. The simplicity is amazing, it’s super safe and the acceleration is totally insane. Ludicrous, one might say. However, there are two problems with the Telsa. The first is that it’s really wide — as in, the same width as our Tacoma. The other is that it’s really expensive. Which itself presents another problem, which is that even if I wanted to spend $90k on a car, which I absolutely do not, I still don’t really want to be the guy driving around in a Tesla. With apologies to any of my Telsa owning friends, if I have any. So we took a chance on the Bolt and . It has all of the important advantages of the Tesla and none of the downsides. Let’s quickly go over the main things that are great about this car. it’s the best car I’ve ever owned There are exactly two versions of the car, one that costs $37k and slightly nicer version that costs $41k. After federal and state incentives, which I believe end up around $10k, it costs less than $30k. It’s inexpensive. Not only does it cost about the same as a Honda CRV, but it’s cheap to drive. PG&E has a EV plan where you can get cheaper electric rates after 11pm, and the Bolt has a setting where it won’t draw power until then, which means you can charge it only when your electric rate is $0.12 per kilowatt hour. This means you can drive it’s entire 240 mile range for less than $9. If your car gets 30 miles per gallon on average, that’s the equivalent of about for fuel. Put another way, for $1 in fuel costs you can drive 30 miles in this car. Unless of course you install solar panels, in which case your “gas” is essentially free for life. $1 per gallon Like nearly all electric cars, it has constant torque. Like the Tesla, when you step on the gas, all of its torque is instantly available and it accelerates linearly. It never switches gears. This little sub-$30k car goes from 0–60 in 6.3 seconds, . Faster than an ‘84 Chevy Corvette. This is not as quick as a Tesla, but it’s still amazing and really fun to experience. It’s quick. faster than a 2006 Audi TT Roadster In my opinion, it’s nicer to drive overall than the Tesla. It’s possible that nobody will agree with me on this, but there probably also aren’t that many people who have driven both. For me, the smaller size and width of the car makes it more fun to drive around town. Plus, if you’ve ever actually tried to floor a Tesla, it’s too much — I nearly made my wife throw up twice when we rented it. Flooring the Bolt off the line makes the passenger ‘oomph’, but not vomit. (It literally made me make an ‘oomph’ sound yesterday when my wife floored it without warning me) Also like most electric cars, I imagine, it makes almost no noise. This is pretty weird if you’ve never driven in a totally quiet car. There is no external sound when it turns on, no acceleration sound, no real moving parts to hear revving or grinding. It’s insanely quiet. This point cannot be stressed enough. When you drive an electric car, you do not ever spend a minute at a gas station ever again. Every night you plug in your car and every morning you have a full tank. It’s like free tiny gas fairies come and service your car every night whilst you slumber. No fucking gas stations. If you’re into it, it’s pretty cool that this thing isn’t burning gas. If you install solar panels and a wall battery, it’s possible to have an almost totally eco-friendly method of transportation. However, even if you don’t care about that stuff, you can get a white sticker in California, meaning you can drive in the carpool lanes. More importantly if you’re living in the Bay Area, you can go through the bus lane of the maze. That’s maybe worth $30k right there, environment-enschmironment. Hippie environment stuff. . It is the best designed user interface in any car I’ve ever driven. I travel a lot, I’ve