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Nicola Gomez, Alumni
- Year
- 2008-2009
- From
- United Kingdom/ Sri Lanka
- Sector
- Solar Energy Construction
- Location
- Sri Lanka
- Degree
- 2010
MBA, Sloan Fellow, Innovation and Global Leadership
“On my 30th birthday, in Sri Lanka, the tsunami hit. [Afterwards] I started to spend a lot more time in various countries in Asia and became charged by the strong entrepreneurial spirit and infinite possibilities for development that are exhibited there.”
I have learnt that by having a very strong belief in what one is setting up will help overcome many obstacles. As the impact of the 2004 tsunami was unfolding some friends and I helped organise a large relief effort in conjunction with Maharajah Enterprises, one of the largest media companies in the country. We coordinated hundreds of volunteers and set up a website to deal with and attract overseas donations. We ended up raising US $27,000 and sending 251 trucks of relief.
In 1999, I saw potential in a mid-sized new media laboratory called Cybersalon in London. My aim was for Cybersalon to be self-sustainable, and I turned it into a medium-sized Arts Council funded company with an annual turnover of US $1million.
We teamed up people from different disciplines and experiences- coders to work with designers and theorists; performance artists to work with musicians. We developed new technologies such as an innovative public SMS messaging tool and new webcasting interface. The Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), one of the UK’s premier art organisations agreed to partner and fund us.
I am now a director of the company. Cybersalon spawned Cybersonica, an electronic music organisation. We run regular events at the Tate gallery and Science Museum in London with themes such as Music and Copyright, Mobile Culture, Interface Design and Wearable Computing. This model has been successfully exported to Brazil.
Through my experiences I’ve learned that companies that are formed from a bottom-up approach, from a real need expressed by people, rather than from a more top-down idea, are able to establish a bigger pool of stakeholders and greater energy to make it work.
