
Who I Am
I’m a 20 year old designer, entrepreneur, thinker, and Partner at Jinn Tech. I was born and raised in Dallas TX but now live work and study in the greater Boston area. I’ve always been one to be extremely curious why we as humans do what we do and why we continue to do it. Through this search I’ve become somewhat of a nonconformist and thus I found myself to be a major proponent of the Innovation community. Through increased international communication and collaboration I believe innovators everywhere can help to make the world a better place and it is my mission to enable innovators everywhere do exactly that. Through connecting and sharing the stories of other likeminded individuals I hope to be able to show the rest of the world what I mean.
What I am doing
For the next 3 months I will be giving up my comfortable life living in the JINN Mansion and move into a 50 liter backpack. I will be traveling through the economic powerhouses of the BRIC nations: Russia, India, and China. (yeah the B isn’t there because Brazil is kinda far from the rest and I am on a startup salary :P) In these months of travel I will be taking courses at institutions such as St. Petersburg University, working with my co-founders to scale JINN, talking with locals, connecting with the international innovation communities and of course site seeing.
Some Context and Overview
4 years ago when trying to chose what higher education institution to attend I came across a program at Babson College called BRIC. 18 credits, 3 countries I was very interested in and a focus on Business and Culture. It was the perfect program and the reason I decided to attend Babson. Now as a Junior at Babson, the time has finally come for me to go but probably at the least convenient time ever for JINN.

We’ve been operational for about a year now and have really begun to scale at a very rapid rate. As per the wisdom of Mr. Michael E. Gerber we’ve systemized our internal processes and as result we’ve been hiring and ramping up sales like crazy! Though JINN is a software business that works with many remote teams, having a geographical barrier from my fellow Co-Founders will have to take some getting used to. For nearly the last year we’ve literally slept no more than a few yards from each other and office but now I’ll be halfway across the world in a different time zone… But as we always say, “We’ll make it work.” This means many late night/early morning video calls, coffee shop hopping in cities where I don’t know how to say “coffee” and the exercising of a trait many think I don’t have: Time Management.

Why the BRIC Nations?
I’ve always been interested in what the world refers to as the “Developing Economies.” I had the fortune to grow up in the United States where we have had a system of business and a culture of innovation that has been set in place for quite a while. Many of the BRIC nations and those that grew up there haven’t had that same luxury. For example, Russia about 30 years ago was still a communist nation, China has been a manufacturing economy for quite a while, and India has literally only been a nation for roughly 65 years. However each of these economies, ever since I was a Model UN obsessed high schooler have been developing at insane rates and are beginning to really upset the global economic balance of power.
For this single reason I have been obsessed with learning more and more about what the governments have been doing to foster such levels of growth and how private business operates within each nation and across. Being comfortable in the current global business economy is great, but I am preparing for its landscape in the next 20 years. Not learning the culture, practices and political structure of the rest of the global economic powerhouses would really not be a smart move by anyone who hopes to do business internationally in the future. By being able to come see the landscape for myself I hope to be able to better prepare myself for the imminent global future.
As I’m traveling across the different major cities of Russia, India and China I’ll be trying my best to take note of all the different customs and crazy innovations that each economy is spurring up. My goal with this blog is to be able to have my own personal list of amazing things happening across the international innovation community and bring awareness to others that might not necessarily have the same opportunity to see it for themselves. Any developments, weird interactions, interesting lessons, amazing innovations, and personal opinions will be shared here on this blog as I continue along this journey we call life.

The Travel Agenda for the Next Month:
St. Petersburg: 8/24–9/17 | Moscow: 9/18-9/21
Things I’m Reading:
“Mans Search For Himself” - Rollo May | “Dead Souls” - Nikolai Gogol
If you want to chat or have any suggestions about places that I should go, people I should meet or things I should see please don’t hesitate to reach out! Send me a message on Facebook Messenger -> Click Here

