Noulakaz

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

Education

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.

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.

A tourist in Paris thinking of Mauritius

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As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, Kyan, Anya and myself have managed to secure a 10-year visa for the USA and we’re leaving this coming Friday 8 April for San Francisco.

Until then, we’ve decided to visit Paris like, you know, tourists.

I have to say that TripAdvisor has been very useful in helping us choose what to visit. For instance, today, I brought the kids to Sacré Coeur which is a beautiful church on a hilltop from which you can see see the whole of Paris. There were lots of clouds (and the temperature was around 15 degrees) but, still, Kyan and Anya were delighted.

From Sacré Coeur, we walked through Montmartre and took the metro to Place de la Concorde. From there, we went through the Jardin des Tuilleries to the Louvre Museum. Along the route, we saw some magnificent gardens. The flowers were amazing even though spring has barely started.

We decided not to visit the Louvre Museum because, on our way back from the USA, we’ll come back to France for a few days with Christina. We’re keeping the nice bits for her.

Paris vs Mauritius

Our small island is a great island with beautiful places and great things to do… like Paris. A lot of Parisians are in love with their city and will do everything to make it better. For example, Parisians make it a must to keep their city clean (despite the pigeons and the dogs…) and they are extremely corteous (everyone says “Bonjour” and “Merci” in Paris and all drivers stop to let people cross the road — it’s amazing).

In Mauritius, nature has been generous to us except that, we, Mauritians (and this includes yours truly), are not really clean (in the sense that we don’t mind throwing our dhol puree papers everywhere) and we are not known for our courtesy (just watch the drivers).

I was talking to my uncle who has been living in Paris for years now and he was telling me that those things need to be taught in school. I wholeheartly agree. Let’s cut half an hour of differentiation and integration and let’s teach people to be corteous and friendly to each other.

What do you think?