rented a lot of cars and I can say without a doubt that car UX designers are maybe the dumbest people on the planet, on average. Unless of course you happen to know one, that person is probably super smart but just stuck under horrible management, it’s hard to say. The internal software UI is amazing I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found myself yelling at the center console of a car, madly trying to get something to work, in vain. They are constantly and without exception just plain thoughtless. I drove a car once where every 45 minutes or so, if you were listening to music on Bluetooth, would randomly switch to the first FM channel in it’s memory for no reason. When listening to news about Asia on NPR in our Toyota, it shows a picture of the band Asia. Have you ever used the little circle input device on an Audi to type in an address? Have you ever used any of the awful integrated GPS systems instead of just resorting to Google Maps on your iPhone? Car software is just the worst. My god. This all actually makes sense. However, every single thing I’ve tried to do in the Bolt was easy to find, straightforward to understand or simple to get working. It’s mind blowing. Like I just can’t imagine how it happened. What’s even more amazing is that the screens are better than the Tesla’s in my opinion. The Tesla screen is enormous, which is kind of cool, but ultimately not very additionally helpful, and the interface looks like it was designed by someone who made WinAmp skins in the 90s. It’s not horrible, but it’s a strange juxtaposition to the slickness of the rest of the Tesla. . This is a debatable point, but there is no self-driving stuff or auto-parking stuff. There is an amazing generated top-down view when you’re parking the car that makes it look like a crazy video game, but it doesn’t do any of the actual parking for you. I actually like this and prefer it for now over the idea of the car being partially sentient and possibly plotting my demise. The Bolt is not magic The top-down view is composited from multiple cameras, but it makes parking the car like some ridiculous video game. It’s impossible not to park perfectly between the lines. The range is essentially the same as normal car. We’ve never come close to being low on it. On a full charge, you can drive the two hours from San Francisco to Monterey, then turn around and drive all the way back without a problem and without needing to plug it in once. It drives over 230 miles on a charge. The entire car is like someone took a Tesla, removed all the insane from it, kept everything great and sold it for the price of a normal car. If you’re waiting for a Tesla 3, I think you’re better off going out and buying a Bolt right now. I’m a real picky person when it comes to user experience and there is almost nothing on this car I would improve. I just can’t imagine anything that would make the Tesla 3 better than a Bolt. My wife and I were just this week talking about getting rid of the pick-up truck we have and getting something smaller we could replace it with, and it’s hard to not land on simply getting a second Bolt. It seems weird to own two of exactly the same car, but there aren’t any really good reasons we can think of to choose something else. So, why am I writing this? I suppose that I just really appreciate good design and good product. I complain about everything, I’m easily frustrated. It’s rare that there’s a product I use, even very simple things, where I’m so impressed with the thought put into it and the execution of it that there’s nothing practical that I can think of to improve. When it happens, especially if nobody else seems to be noticing it for whatever reason, I feel like it’s important to point out. Truly amazing job, everyone who worked on the Bolt.

