Beginning our first session of Fall 2016 with a bang, the 19 dojo members, called “Dojees” met and mingled over lunch to socialize and discuss their shared love of creativity and design.
Dojees mingling over pizza
Soon after, Danny Warshay, new head of the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship, began his talk on the need for bottom up research. Speaking about his infamous class, ENGN 1010, he explained examples of entrepreneurship at Brown and the process he forces his students to take to reach a viable solution. At every point in his talk he emphasized the need for empathy and observation as the two main beginnings of entrepreneurship.
“Entrepreneurs look for the gorilla in the picture. While everyone else is focusing on a predetermined goal, they see the outlying problems and address them.”
Danny Warshay speaking to dojees about entrepreneurship
Following the presentation, the mentors decided to break the ice with an unconventional game. Each Dojee was given a question from the NYTimes’ “36 Questions that Lead to Love” and asked each other these questions. As people shared stories of their past, and discussed their hopes for the future at Brown and beyond, laughs were shared and bonds began to form in our workshop space at John Street Studio.
“What does friendship mean to you? What roles do love and affection play in your life?”
Finally, we introduced Start Up of the Week with our first enterprise-- ConBody. Each week a mentor or Dojee will presents an interesting Start Up to help inspire innovation and critical thinking!
by Eve Grassfield