Entrepreneurship: Ascend UC Berkley +Travonde Case Competition with guest Judge Steve Wozniak
It has been an honor to have been a part of Tina Choi’s entrepreneurial journey and witnessed a successful pitch event on September 28th at UC Berkley. Tina started her company, Travonde, to give Baby Boomers easy access to technology that focuses on their needs. Boomers overwhelmingly have smartphones, but most apps aren’t optimized for them. Tina is building Travonde to change that.
Her vision was sparked by a deep desire to offer her own parents a way to maintain independence and quality of life—a life that includes continued engagement in our rapidly changing society, and accessibility to travel near and far.
This fall, she executed one of her visions: engaging young people to connect with their older generation. Tina along with the help of the Ascend Team (UCBerkeley Business Student Group) led a Case Competition to a diverse panel of judges with entrepreneurial expertise that included Cal alum Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Inc. I didn’t know what to expect when I flew out to the event, but I was blown away with the caliber of the presentations and solutions that they presented to the audience.
It was a great achievement and a milestone of progress since we first met at the Hive Conference last year. I learned she had just quit her executive job leading the global materials and supply chain for Apple. While I can empathize with her decision, I could only imagine the magnitude of fear (the “WTF did I just do” kind of fear) she had at the moment she walked into the unknown. She left “security” to embrace a mission—one that’s much greater than herself—to launch Travonde.
During her tenure at Apple, one of the most innovative personal electronics companies, she worked side-by-side with Steve Jobs and Jony Ive in designing the first generation iPod—it was laborious, yet exhilarating. Looking back, she admired the hands-on attention to quality and details—and the empowered leadership style that encouraged those who worked on projects to care in what they were working on.
Now, Travonde is also innovating the travel industry in ways you wouldn’t think. There’s gamification, APIs, machine learning algorithms in the back end for matching and recommendations. Travonde’s usability caters to older adults and features accessibility information. But what’s more promising than what I see of Travonde’s future success is how Tina has lived her mission. She has a genuine heart and authenticity—that helps her solve for the problems of growing old, loneliness, lack of independence, and more importantly the idea of bridging generations to care for each another. These are deep societal issues that tech alone can’t solve. By the turnout of this event validates Tina is not alone in wanting to solve this problem.
Over multiple phone calls, I’ve learned how Tina is unrelenting in wanting to solve these societal issues. She truly believes that the younger generation cares—and has the ability to be proactive—to be engaged with their seniors in a meaningful way.
Tina stepped out her comfort zone to create something out of nothing. With Travonde in its beta stage, she harnessed the intellect of UC-Berkeley students and their Ascend team. She challenged Cal students to consider Travonde’s mission in a case study pitch competition from interdisciplinary majors: Computer Science, Marketing, and Economics. The students thoughtfully came up with innovative solutions. More than 50+ teams applied over the course of three months, and seven were chosen given with only ONE week to collaborate and deliver a comprehensive solution to present on stage to a group of judges and audience on September 28th. The teams were well rehearsed, professional and polished in both delivery and with some novel solutions that equally impressed the judges and Founder/CEO Tina Choi of Travonde.
Tina gathered a high-caliber group of judges that believe in her mission and come out to support her. It was a wonderful event that benefitted the students by giving them real-world experience in pitching their ideas. And the fact that Tina attracted the great Woz to share his own entrepreneurial journey with the clearly excited students showed her tenacity on putting on a great event with the community. I got a chance to meet Bruce and Anna from Redwood City Parks and Recreation who are working with Travonde to pilot a program with their seniors.
We were astounded and truly touched that more than 200 people attended the case competition. We realized that Travonde + Ascend had built a compelling event that mattered to all the people who came to learn, be supportive, and be engaged.
Through Travonde + Ascend, the Cal students gained great insight in bridging the generations and designing for two overlooked areas: seniors and accessibility. They applied their skill sets to something meaningful and of value to the larger society. And by presenting their case studies, they had a valuable experience for when they present themselves at job interviews and offered new ideas for Travonde to consider as they continue to iterate their beta.