My Love Letter to the Chevy Bolt

Hey guys, I’m Shak, and this is the first time I’ve tried a blogging/share my thoughts online kind of thing. Apart from dumb statuses or bad jokes, but I digress. I’m a scientist, not a writer, but I’ll try to dust off my old IB TOK/Literature vocabulary and put it to use. Facebook startup At Avro, we’re developing transdermal drug delivery systems, starting with a medicated sticker to deliver seasonal allergy meds to children. I’ll start with a bit of our history, then share my thoughts on starting a startup while in school. I co-founded Avro Life Science in first year with a good friend, a guy who was kinda a good friend, and a dude who I barely knew (Jiwoo, Keean, and Tom respectively). Jiwoo and I had met through mutual friends, rides on the Viva Blue, and math/science competition rivalries, and spent the better part of our grade 11/12 years roasting each other’s college application essays. I met Keean through Jiwoo and other debauchery that first years engage in, and we quickly discovered we were part of the same religious sect. Kinda cool. Tom was Keean’s friend from Pharmacy, and probably caught the startup bug before all of us. Our motley crew applied to Velocity Science at the last minute, a hastily-typed application at 11:59 in DC library kind of thing — we were lucky to get an interview, and managed to convince Marc Gibson, the old head of VSci, that we had the technical skill to make something of our idea. I came from a background in tissue engineering research at UofT, Jiwoo was a gene researcher, and Keean and Tom were part of the 20 person cohort accepted to UWs Conditional Acceptance to Pharmacy program, which is pretty much the closest thing to direct entry in Canada. Overall, decently bright for a bunch of first years. I’ll fast forward a bit — the first couple months in the lab were pretty crappy. I didn’t come in much, or do much of my job as a technical lead. Our patches looked like gooey, flakey messes. There was serious tension within the team between Tom and I, each of us thought the other wasn’t doing anything to contribute (I was probably more at fault tbh). We won the Velocity 5K fund, which was cool, though I couldn’t honestly say to myself that I had done much to help, since I was in Toronto on co-op. I was just happy to be part of something and put another thing on my resume. It was the classic “yeah I’m a co-founder and my Velocity hoodie is disruptively bonded to my skin, how about you?” scenario. During the summer of 2016, things started to get more serious. We were in an ad campaign with Microsoft (still no idea how this happened), and Tom started putting the gears to me. I technically had the most theoretical knowledge of what was up, but didn’t have the drive or conviction to wake up every day and go to the lab, or class for that matter. We had tough conversations, once ending with tears all around, and Tom telling us a couple stories about his past that changed my views about him a lot. I realized how important communication is between co-founders, especially in the early stages of something that could be great. Tom eventually left Avro, and UWaterloo due to some things going on in his life, but he taught me a lot about self accountability. Startups are kind of like sine waves — there are times when you’ll feel on top of the world and start dreaming about the future, but there are also a lot of shitty times when you wonder if you’ve wasted so much of yourself on something. The whole “be an entrepreneur and be your own boss” thing is great, but there’s also a reality to it. You have to be willing to put your life into something if you really want it to succeed. You have to let it take over most of your thoughts, every other waking second, and actually care about it. You have to know that if you don’t work hard enough, you probably won’t be able to pay yourself! We started Avro really early in our university careers, which is kind of a double edged sword. We get more shots at competitions and awards, and more time to learn from our seniors, but we also get passed on for grants etc due to our age and perceived knowledge. I still think we’re at a super early stage, despite having a functional MVP and LOIs, so I hate it when my family brings up the success that we’ve had to date, because it’s really nothing so far. I’d like to be able to discuss Avro with them once I can recognize it as a success in my own eyes. I know it sounds cringy and I’ve read it a billion times, but until that point happens where you snap and decide that you’re all in, it’ll keep sounding cringy. At some point, if you get really excited about an accelerator, like YC or IndieBio, you might fall asleep listening to Sam Altman or Michael Seibel’s or Ryan Bethencourt’s talks, or while reading one of PG’s essays. It wasn’t until later into the summer and early fall, when I rejected a position at Harvard Medical School to work on Avro full-time as part of the UW E-coop program that I realized I was ready to get serious. I know my friends Kevin and Peter from 6Club quit their high-paying Cali jobs to work full time, and had a great time. I’ve made a lot of sacrifices, in terms of my social life, my marks, and my potential co-op earnings, but all totally worth it. Anyway, my thoughts on biotech + tips for student founders. Biotech is waaaaaay different from software. Don’t get me started on software. Anyone can learn to code from an early age nowadays, which is awesome — some of my friends have been coding for over 10 years. I’m glad that people are getting exposed to such a powerful branch of STEM so early in life — it’s just not my cup of tea. I feel like there’s an app or site for everything nowadays, and every time I hear the term “disruptive new app” or “Uber for ___” or “Airbnb for _____” I die a little on the inside. The sciences, however, are the complete opposite. It’s tough to do research before university, and even tougher to do meaningful research that doesn’t consist of being a PhD student’s data analysis slave. I’ve been involved in research for about 5 years now, under Rhodes Scholars and Canada Research Chairs, and had my work published a couple times. That’s still nowhere close to enough scientific clout to convince a third party or investor that I actually know my stuff. The following advice applies largely to student biotech founders, and student founders in general. Prepare to be doubted! A lot. Most people think that if you’re not a PhD or Post-Doc, you can’t come up with something new or useful. Not true, but having good experimental results, patents, and tangible proof of your work helps. