The Columbia Women Inventors Network and the Columbia Startup Lab present a talk from Michael Sikorsky, CEO and co‐founder of Robots and Pencils. Michael will talk about what every startup and new venture can learn from the nineteenth century Irish playwright, critic and polemicist – what are common mistakes people make, and how to overcome the seduction of unnatural acts.
Micheal Sikorsky, CEO and Co-Founder, Robots and Pencils Inc.
Michael is the CEO and co-founder of Robots and Pencils Inc. With over 20 years of experience creating first-of-its kind software, he is a renowned strategist, innovator and pioneer in the mobile tech space.
At Robots and Pencils, Michael leads a world-class team of developers and designers who have created over 250 apps used by 77 million people worldwide. Founded in 2009 with the vision that mobile will be more transformative than the Internet, the team has built a reputation for creating top-ranking consumer apps, transformative enterprise apps and world-first learning platforms. With a growth rate of 4971% over five years, Robots and Pencils was named the 34th fastest growing technology company in North America in 2014.
Michael credits the success of his company to its secret sauce – a process for following the talent as well as an internal ‘one culture’ partnership between award-winning artists and developers. Everything that Robots and Pencils does starts by blending the sciences with the humanities – the robots with the pencils. No stranger to the spotlight, Michael has been widely celebrated for his entrepreneurial thinking, and, most recently, he was one of only six in the world invited to the 2014 World Entrepreneur of the Year awards as part of a special citation on global growth.
Driven by a love of learning and new insights and ideas, Michael is currently completing executive education programs at the MIT Sloan School of Management and The Columbia Business School.