Akshay Kothari, a 2nd year graduate student in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University and Ankit Gupta, a 2nd year graduate Student in Computer Science at Stanford University have created an application, called Pulse, a visually attractive RSS-based news aggregator.

The two Stanford grads signed up for the Launch Pad class at the University’s Institute of Design (aka d.school), and decided to jump into the start-up world, they decided that making the digital news app might just do it and it all happened in 5 weeks, not a bad way to get a start-up off the ground right?

On sale for $3.99, the app is aimed to please both hardcore RSS reader users and people who are willing to pay top dollars for single publication apps.

Kothari and Gupta are looking to expand Pulse to other platforms ‘very soon’, starting with the iphone.

Sarah is a successful business woman who set up her internet company, 1st for Furniture, when she was 18 years old.

After the second year of trading, she was expected to have a turnover of almost £400,000.
Started on her journey by mowing her neighbours’ lawns at 14, earning her £50 a week.

Although she later went on to study to be accountant in college, but eventually left to work in a furniture dealing shop in Stevenage, Her hometown.

She was then made redundant, which kick-started Sarah’s entrepreneurial life once again, she used money from her redundancy to set up her own business, 1st for furniture.

After three months of setting up her business, she was seeing progress and was able to furnish a showroom in Hertfordshire and after the first year, she had around £95,000 turnover, which she said I thought that was quite good for a one-person business in the middle of nowhere,”
Using her accounting knowledge from college, she was able to do her own bookkeeping and also kept costs low.

She currently has three employees and her own fleet of vans (two owned and one rented) to make deliveries within a 100-mile radius, she also offers a delivery service to other local businesses.

Sunny has a rare gift called “perfect pitch” and this talent allows her to play almost any musical selection that she hears without the aid of written music.

I had the opportunity to speak with her on her journey so far.

Hope you enjoy the interview and hope it inspires you in some way!

I would like to thank Alexander for making this interview possible.

Hey Sunny, Thanks for coming on YHP today, how are you doing?

I’m well, thank you. We’re happy to be chatting with YHP today.

Most pianists have favorite composers. Who are yours?

One of my favorites is Chopin for his ability to craft a beautiful piano melody and then surround it with flourish-filled ornamentation that always augments rather than detracts.

How did you know, when did you get that feeling that is what i am meant to be doing?

My business partner and I always knew that we wanted to be the best at whatever we were engaged in. Working to find your talent, passion, and putting in consistent hard work is a lifelong pursuit. Music is something we both love and are passionate about. We now strive to take our raw talent and put in the hard work necessary to take it to the next level.

When you go out on stage, do you set any goals for yourself?

Simply put, execute at the highest level. We’ve put in the hard work, now it’s time to execute at the highest level to engage and engross the audience in the music and most importantly, connect with them.

How much does the audience itself affect your playing?

Music is a performing art that is always best when it is shared. Other’s shared their music with us and we share ours with the world. The audience deserves our utmost commitment to both the music and the visual performance and their energy and passion is inspiring.

How supportive have your parents been in your musical development?

My parents started me in music at a very young age, both of my parents are musical and our home was always filled with music. Like many parents, they have had concerns about the viability of a music career, but it is out of normal parental concern. They’ll come around fully when we reach our goals.

Do you think coming to Canada helped your musical career?

Yes of course! In Canada I met my partner and together we have built my career from the ground up. The accepting society is very helpful in allowing artists to pursue their own unique talents and while I will always love my home country of South Korea, I am a very proud Canadian.

At what age did you realise that you could play by ear?

This is a good question. Until I came to Canada I didn’t even realize that I had perfect pitch. While working together with my partner I discovered that I had perfect pitch. Before that I thought it was something that all musician had. This was in my early teens.

Piano is not something, you wake up in the morning and boom, you’ve mastered, how did you practice, what would you say was your special technique for practicing?

As a child and teen I took formal piano lessons and have completed my ARCT, which is the highest performance certification from the Royal Conservatory of Music.

These days it is all practice and passion. These two when joined with talent is the way that we’ve gotten this far and we will continue to work even harder in the future to improve as musicians and business people.

In your opinion how has technology, especially the internet, changed the landscape of music education in recent years and where do you see it headed in the future?

Communication is global and information is incredibly accessible. This means that music lessons can be delivered remotely and video tutorials are just a click away. In the future, much like now, virtual music lessons will be ‘on demand’ and cater completely to the pace of learning, schedule, and unique desired aims of each student.

What has been your most memorable moment so far?

We’re blessed to have memorable moments daily. With tens of thousand of views every day via our YouTube channels and Facebook fans page we receive touching stories and messages on a daily basis. Over the past few weeks we have visited many local schools to speak to students about passion, talent and hard work. I will always cherish and remember the overwhelming reaction of these amazing students. If these schools are any indication, the future is in good hands.

What do you do when you’re not doing music?

We work up to 100 hours a week, but during downtime I enjoy watching basketball, shopping, reading, spending time with family, and, of course, listening to new music.

What advice do you have for people who are just starting to learn piano?

Practice hard and play passionately. Find a teacher that you are comfortable with and most importantly, have fun!

So what’s next for you, what should we be expecting?

We are expanding our performances to include all of North America and have two recording projects in development. Fans should expect album release information via our Facebook fan page found at www.facebook.com/SunnyChoiMusic in the upcoming weeks and months. YHP is the first to know this… we have named the new album and are working on concepts for a music video to support the forthcoming single.

Aaah thanks, that’s great!

Great to have you sunny, Good luck and hope to chat with you soon.