hello and welcome to "comunidad del valle." i'm damian trujillo. today some of the smartest latinos in silicone valley are right here in our studio. this is your "comunidad del valle." ♪ we begin with the latina success network. that's the title. welcome to the show. >> thank you, david. >> you're trying to enhance the success of latinas in the valley in a holistic sense. tell us what that means. >> what i found and i'm a co-founder, there's two

founders, the other found certificate amy hernandez and what we found is that, you know, we had a soft launch in november. and we had 50% entrepreneur women show up and 50% professional women show up. and so the reason we came up with the concept was because we found that there's really not a holistic approach to dealing with latinas, they will attend, you know, seminars or go to some university program or, you know, get advice from someone as it relates as to how to succeed in business whether entrepreneur or professional. but usually the person giving them the choice or giving the advice has a bunch of titles and then they say oh, one day i'll be like that and it's not one day. it's now. so a lot of what's addressed is the mindset of success along with the strategy. i find that latinas who are very passionate, we can mobilize an entire army but we don't do a really good job of taking care

of ourselves. >> i know in large group settings somebody who is as bashful as i am, we don't want to be picked by the facilitator. when they ask for participation from the crowd we say don't pick me. >> i love our culture and i think we're taught to be humble. but ironically the humbleness gets in the way of success. you brought up something very important, which is what i found and i did a panel, you know, of latinas in technology and i had structured it in such a way that i wanted the panelists not to tell the audience all of their major enormous accomplishments, i wanted them to share some of their failures. i wanted them to share some of the emotional roller coaster because i knew -- like you mentioned you're in the audience

and then you're already feeling crappy and all you're hearing their life is great and you support them. >> you feel crappier. >> you feel crappier and you think maybe some day. there's a mind shift that needs to happen that if there's a safe environment, it has to be a safe environment to really express some of the things that they feel are holding them back. >> when you say holistic, what do you mean by holistic? in what sense. >> i think my background is in education. i have a masters in education. identify done a lot of behavioral studies, and, you know, work with adults in terms of how they learn and really how do they evolve. i think what happens s-you know, you have children, right? we start off as small children very happy and motivated and then we get conditioned. as we get older, you know,

somehow we're usually fitting somebody else's expectations or somebody else's story or somebody else's structure for us and then we feel we have to operate within that. and the holistic is getting connected back to yourself. >> and it comes from where? >> there's a story behind that. it started on barlow avenue in east santa fe. my mother was going to have her third child. we needed extra money. my father turned to me and he said you're going to sell or buy an ice cream truck and i thought at 9 years old an ice cream truck is great. >> cool. but it's inventory. >> we're making $80 and i was in charge of the money and he would only give me like $10 and, you know, my dad is a very traditional mexican guy and what ended up happening was i have to face this man i was in terror of because he was my father and knees everything and i had to

tell him that i didn't think that was appropriate. so i had to close my own emotional fear of facing a challenge, and so it's two fold. i always tell the women you have to close your -- in all business -- you have to close your own emotional path first constantly before you can go out and sell yourself. because if you're thinking of their expectations you won't succeed. >> you are much freer than i am. i couldn't face my father that way, $20 every two weeks for working in the fields, hey i'll take it. better than nothing. if you need more information get a hold of rosy the closer. tell us about the event. >> absolutely. so, the latina success network we're going to be meeting every month starting in january. you can go to events.com/latinasuccessnetwork

in order to get your ticket. basically we're developing a module that you can, you know, choose which ones you want to attend. the goal is to provide a sense of community where you can grow as an individual, grow as a business, as a person. you can also reach me at rosiethekloser.com where i have a free gift for everyone. >> thank you so much for what you're doing and training our current and future latina leaders in this community. >> thank you. >> i am the dumbest person on this show. up next the latino accelerator. stay with us. [ wind howling ]

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first of all and the valor to create a start up. >> i can tell you real quick about my company. it's basically a place where you can discover the most interesting things in the world. we tailored our algorithms to understand the latino community in particular and we launched in argentina, chile, mexico and the u.s. >> is there another site similar to yours? >> there could be -- there are other sites that do portions of what we do. so what we did is we take a low historic approach to the discovery of content for the latino community. you can discover people, product, and places. so, for example, when you're in mexico and you go to one of the 125 hotels that are partnering with us, then you'll be able to find local information that is relevant to where you are at

that particular point. >> very good. all right. tell us about yours. >> absolutely. so, i'm the ceo and chief officer for blythe. it was started 5 1/2 years ago. today most start ups you go through a few steps in the evolutionary process and we are an audience engagement platform and work with brands worldwide, host live engaging interactive social conversations on their website using all the power of social media. so it's a way for them to engage their customers and bring them closer to their brand. >> how is it working so far? >> we're doing great. we've been focused over the past year on really kind of our golden market strategy and one of our premier clients is we're working with michele, energy oil company and they host

