The Kernel’s mission is nothing if not incredibly ambitious, aiming to fix technology journalism by avoiding link-bait articles, SEO titles and boring tech news reporting. They promise to be rigorous in their enquiry, transparent about their methods and aggressive in defending entrepreneurs. It’s a laudable initiative in a world burdened by an unbearable amount of crappy “publications” driven by page impressions and ad budgets, and it seems they’ve been doing a great job keeping to their promise, so far.

I may be biased as Milo is one of my best friends, but over the past few days I’ve been reading The Kernel and I’m impressed with the quality and wit of most articles, all written with a twist of humour or sarcasm, in typical fashion of the Editor-in-Chief himself. I wish Milo and the team good luck in 2012, and I’m looking forward to seeing The Kernel become as influential and respected in technology journalism as The Economist is in the business world.

One of the components that makes Seedcamp unique is the Mini Seedcamp Events that happen around the world over the course of the year. I like attending these events whenever possible, so on October 20th I’m going to Mini Seedcamp Prague. There will be some fantastic mentors and investors there, and you can still apply to pitch your startup, here.

For me, the decision to move to London happened after I met Alex Van Someren at a Mini Seedcamp Event in Paris. So don’t miss out, wear good shoes and you might just end up in Europe’s technology capital as well. If not, at least the post-event parties are always good.

I have been on a mission. A “WebMission” to be precise. It was put together by UKTI, Technology Strategy Board, Polecat and Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, and led by the brilliant Oli Barrett.

Each year, the team selects up to 20 British companies and takes them to the Valley for a week of intense meetings – and fun. How’s this for a highlight: a night of “networking” at Michael Birch’s house. (For those of you who don’t know Birch, he’s the man who sold Bebo.com to AOL for $850 million in cash. Not as uncommon in the Valley as you’d imagine.)

I was lucky to be selected this year, and in between visits to Twitter and Microsoft, pitches to angels and VCs, pub crawls and ludicrous house parties, I am discovering what really makes the Valley tick: the people.

People in the Bay Area are smart, laid back, fun, hard-working. And, most importantly, they’re willing to give a hand to fellow entrepreneurs, even if you come from 5,000 miles away. More importantly, there’s a lot of them: anywhere you go, you’ll likely find someone who’s founded or sold a start-up. Millionaires aren’t cool here – billionaires are – but very few of them do it for the money.

As a matter of fact, one of the VCs I met here in the Valley told me something interesting: “Most startups in London, New York and the rest of the world want to make money. Most startups in the Valley want to change the world. That’s what makes the difference.”

My experience this week tends to confirm this. To give you an example: Marc Benioff started the Salesforce Foundation before Salesforce.com had made a dime. Its values were, as the Foundation’s vice president of “all things fun, meaningful and rewarding” Julie Trell explained to us on Thursday morning, “imprinted in the company’s DNA”. Today, 70% of their employees volunteer every year and thousands of companies have been involved with the foundation in the past 11 years.

On one of the evenings, I had dinner with a couple of Stanford MBAs working on a social enterprise fighting malaria through a technology that makes it cheaper to create malaria nets.

I also spoke to a VC whose fund only invests in start-ups trying to optimise energy creation for third world countries.

The list goes on.

On Thursday afternoon, I was in a car with the same Julie Trell and my good friend Milo Yiannopoulos, when I spotted Marc Benioff walking down Market Street. We stopped the car and Julie called over to him. “Hey Julie! I’m running to a meeting but it’s good to see you,” he said, and off he went.

He’s not the only one in a hurry: as soon as I get back to the UK, I’ll be heading over to the Romanian consulate (I am Romanian) to apply for an L1 visa. San Francisco is the Hollywood of tech, and if you want to be a star, this is the place to go about it.

About the computer:

Computers are actually pretty simple. We’re sitting here on a bench in this cafe [for this part of the Interview]. Let’s assume that you understood only the most rudimentary of directions and you asked how to find the rest room. I would have to describe it to you in very specific and precise instructions. I might say, “Scoot sideways two meters off the bench. Stand erect. Lift left foot. Bend left knee until it is horizontal. Extend left foot and shift weight 300 centimeters forward .” and on and on. If you could interpret all those instructions 100 times faster than any other person in this cafe, you would appear to be a magician: You could run over and grab a milk shake and bring it back and set it on the table and snap your fingers, and I’d think you made the milk shake appear, because it was so fast relative to my perception. That’s exactly what a computer does. It takes these very, very simple-minded instructions–”Go fetch a number, add it to this number, put the result there, perceive if it’s greater than this other number”–but executes them at a rate of, let’s say, 1,000,000 per second. At 1,000,000 per second, the results appear to be magic.

About the mouse:

If I want to tell you there is a spot on your shirt, I’m not going to do it linguistically: “There’s a spot on your shirt 14 centimeters down from the collar and three centimeters to the left of your button.” If you have a spot–”There!” [He points]–I’ll point to it. Pointing is a metaphor we all know. We’ve done a lot of studies and tests on that, and it’s much faster to do all kinds of functions, such as cutting and pasting, with a mouse, so it’s not only easier to use but more efficient.