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Be a chill person. You’re a student — its easier to talk to people, and it just makes life easier. Don’t get the attitude that because you have a startup or something, you’re God’s gift. Go to parties, talk to people normally, and talk about your startup if it comes up. There’s nothing worse than a startup founder who won’t stop going on about how their company is going to change the world, and disrupt everything in sight. Other than YouTubers. Those are even worse. Have fun with your startup. Learn cool shit, meet cool people and better yourself as a person. Make memes if you want, but stay humble and stay hungry. You’ll meet amazing people along the way, and develop a lot more than you might expect. Learn from those who came before you! Some of our best advice and assistance has come from older, more experienced teams, like Suncayr, Ourotech, Acorn, ExVivo, etc who (I think) took a liking to us because we were friendly people who didn’t act like we were better than everyone else, and worked hard to achieve our goals. Never get complacent. Where I come from at UWaterloo, the Velocity program is great for students, but it can also lead to a false sense of security. It’s easy to work on an idea forever without much actually coming out of it. Set aggressive deadlines and goals for yourself, and make sure that your business is progressing. For biotech founders, understand that you have to move quickly too — you can’t iterate as fast as a software company or show traction like one, but you can talk to customers, get LOIs, gather valuable survey data, and show meticulous planning. Get ready to be rejected, ignored, and everything in between. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve spoken to or traded business cards with that will say “I’ll get in touch!”, or the tons more that have told me “you’re too early for us”. It doesn’t really stop, so get used to it, but always learn from rejections and prepare better answers to people’s questions. Find a way to get people excited about your idea, even if they know nothing about the space. And remember, there’s always someone more knowledgeable than you. Incorporate early! Key for grants, esp. gov’t and/or research specific. We kinda messed up on this one, didn’t cash our 5K from March until December… Prepare to take some Ls. That lab you were supposed to go to? Advisor meeting. That tutorial you were going to attend? Gotta finish a patent draft. 5 weeks of assignments you were planning to do? Game of Thrones and an investor call. You’ll miss out on fun times, but you’ll have your own times where you get hyped over a new breakthrough, or the potential of actually building something that people everywhere will see, or even better, benefit from. It’s very much a work hard play hard lifestyle, and as things get more serious, the work hard part piles up. Sometimes stuff out of your control goes wrong — once we had an awesome potential investor who had a lot of money in cryptocurrencies, and then ethereum crashed, so what can you do :( Pick your founding team well. It’s easy to just say you’ll do something with friends, and that doesn’t always work well — you should work with people who you’re compatible with, but bring different perspectives and ideas to the table. I think a large part of our early troubles was the distance between myself and Tom. Keean, Jiwoo and I went on to become the best of friends — I lived with Jiwoo for 8 months, we won 25K together, and by the end I could immediately recognize his daily W-L record in Overwatch from his mood. Even though he’s no longer with Avro, we’re best buds, and will be living together again next term. He still helps us out with stuff every now and then, and even recommends vape-juice-bottle-filling robots for us to use in scaleup ( ). Keean and I learned that we were related, and between talking about Indian stereotypes and always being late to meetings and our preferences in rap music, we became great friends and occasional wingmen. Now he’s working full-time on Avro at Bayer’s head office while I make fun of him for not knowing how to add signatures to Word docs, and we seamlessly transition from talking about Lil Yachty to our future hiring plans. http://robocapliquidfiller.com/ Most importantly, . Do it because you love it, or could see yourself spending the next 5 years on it. Don’t just add another line to your resume, do something that you can take real pride in, and learn from. I was on board with Avro from the start because I’ve suffered from allergies my whole life, from eggs to nuts to dairy and gluten, and especially seasonal allergies. It’s a medical field close to my heart, and I’m excited to work on something that could have even the slightest impact on it, because I’m also a huge chem nerd. I’m so happy that I got my shit together and started taking a real interest in Avro because I’ve learned much more than I ever thought I would, and I’ve had a great time while doing it. My class attendance record might not look great, but the feeling of taking something from an idea, to winning some competitions for an idea, to actually having a functional prototype is tough to describe — it’s scary but also incredibly exciting. The journey for Keean and I is only going to get crazier as we raise our pre-seed round, but we think that we’re ready for it. That being said, with startups you’re never ready, you just gotta roll with the punches. please don’t start something to call yourself a CEO/Founder That’s all from me for now, but I’m always happy to chat about startups, and the stuff I’ve learned!

PG&E

pgecorp.com

10K+ employees

Since 1905

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PG&E

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PG&E

pgecorp.com

10K+ employees

Since 1905

COMPANY RANKING

PG&E

EVERGREEN INDEX #8249

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