Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

Archives for April 2011

Living in the Silicon Valley

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Since I was a (geek) kid, I wanted to come to the Silicon Valley and see what it looks like.

Now that I’ve been there, I would like to share some thoughts about what I’ve seen and what I’ve felt there. Incidentally, I’ll also (try to) relate those to what is happening in Mauritius.

First of all, from a geographical perspective, the Silicon Valley is what is around the San Francisco bay. On the map, you can see San Mateo, Stanford, Mountain View up to San Jose on the left of the bay and San Leandro, Fremont, Sunnyvale up to San Jose again on the right. Everything falls within the Silicon Valley. In other words, the Silicon Valley is big.

Secondly, some very well known companies have their headquarters in the Silicon Valley: Adobe, AMD, Apple, Cisco, eBay, Google, HP, Intel, Nvidia, Oracle and Yahoo. A few years ago, I wrote about the reasons why the Mauritian Cybercity will (most probably) never become a (mini) Silicon Valley and I think the post is still relevant.

One of the first things I’ve realised is that it’s about people. People invent, people innovate and people create wealth. What is essential is that people have the opportunity to network and exchange ideas with others.

We were lucky to spend a few days with Audrey, the woman in the middle. She’s from Singapore, lives in San Carlos and is one of the co-founders of PlayMoolah. We spoke a lot and we found out that most people creating startups in the Silicon Valley are not doing it for money. Rather, they (simply) want to change the world.

Sun, the woman on the left, is the founder of LittleLives, a social networking platform for children and she also wants to change the world.

I feel the same thing about Knowledge Seven. Of course, the company is a training company but, at the same time, I work on side projects like Infos.mu and Elections.mu. When I return to Mauritius, I will start working on my grand project to transform the education landscape in Mauritius. My dream is to allow every single Mauritian to learn whatever he/she wants from the comfort of his/her home using technology.

The second thing I’ve realised is that it’s also about technology.

People in the Silicon Valley all use smartphones (the iPhone rules but I’ve seen quite a lot of Android and Blackberry devices too), laptops and (sometimes) tablets.

The Internet is pervasive here. Everything can be found online: spots to visit, places to eat, museums to discover, etc. I am actually amazed by e-commerce here. 99% of the places we’ve been allowed us to buy tickets online.

Allowing people to do everything online gives them the opportunity to devote more of their time to change the world. Maybe that’s why the Silicon Valley is so unique: people concentrate more.

San Francisco: what a great place to be!

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Kyan, Anya and myself reached San Francisco on Friday. Christina came to meet us at the airport. We went directly to the city center and spent the first night in a good hotel near the largest Chinatown in the world.

The next day, we woke up early and went to Union Square, took the Cable Car to Fisherman’s Wharf where we visited the Musée Mécanique, a small yet beautiful museum full of antique toys and games including the earliest video game, Pong.

We slept at San Carlos at Alam’s place and, the next day, Nawaaz, his wife and two kids, came to pick us to show us how San Francisco looks like. The streets of San Francisco look like, well, The Streets of San Francisco.

and, after once again being rerouted by the GPS, reached the San Francisco Golden Gate.

The Golden Gate is a magnificent bridge. We loved the colours as well as the feeling when walking on it. It’s a suspension bridge and, therefore, you feel all vibrations when cars pass by.

We had lunch in a very nice Thai restaurant with Nawaaz and his family.

After lunch, we went to the Explanatorium, the Palace of Fine Arts and, finally, the Golden Gate Park where the kids were happy to run and run and run…

… until everyone got tired (including the oldies) and we called it a quit. San Francisco is really a great place to be!

Discovering 3D in Paris

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Since Avatar, people all over the world have been raving about 3D movies.

Today, Kyan, Anya and myself watched our first 3D movie ever: Titeuf, le film.We watched the film in 3D (using the special glasses) at UGC Normandie on the Champs Elysées in Paris. And, you know, that cinema shares the same entrance as the Lido!

To be frank, I did not have a lot of expectations because, well, it was Titeuf. But I was pleasantly surprised by (1) the technical quality of the movie and (2) the quality of the narrative.

My impression of 3D

3D works well. In fact, most of the time, 3D felt more like multiple 2D planes. Those who had the Amiga will immediately understand. In 2D, there is only one plane i.e. the scene is flat. When watching 3D, we perceive multiple planes e.g. a foreground, a plane with the actors and multiple background planes used to give a sense of perspective. Most of the time, this arrangement is very effective. And I have to say that I didn’t have any issue with the glasses. No one got ill during the projection.

Of course, this does not mean that all movies would benefit from 3D but, nevertheless, it’s a welcome addition to the arsenal that a film maker has.

Titeuf

As I wrote above, I was very sceptical initially about the movie. I had watched a trailer before and I thought the movie was stupid. But, believe it or not, I actually liked the movie a lot.

You see, the movie talks of divorce which is a very common occurrence in France. I believe that 60% of couples here ultimately divorce. While this might seem enormous in comparison to what we have in Mauritius, one has to wonder whether it’s better to divorce (when incompabilities arise) or whether it’s better to make as if everything is fine (as we tend to do in our small country).

It’s debatable. On one hand, kids are much better with a dad and a mum. But it is also true that kids are better when they have a mum who really likes to be with the dad (and vice versa). Hypocrisy is never a good thing.

Education through entertainment

I was plesantly surprise at how Titeuf manages to explain why some parents divorce without sounding too simplistic. The fact that the movie was created for kids is also interesting. For instance, after the movie, Kyan and Anya asked me a lot of questions about our family which I found very refreshing.

I believe Titeuf (and similar movies) should be shown in Mauritius. And, of course, it’s not because of the 3D.