Integration Moment III

In my Master program in TU Delft, Management of Technology, there's a special course called Integration Moment (read more about it in my previous post). This semester is my 3rd Integration Moment starting from 12 -30 January 2009. It was said in the kick-off meeting that 3 best papers would be selected and given prize. Interesting :)

The task was to write thesis proposal. We had been informed about this beforehand and advised to have our thesis topic ready before the start of the IM3. However, being a person who liked to keep his options open, this was particularly hard for me :)

Nevertheless, I decided on a topic related to my specialization in Innovation System just on the first day of IM3. It was a project in IBM. That's what I want, a thesis in company so that it would be more practical (at least that's what I thought).

However, the topic itself was still very broad, I only had little contact with my supervisor (he was not involved in the IM3 course) and I didn't even get a reply from IBM yet, about whether I'm gonna be accepted as one of the intern. This really gave me a hard time to write the thesis proposal. You know, the uncertainty.. I just didn't want to redo making the thesis proposal later. Hey, that's the purpose of this IM3 :D

The deadline for submission the final proposal was last Tuesday at 4pm. On Sunday, mine was still really bad, only a scrape on one A4 and some wild thoughts. Fortunately I got a meeting with one of the mentor on Monday and he gave me valuable input and some literatures to read. Long story short, after a 3 weeks IM3 period, I submitted my work just in time. I just realized I sent it 3.55 pm according to the big clock on the computer room's wall but 4.01pm according to the computer's clock. OMG.

Today we had a closing session of IM3 with free drinks in Wijnhaven, a very nice cafe by the way. Three students had been selected (before the deadline) to present their works because the commitee found them interesting and that they had shown good progress. Indeed, Doudou's, Robin's, and Reinoud's topics were interesting. I especially liked Robin's, about the impact of incubators to start-up companies.

Then the teachers announced the 3 best papers. And wow..! One of the prize went for me!
I honestly didn't expect that. I mean, I liked my paper, it's concise and well-reflect what I had in mind about the research at that moment. But it's not my best, I should've put more effort, that's what I felt.

Of course I didn't refuse the prize, come on :D I went home with a flower bouquet and 2 bookshop vouchers, very happy :)

NB: One interesting coincidence.. The other two prize-winners were Monica and Robin (this is a guy, as this name is unisex). The funny thing was, we were the only MOT students joining an elective course called Network Management & Innovation a couple of months ago and formed a group for the assignment. Apparently in this IM3 course, we were once more reunited, hehe :D