Business school holds forum as part of new e-curriculum

By Bethany Tang

Daily Bruin Contributor

With technology companies fueling the economy,
“dot-com” and “e-commerce” have been
natural topics of discussion for business students hoping to
capitalize on the trend.

Less than a month after the Graduate Business Conference titled
“The Net Effect” and less than two weeks before the
“eCommerce and Global Business Conference” the Anderson
School hosted “Digital Mania,” Saturday at Korn
Convocation Hall.

“The reason I came today is because digital technology is
about to explode, and I really wanted to hear from the
speakers,” said Stephen Greene, a first-year Anderson
student.

The business world has been so affected by technology, that the
school has begun to include many technology and entrepreneurship
classes in their curriculum and has held many conferences like
“Digital Mania.”

In addition, Bruce Willison, the dean of The Anderson School
announced in February the Center for Management of the Information
Economy, which is a research center that focuses on information
technology and will be conducting seminars on this topic to educate
business students. “Digital Mania” was one event aimed
to help the new Center accomplish its mission.

“At Anderson we want to mirror (the trend) in our
curriculum, in our research, and in our programs and seminars, so
that we can truly prepare our students and the business community
for the digital age,” Willison said.

The conference sponsored by the school’s Entrepreneur
Association included keynote speaker Richard Titus, vice president
of strategic development at Razorfish, a company producing
technological solutions for digital businesses.

The conference also included panels featuring speakers like
Mariana Danilovic the CEO and president of Digital Media Incubator,
a company she started while working for KPMG, and Bernard Louvat,
the CEO of BizBuyer.com, one of the leading Internet companies in
digital economy.

“Love the idea you can change the world with digital
technology,” Titus said in his keynote address.

Titus found success in this philosophy, helping to create
Razorfish’s Visitor.com, the first link in the world
connecting television and the Internet. Titus predicted the next
step in the e-commerce revolution would be through interactive
television and Internet connections through television that will be
used nationwide in the near future.

Using his own experience, Titus hoped that he could encourage
entrepreneurship in the conference attendees.

“Entrepreneurship can exist anywhere, it is just thinking
of something and making it exist,” he said.

Despite the fast-paced changes occurring as technology continues
to dominate the economy, Titus said that it should not scare
us.

“Technology doesn’t run us, we run it,” he
said.

In addition to “Digital Mania,” the Entrepreneur
Association, the largest student-run association at Anderson, hosts
activities such as a mentoring program and “Thinktank,”
a weekly conference to discuss new business ideas. It also holds
different day-long conferences so their members can learn more
about entrepreneurship and technology.

“For entrepreneurs and MBA students alike, possibilities
have been transformed and magnified exponentially by the promise of
new technologies,” said David Williams, president of the
Entrepreneur Association.