Bear Lake Coffee Co. shares its journey with UCLA

Greetings and a heartfelt thank you to all the engineering minds at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, especially to Dr. Bruce Huang, whose passion for fostering the next generation of engineers is truly inspirational. It was an honor for me to present as a guest speaker in his ENGR 215 Engineering Entrepreneurship class at UCLA this month.

My presentation took place at Boelter Hall, the birthplace of the internet.  On October 29, 1969, Leonard Kleinrock and his team at UCLA's School of Engineering sent the first message over ARPANET, effectively kindling the flame that lit the internet as we know it today. 

It was an absolute pleasure to present the "Engineers' Toolbox: Unleashing Success Shortcuts to Spark a Movement and Ride the Social Enterprise Wave!" to the Master of Engineering students. Our conversations were inspiring, especially in view of the fact that 43 percent of students in the class plan to pursue an entrepreneurial path after school.

The presentation focused on some entrepreneurial success shortcuts, the elements of starting a movement, social enterprise business models—specifically B Corporations—and the innovations that that have shaped the coffee industry.  Like technological innovations, coffee has come in waves, bringing a unique experience to the world.  Finally, we talked in detail about the coming fourth wave of coffee.  Here is a word cloud of the students’ responses on what they believe this fourth wave of coffee will be about.