discussions on their website about the future of oil. through the power of blythe able to have these posted moderated discussions that produce fantastic content. >> do you consider yourself trail blazers given the fact that -- i mean to think about latino tech accelerator program is foreign to a lot of us. >> i think that there's mostly a way of people to find occupant that we really exist, that we're really out there, we're creating new products and new companies and because of the environment where we are, latino entrepreneurs have not risen to the top as have, you know, the rest of entrepreneurs of the entrepreneur community here in silicone valley. what's happening now is we're getting a lot more visibility

and people and companies and investors are starting to understand that we are -- we're at the same level as any other type of entrepreneur. >> do you find that, ramsey, and maybe to take advantage of that level playing field, if you will? >> yeah. i totally appreciate that comment. we're at a place as well where we feel -- we're all able, we're all gifted, can study the process and masters in our own domains but now through a program of latinos and entrepreneurs -- i don't know i would use the word trail blazers, i like the thought that we're banding together. my lead front engineer is latino. my co-founder is latino. by business development guy is latino. so we are really starting to see, you know, this community grow in the silicon valley and i think pretty soon we'll be in a position to be excited about

what the future holds. >> how easy -- it's a big venture. how easy or difficult is it to hit the button and to say i'm doing this, i'm going in. >> so it is difficult butte same time you have a lot of freedom once do you it. there's a lot of stress. there's a lot of failures that are going to happen and you have to be ready for all the things that are going to happen to you along the way. there's this sort of magical story that once you start a start up then all of a sudden you'll become a $1 billion start up. we're all hitting for the stars but most of us will fail along the way. that's what we want to think about. when we were in this program, we went in not because we were latinos helping other latinos but we were representing a community that has been forgotten in the valley where so many things have been happening we need a stronger representation. it's hard but people should do it. >> i'll ask the same question in

our next segment, ramsey. there is the web address for more information. we'll go more in depth into the manos aspect of it when we come back. good morning nelly! woah.

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we're back here on "comunidad del valle." talking about the latino tech accelerator program. what about you, ramsey. it's got to be a little, you know, little stressful when you finally hit that button and say let's do this. >> yeah. absolutely. there's nothing like it. i can only compare it to sometimes like playing sports. when you decide to play you train, do you everything you can and you press the button and, you know, game time and you're just focused. it's very different than the standard corporate job. it's very, it's very intense. literally from the moment i wake up to the moment i go to sleep, something that you live and

breathe. but you the get such an incredible sense of empowerment and excitement and results. when you're a small company you start seeing customer traction, you start to get excited, i'm on to something here, the company is going places. the fear is almost a given. >> is the safety net manos, is that a safety net or is it one of the link? >> it's one of the links. part of the road that you have to follow. so, before manos, for instance, we launched this in december 2012. so before manos, we did have a lot of coverage. we were picked up. people were excited because it was obviously a latino focus. but as soon as we went into the silicon valley and tried to get investment it became important to become part of a wider organization of people supporting you all the time and to interact with the people that

are going through the same things that you're going through, from talking to investors to convincing new clients to sign deals to all the legal stuff that you have to do. so there's a full program that was developed around us that brought in this great people, those people that are very capable that just because of that there was a lot of value in the accelerator program to interact with these people that are extremely capable in what they do. >> manos means you're joining hands. >> absolutely. to your first question, a link is the right word. it's really kind of what is binding us together and ironically just before we started this morning, antonio and i were chatting about a potential kind of -- this is what happens here when you start together you start building together, you build great relationships. you have an opportunity to band

together and just provide -- more underpinnings to your company. >> who should be watching what manos is. maybe consumers, competitors, who should be putting a close eye on what your activities are and how closely bond ud are in manos. >> that's a good question. the first cohorts are over. the seven companies have graduated. they made lots of progress. at this point i would say it's time for some of the fellow kind of accelerators, okay let's look at these companies. what were they able to produce. that's the end goal out of this is i go into an accelerator you truly accelerate your business through the latino network but it's the general overall population in the silicone valley. >> do you find at first it helps you or might be kind of an

obstacle in convincing them. >> that's a very good question. so what we found is -- i have run three other companies in the past and this is the first one that i focused entirely in the latino market. what happened is that there was a transition there from being funded for a start up that is for the mainstream market to going into a market that's underserved but not a lot of people know about that market here, not a lot of investors or entrepreneurs for that matter. so back tracking, what happened is that yes it opened up the doors because we are, we are being, we're more visible, people are looking at us, people are looking at what the companies are achieving. now, i think that because we're the first cohort, we need that extra help from our fellow entrepreneurs that have been successful in latinos that have done it before, step up, come to us and give us a hand because we

want to continue to push forward on this. >> very good. let's show that website one more time. it's the manosaccelerator.com. any final thoughts before we let you go? >> we're excited to have been a part of manos. it's really created an incredible sense of monitoring between the companies and we're looking, to you know, to the future and we're excited about blythe as well. we believe the acceleration came in the form of meeting contacts, and meeting new customers. all in all very happy with how things have panned out. >> congratulations for that and congratulations for taking that risk and showing you guys can do it. >> thank you. >> and sharing your stories here. just to prove i'll be the dumbest person on the show today up next the board president of the. adam rock school district. ...it fills you with energy...

