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The most educational experience I've had in such a short period of time.
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>> An experience that I will never regret.
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>> Impactful
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>> Life changing.
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>> It was kind of drinking from a fire-hose, but it was quite enjoyable.
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>> I feel ready to go do a job for the right reason armed with the right tools.
>> The Stanford Ignite Post 9/11 Veteran's Program is modeled after
the same program that we've run here on campus since 2006.
And it's the same program that we deliver in four international locations
around the world.
We provide our students with a foundation in major business disciplines.
>> The Stanford Ignite Post 9/11 veterans program was aimed to
take people who have not only amazing backgrounds, but
also amazing potential as they transition from military service into,
you know, mission driven and, and businesses outside the service.
>> I spent 16 years in the Marine Corps, and I have now been in the Army for seven.
It's a great introduction for
those of us who have had no exposure to the business world.
>> Rich Robertson medically retired from 22 years of active duty with the US Army.
>> The Knight program gave me the opportunity to learn a new vocabulary.
To learn the business vocabulary.
They taught me so many things that I didn't know I didn't know.
>> Alex Martin, US Marine Corp.
The experience and
intellect and the character and the passion that the teachers put forth.
And that's been contagious.
And I think that's been the real glue, is that every professor that
came before us was enthusiastic about their role to teach us.
>> This is gonna be a collaborative time.
>> We got amazing guest speakers, both with military background but
also people without military background.
Really feeling that, you know, they,
they wanna give a little bit back to the people who, who gave so much.
>> The interaction with, with the,
the caliber of those, those people Secretary Shultz,
Secretary Rice General Mattis, it's an example of what Stanford is about.
It's about people doing great things for their community, for their nation, and
for the world.
>> I was not at all interested to come to an accounting class.
I thought it was gonna be numbers and I thought it was gonna be miserable, and
it was fascinating.
>> Coming here with an idea that we would, that we were learning how to sculpt and,
and cultivate through the design thinking process, and
then taking it through, and each time we got a different class and
we were introduced to different level of thinking or different lens to look at it.
We changed and it culminated into this final presentation.
>> What I loved about teaching this group is how open they were to new material and
implementing them very quickly and, and very thoroughly in their project.
>> We presented before a board of aventure capitalists.
This was very intimidating especially for
five guys who didn't know that environment.
>> David Cooper, former Navy Seal.
Now we have walked from start to finish,
startup all the way to angel investor funding.
That experience just pitching before live venture capitalists with a, with a product
that we had actually designed and believed could have impact, was transformative.
>> [APPLAUSE].
>> The creating a path to, to more dramatic impact.
No veteran wants a hand out and just say hey,
come to this program [UNKNOWN] and things because you're a veteran.
No. What they do want is,
heym do you wanna work hard for something?
Do you wanna learn the language of this business and this industry?
If you do, and if you're qualified, and if you're the right person for the job, and
if you're a man or woman of character, then you have a shot to get interviewed.
That's all they ask.
And this program gives us the tools and
enables us in this environment to basically be able to execute that.
>> The biggest thing that I would take away from here,
besides the information and the skills that I learned, is the identification of
gaps in my knowledge where I see what I need to shore up before I get out so
that I can make that transition.
>> This program has opened up the aperture to other opportunities that we
might not have considered.
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