Travel

Book: Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children

David Dehghan — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 17:40:00 GMT

Today my friend and mentor Suze gave me this book to read. She doesn't recommend that I leave Microsoft but just pointing out the skills that I have learnt at Microsoft are very helpful in running a nonprofit foundation.
I just read the first 3 chapters; I need to have my own copy of this book. So I am ordering it right away. I will write a review for it soon. So far it had been a pretty incredible story. The author had been at Microsoft 7 years before leaving to change the work. I can relate to that. ;-)

Launching www.PlanetChild.org

David Dehghan — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 10:21:00 GMT

During the past 1.5 years that I have been working for Microsoft India Development Center I have had the opportunity to visit India and China a number of times. Each time I go there on a business trip I try to visit some schools over the weekends and interacted with students.

In January of 2006 on a flight from Singapore to India I came up with the idea for PlanetChild and I couldn't wait long enough for the plane to land so I could start implementing it. Since then I have spent a lot of time talking to people and refining the idea. Now it is finally at a stage that I can start to talk about it broadly.

What is PlanetChild? It is an international non profit organization aimed at improving teaching methods and practices in developing countries and at making them more effective. It is very much influenced by http://path.org/. PATH develops programs that have huge return on investment in the heath care sector. For example they have invented a new syringe that once used it can not be reused and therefore it effectively stops spread of diseases cased by multiple usage of vaccine syringes.

I put this organization together to find like minded people and collaborate with them to develop and implement targeted programs to help kids learn better and faster. If you are interested in helping in any way send me an email.

The first program of Planet Child is Development Through Drawing. I will write more about it soon.

If you want to write a blog about Planet Child please use the link below to include a random child drawing with your post:

Meeting the RFID team in Amsterdam airport

David Dehghan — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 00:45:00 GMT

I was hanging out at the Amsterdam airport and suddenly I ran into Abhishek and 2 of his teammates. They way on their way to Redmond to participate in the customer advisory panel on RFID.

It was nice to hear that RFID project was moving along nicely.

I wonder when we get RFIDs at retail stores. Walmart scaled back on their implementation of mandating RFID tags on all the goods received by them largely because the suppliers were not ready for an overhaul of their inventory management system.

In the long run RFIDs will be everywhere but it might take a few more years.

Little oasis in airports

David Dehghan — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 00:44:00 GMT

Last time I bloged about the Shower in Narita airport a few people asked about the exact detail whereabouts. I will keep a list of these little oasis so you can break up your 20hr flight nicely.

Tokyo - Narita: 5$ showers for 30 min. The place is incredibly clean and has lots of hot water. You can get in and out in about 30 min. You also can hang out in their lounge for a while and rest of comfortable couches.
Amsterdam - I have heard there are showers here but have not personally found them. However there is nice quite lounge with big leather sofas close to the first aid station on the second floor. Highly recommended if the sound of snoring passengers doesn't bother you.
Singapore - By far it is the best airport on earth. They have a movie theater and mini hotel and showers. If you have a semi long transit you can take a bus tour of the city. Since they don’t let you out of the bus you don’t need visa. If you are more ambitious you can arrange your flight to have 20 hr layover. Then go downtown and do some shopping and then to Santosa beach and relax and finally go clubbing and get back to the air port just in time for your flight. ;-) that is what I did once. Since you travel by subway the schedule is very predictable and you don’t risk missing your flight.

Beijing major sights

David Dehghan — Wed, 04 May 2005 17:25:00 GMT

This is a great site to start with: http://www.frommers.com/destinations/beijing/

Together with the last time I was in Beijing I have seen most of the major sights like

Forbidden City
Summer palace
Tiananmen Square
Ming Tombs
Great Wall at Badaling
Lama Temple
Temple of Heaven
University of Beijing
Renmin University

So today I am going to go to the Zoo and do some Shopping at the end of day. Tomorrow I will go see Mao's mummified body in Tiananmen Square and the Great hall of the people.

I am boarding a train to Shanghai tomorrow night at 7:00. I will get to Shanghai the next day at 8:00AM.

My first SMS messages in China

David Dehghan — Sun, 01 May 2005 14:30:00 GMT

One sad thing is that here in Beijing I can’t find any Windows Mobile smartphone. Nokia and Samsung are everywhere ;-(

I got a China mobile SIM card and unfortunately I see some ‘••••••’ on the home page of my phone. I also received some SMS messages from Chinese government to say that I should not go to the protests in Tiananmen square next week. But I couldn’t read them because I have English OS installed on my phone.

It is really interesting to see that SMS is an official method of government propaganda.

OK, Off to Tiananmen square. Maybe you can see me on TV. I will be guy directing the tanks to line up so I can fit them in my picture frame. ;-)

Effects of high oil prices on global economy

David Dehghan — Sun, 01 May 2005 13:18:00 GMT

This months issue of The Economist has a special report on crud oil prices. I have been reading it veraciously in the past few hours in the plane to Tokyo.

Back in 1998 crude oil prices declined to near all time low of $10 per barrel. Since then the crude price has gone up steadily and in 2005 it has been sustained at $40+ level. IDC released a report just recently saying that this summer or in the near future it could easily reach $100 per barrel.

I believe oil price will have a profound impact on the global economy. I have tried to learn more about this subject and I will try to summarize my learning into an article soon.

The Oil and Gas index is the best performing index funds this year. I bought some about a month ago near its 52 weeks high. It is somewhat risky but I am pretty confident that we have not yet seen the worst of high oil prices. Any disruption in the oil supply from Iraq or Saudi Arabia will likely be followed by a sharp increase in the oil price. Since the oil production is already at its highest level it can’t absorb any anomaly in either production or consumption. I am still not sure how long I want to hold on to this index fund; I am thinking at least until end of summer.

The best $5 I have spent so far

David Dehghan — Sun, 01 May 2005 12:58:00 GMT

Wow. What a fantastic way to stat my vacation. After 11 hours on flight I got to Narita Airport. I was walking around exploring the airport and amazingly enough I ran across a small sign saying “Showers 30min --> $5”

I gotta try this; It will be just like the capsule hotel that I went to in 2002 in Tokyo.

.... 20 min later….

Ohhh. It was amazing. Aaaaah so nice and relaxing. Here is how the shower looked like. Towel, shampoo was provided for fee. And even a super clean freek like me everthing was so clean that I felt completely relaxed.

This alone is enough of motivation for me to always fly though Tokyo to go to India.

On the way to China and India

David Dehghan — Sun, 01 May 2005 11:45:00 GMT

This morning before I left Seattle I stopped by Costco to buy a 1GB memory card and at Borders to buy a travel book for Shanghai and Hong Kong. I got to the airport with an hour to spare. That is unusuall for me as I have missed plenty of flights in the past; I guess I have learned my lesson.

I am going to be in flights and airport for the next 2 days. So I might as well stop counting hours.

Finally, it is vacation time

David Dehghan — Sat, 30 Apr 2005 23:22:00 GMT

I have not gone anywhere special on vacation for a long time so I finally decided to stop by China for a personal trip before I head out to India to meet my team at Microsoft India Development center.

I am flying from Seattle to Tokyo to Hong Kong to Beijing. Then will take a train From Beijing to Shanghai and then fly back to Hong Kong. From there I will go to Mumbi and finally to Hyderabad. I have been to Beijing before but not to Hong Kong and Shanghai.

I am going to write more travel logs in my personal blog.