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board of the adam rock school district. welcome back to the show, dolores. give us a state of the union if you will, the test scores are improving and that's such a blessing because we've all known about the history in adam rock, but what a triumph. give us a state of the district. >> i think all i can say is that i have to give credit to everyone on the team that has been able to move this forward. there was some hard times we went through. there were times when i was an employee. we're moving forward. we have moved forward. we'll continue to move forward and it's not alone and with the collaboration of the entire community. >> we've talked about innovation here on this show today and you've kind of had to be innovative in adam rock because of the loss of funding and whatnot wasn't that you

created partnerships with other agencies and companies. tell us about the importance of those partnerships. >> let me talk fwou the last one we had last weekend. because of the short funding and unknown, we don't know about how much funding was coming or not coming, and when it was going to get here or anything. we started doing partnerships. we've always had partnerships with our local agencies around our community and then we went and moved over to clubs and did partnerships with them and collaborations. how we give our students a state-of-the-art school by our community going out to give us bonds that they got us in '04 and '12 to bring the schools up to state-of-the-art schools but what collaboration we had with the city of san jose, where last

weekend friday and saturday we spent two days just redoing the whole structure outside of the school. painting four new fields for soccer and baseball and sports, you know. with brand new bleachers. we're talking about being right in the middle of the community where it gets so congested there because everyone goes there to use that facility. >> just a full disclosure, my kids all three of them atte attend adam rock schools. we're going into some new kind of testing. any insight you can share with us on this new testing. >> when you and i were in school and we were getting tested we filled in bubbles, you know. that's no longer going the way we test our students any more. it's going all computerized. children will have to learn how

to keyboard so they know how to take their tests. of course, reading is essential when they start reading it. and the way you and i were instructed, with a teacher in front of the classroom and we raised our hands, waiting to be called on, it's no longer taking place like that any more. children are being engaged, fully engaged. not with a one on one partner, it's with a group where the teacher can go around, walk around and not stand in front of the room and make sure they are engaged. as you know, one of our latest schools we innovated completely, totally innovated is the san antonio -- >> tell us about it. >> we've had visitors coming from down yonder and can you up it's a school of arts, state-of-the-art for children to learn in an environment of what

it is for them now. that's the way they learn. ipads, ipods. how they are going to be learning with the new technology. you know, getting ready to finish getting our schools ready on the technology part. the testing that we're talking about, all up in technology as well. >> there's at that report that came out called broken promises and looked at the star test exams and talk about how schools need to stop making poverty and english as a second language stop using that as an excuse as far as our kids not learning. that's kind of the approach that adam rock has taken over the years. >> absolutely. we're moving into an we'ra where we're moving away the way children were learning before and giving them back to become analytical thinkers. they have to be thinking -- they have to think the problem through in their head and be able to tell us how they reach the answer. >> how much inspired are you by

what your students have accomplished right now. >> i'm so inspired. i am riding the wave because i got on the board five years ago and since then it's been steadily up where we go out and we promote ourselves and everybody wants to come to adam rock, you know. there's students that are so proud. your earlier guest, your first guest is a product of adam rock, you know. we met outside and started to talk and i'm going oh, my god you're a product of adam rock. that's what we're going to see, more students that become successful in their area. >> we're running out of time but i want to spend more time with you. give us a prognosis. what should be expected. >> you're going to be siegel adam rock getting a face lift

through the entire district. we have sold the first part of the bond that was issued to us in 2012, and people don't understand about the bonds. you can't just because we pass the bond for 130 million -- >> not there all of a sudden. >> we have to wait for the right time for us to sell the bonds. we sold them. we got 35 million. with 35 million we start bringing the schools up to top notch schools. bringing the technology in. >> there is the address for the adam rock school district. logon to that and find out more about the exciting things. also pick up a copy of the newspaper and support your bilingual. thank you for sharing your sunday with us. ♪ ho ho ho

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perfection. at progresso, we've got a passion for quality, because you've got a passion for taste. this february, the one event that unites the world with the greatest athletes on snow and ice. the 2014 olympic winter games. coming to the networks of nbc universal. today on the "world of adventure sports" presented by gopro. first we catch up with nobuhiro "monster" tajima as he attempts to break his own record in the pikes peak international hill climb. then we have gopro take us to the andes mountains for a skiing adventure. after that we will travel across the globe on two epic adventures with the team from the north face. next, it's off to the alaskan wilderness