Let’s all be crazy

Today I’d like to talk to you about a presentation I attended last Monday.

It was a presentation made by 3 companies:

Enso Origins : They make software in several different areas and they came to make a presentation about the process they go through when they are developing a new product to a client.
I found this presentation to be very interesting mainly because I’m in a Junior Entreprise and this is something we can look to implement on our projects.

They use an Agile Methodology, something similar to SCRUM. What we hope to achieve using an Agile Methodology is to be able to progress on the product while showing it to the client so that he can ask for changes in something he doesn’t want or doesn’t like.

This methodology works in sprints, small spurts of work. For Enso Origins they make sprints of 15 days. They start by choosing what parts of the software are the most important and start by including them on that sprint. Once that sprint is done they choose some more pieces of the product to develop and do another sprint. They do this until the product is finished and ready to be delivered to the client.

Dognædis : They are all about cybersecurity. They offer a lot of services in that field to other businesses. They were recently acquired by Prosegur, a company that does house security or makes transportation of something valuable in a van, like you see below, or whatever you can think of in terms of security.

By acquiring Dognædis they want to be in the cybersecurity business as well.

The speaker, Rui Gonçalo Amaro, started by making an introductory note on the company so we could be aware of what they do.
After that he started doing some demonstrations of what they usually do. In this part he focused more on pentesting. A pen test is a simulated attacked authorized by the company. With this we can learn what are the vulnerabilities of the system so we can fix them.

He started by saying that a penetration test is made by 4 parts:

First step : Discovery — This is where we try to gather information passively. In this step we don’t interact with our target, we just search all over the Internet for information about our target.

Second step : — In this the step we start actively gathering information by interacting directly with the target. Using tools like ‘nmap’. If not careful in this step the attacker can be detected because we are sending and receiving information from the target.

Third and Fourth steps:Vulnerability Scan & Exploitation — This last 2 steps are sometimes made together. We use several tools like ‘Nessus’ to get more information about possible vulnerabilities on the target system and then the last step is exploitation where we use, for example, ‘ Metasploit’ to exploit those vulnerabilities.

I really enjoyed this presentation because it’s an area I’m interested and Gonçalo ,after the brief introduction about the company, gave us a pratical example by doing the first steps he would do if he was in a real pen test.

I’ve been doing some introductory online courses that I bought some days ago and that also helped to better understand this presentation.
I’m finishing the first course where I’m learning the basic stuff and some tools like the ones discussed in the presentation above (nmap, metaspoit, nessus). After this one I still have 7 more courses to do on the subject, I want to finish this one and get through another until the end of the year.

The last speaker I want to talk about is the one that I liked the most. The topic of the presentation was “ Here’s to the Crazy Ones”. The speaker’s name was Diogo Bhovan and he used some stories of his life to tell us what he thinks an entrepreneur needs to be successful and what he wants to achieve as an entrepreneur.

He started by telling the story of a little boy in 3rd-4th grade that started to be curious about how the Internet worked (something that was not that available like nowadays).
He became ecstatic when he found out that when a page was online it could be read by people all over the world.
With the help of some people he started developing his own webpage. His goal was to get as many users as sapo.pt, one of the biggest news/email webpage in Portugal at the time.
Every spare hour he could get he would be developing that webpage of his not because he had to but because he was passionate about it.

This kid we are talking about it’s Diogo.

With this story he wants to tell us that the magic happens when you are passionate about something and you commit yourself to do the work.

The second story of his life takes us to his 10th-12th grade where he was member and president of an association that wanted to make a positive impact on the world by helping people on poor countries like Ghana and Haiti.
In this part of his life he learned about communication and empathy. He believes that this is something an entrepreneur needs to have so that he can interact effectively with other people, employees, business partners, etc.

The third story was about an adventure he took that was called “Vou ali e já volto”, where he went on a trip for 1 full month with only 1€ per day, which means he went on a trip with just 31€ in his pocket.

In this trip he was able to learn a lot about himself and how to handle his feelings. He felt alone, sometimes lost and sometimes he would be thrilled because he was visiting a museum or something he wanted to see. This roller coaster of emotions made him mentally strong and able to handle his emotions better.

This emotional strength is something an entrepreneur needs as well because facing problems and having successes & losses is what an entrepreneur goes through.

His last story was about his decision to create his most recent company. The previous experiences that he made himself live through were an important foundation to discover what he wanted to do with his future.
What he wants to do is:

• Impact people in a positive way;
• Use Techology because it’s something that he loves and at the same time it enables him to impact people all over the world in an easier manner;
• Communication and iteraction with people;

I loved this presentation because I found incredible his ambition of doing more and impacting people’s lives from an young age, and also his ability to put himself out of his comfort zone so he could evolve and grow as a person.

This is the mindset of someone that tries to grow, learn and make an impact on the world instead of just passing by.

This presentation had a big impact on me, I don’t want to just be around, I want to have a good life, a full life!

I want to impact other people positively.

Diogo says he is crazy enough to think that he can change the world.

I want to be as crazy as him!

Progress Table:

Books: 3/4

Courses/MOOCs : 0/2