About life:

There’s an old Hindu saying that comes into my mind occasionally: “For the first 30 years of your life, you make your habits. For the last 30 years of your life, your habits make you.” As I’m going to be 30 in February, the thought has crossed my mind.

Selling is all about telling a story that’s relevant to the person you’re telling it to, but at the same time creates an emotional impact or connection. If you look closely at the paragraphs above, you’ll notice that the stories involve the interviewer directly. It may not make the person buy whatever you’re selling directly, but it might make people pay more attention to whatever your saying.

INFLUENCERS FULL VERSION from R+I creative on Vimeo.

(via Dave McClure)

Big thumbs up to Albion London, Jason Goodman & co, Mike Butcher and Robin Klein for helping people like Eliza speak about what they believe in, through events like Albion Society.

Today, Seedcamp also announced that Carlos Espinal from Doughty Hanson has joined Seedcamp as a Partner, and that they’ve increased the number of companies they will invest in to 10 / yr. Twelve, actually – in good Seedcamp spirit. I am incredibly happy for Reshma, Saul & co for getting Carlos on board, and I think he will bring tremendous value to the team.

On a slightly different note but on the same subject, I strongly believe Reshma & co are building THE European tech ecosystem, something we very much need if we want to see European companies become successful. And in order to build this ecosystem, Reshma, Saul, Carlos & Philipp need all support they can get. Plus – I find it very rewarding to give back to the community and help others succeed. Do you?

“Le Fleurs du Mal, the most celebrated collection of verse in the history of modern poetry, first appeared on the horizon in 1845 in an advertisement on a book cover: ‘To be published shortly: The Lesbians by Baudelaire-Dufays‘. Charles Baudelaire, who was trying out different versions of his name (Dufays was his mother’s name), was a 24-year-old man of letters who had published only one poem. The announcement of The Lesbians was repeated on several book covers in 1846 and 1847, including that of Bauelaire’s own substantial pamphlet reviewing the annual art exhibit, The Salon of 1846. By 1848 the title had changed to Limbo, who’s publication was announced as imminent, and in 1850 and 1851 some pems from the future Flowers of Evil were published as extracts from Limbo. Finally in 1855 the Revue des deux mondes printed eighteen poems undr the title, Les Fleurs du Mal, and the complete collection appeared in 1857.”

For me, this is a reconfirmation of the fact I shouldn’t have skipped History classes when I was in school. And on a similar note, I encourage you to buy Le Fleurs du Mal, Baudelaire’s most celebrated collection of poems.

“As some of you will already know, alongside developing Trigga and becoming a father, I’ve spent the last year on an intensive endurance training programme in preparation for an unsupported attempt to reach the North Pole in May. When you receive this email I will be about 12 hours away (Wednesday 28 April) from departing for Resolute Bay, the most northerly Inuit settlement in Canada. From Resolute, I will dropped off on the ice to begin what will be a long journey to the Pole on foot. I hope to have reached it by mid-May.

I will be skiing and walking across the ice, pulling all of my kit on a pulk (sledge) in what is one of the harshest climates on earth. More people have climbed Everest than have successfully reached the North Pole.

The biggest challenges are going to be the physical endurance, the cold, polar bears – and missing my wife Dilek, and our baby daughter Thalia, who was born in February.

I will be skiing between 12-14 hours per day, in temperatures ranging from minus 20 to minus 60 degrees, depending on the wind chill. And the proposed route cuts across an area which is home to 80% of the world’s polar bears, including one stretch called “Polar Bear Alley”.

I want to use this expedition to raise money for two inspiring Global Angels projects to help children which, having just become a father, really inspired me – a special equipped holiday home in the UK for children with life threatening illnesses and an orphan home and school for street children in Sierra Leone. I have inserted details of these projects below.

100% of the money I raise will go directly to these two projects – I am paying for all of the costs of the expedition myself. If this email and these projects also inspire you then it’s easy to help make a donation via the “Support Ed Now” button on http://www.globalangels.org/pages/10120/Fundraising.htm.”

Briefly, HODR is an organization that’s created a workflow which allows them to quickly send volunteers to places in the world where they’re needed. I know what you’re thinking – oh boy, yet another NGO trying to change the world, right? I thought the same. But these guys do two things really, really differently:

1. They have no fixed costs – out of the 5,000 volunteers they work with, only 5 are paid. That means – 100% of what you donate goes directly to the response programs they’re running at that time

2. If you want to volunteer, you just pay for your flight to wherever you’re needed, and they take care of the rest. I think this is the reason why they’ve been so successful since they launched in 2004, ’cause it’s easier and safer to volunteer when you know someone will take good care of you.

Have a look at their site, maybe make a donation and, if you have the time, I encourage you to volunteer. I know I will.