Kickoff: Start Me Up Bootcamp
2024-04-11
The Start Me Up Bootcamp program is a two-week virtual program designed to build your startup. The bootcamp introduces participants to the Lean Launchpad methodology and techniques to direct customer discovery through field interviews. Teams are required to conduct at least 20 customer interviews; attend online sessions and engage with other bootcamp teams and entrepreneurs. Teams “get out of the building” to learn from potential customers to determine if they are solving a real-world problem with a sizeable market opportunity. Upon completion, eligible teams may apply for a $50,000 NSF I-Corps grant to support customer discovery. Additional funding is available to support conference travel for commercialization.
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Founder's Journey: Navigating the Obstacles from Student to Startup!
2024-04-24 17:00 - 18:30 UTC
Our speaker on the Founder’s Journey is Andrew Satz, CEO of EVQLV, a company that leverages advances in computation to design therapeutic antibodies for biotechs and pharmaceutical companies. Andrew is a Columbia alumnus, a data scientist, and former CORE president, where he had a significant impact on Columbia’s entrepreneurial community. He will be sharing his entrepreneurial journey, the challenges, and ways to overcome obstacles to build a thriving startup.

Deadline: Start Me Up Bootcamp
2024-06-30
Join a select group of entrepreneurs for a two-week hybrid program designed to build your successful startup. The bootcamp introduces participants to the Lean Launchpad methodology and techniques to direct customer discovery through field interviews. Participants are required to conduct at least 20 customer interviews; attend online sessions and engage with other bootcamp teams and entrepreneurs. Teams “get out of the building” to learn from potential customers to determine if they are solving a real-world problem with a sizeable market opportunity. In addition to providing entrepreneurial training, this program helps students and researchers identify new ways to apply research to solve global challenges.
Faculty, staff, postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate student researchers may apply with a team of one to three people. Applicants are expected to be available for all short-course sessions. Teams that successfully complete this bootcamp may become eligible to apply for the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps Teams program, which includes a $50,000 grant.
MORE INFO AND REGISTER

Innovation Forum
2024-09-18 17:00 - 18:30
Register for the fall welcome event on September 18th to meet new and current entrepreneurs at Columbia. Dan Steingart, co-director of the Columbia Electrochemical Energy Center will join Professor Harry West, co-faculty director of IDE, and Ivy Schultz, Director of Entrepreneurship Programs, to share how to get started on all things entrepreneurship at Columbia. You’ll hear from Columbia faculty and other experts on opportunities at Columbia, their experience in startups, and more. RSVP to learn about upcoming entrepreneurship programs and events in the 2024 – 2025 school year.

Start Me Up Bootcamp Kickoff
2024-10-10
Applications are now open for the Start Me Up Bootcamp program. Teams are required to conduct at least 20 customer interviews; attend online sessions and engage with other bootcamp teams and entrepreneurs. Teams “get out of the building” to learn from potential customers to determine if they are solving a real-world problem with a sizeable market opportunity. The bootcamp is based on the NSF I-Corps program and introduces participants to the Lean Launchpad methodology including techniques to direct customer discovery through field interviews.

Fireside chat with Investor Mike Maples and Entrepreneur and Professor Apoorv Agarwal
2024-10-22 13:00 - 14:00
Join Columbia Engineering for a fireside chat with Mike Maples, one of the first investors in Twitter, Lyft, and Twitch, on October 22nd at 1PM in Davis Auditorium! A regular on Forbes’ Midas List, Mike has an incredible record of sensing and driving innovation in tech. He’ll be joined by Apoorv Agarwal, who received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia and founded Text IQ, a pioneering legal tech startup that he successfully exited in 2021. If you’re building now or looking to learn more about VC and startups, this is a must attend event for you – RSVPs required, please register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/building-a-startup-tickets-1033913532207
After the panel, Mike will be signing his book, Pattern Breakers, which Steve Blank has called “The most important startup book of the last ten years”. We’ll be doing a Columbia-specific BOGO offer if you’re interested in taking it home!

2024 Columbia Fast Pitch Competition
2024-11-20
In November Columbia Engineering hosts the much-anticipated Fast Pitch event. Teams have 60 seconds to sell their business ideas to a panel of judges to win up to $5,000. Fast Pitch is Columbia’s longest running pitch competition on campus since 2013.

Columbia Innovation Forum: Immigration & Building a Team for Entrepreneurs
2025-01-22 17:00 - 19:30
REGISTER
Join Columbia Engineering for an open forum to learn more about entrepreneurship and network with the Columbia University startup community. You’ll hear from Columbia alumni and other experts on their experiences working in the field, how they’ve applied their Columbia experience in their careers, and more. At this month’s open forum, learn about all things entrepreneurship, immigration and building a team. Attend to network, meet potential co-founders & recruit for your team.

Columbia Innovation Forum: The Art of the Pitch
2025-02-27 17:00 - 19:00
Join Columbia Engineering for an open forum on February 27 to learn more about entrepreneurship and network with the Columbia University startup community. You’ll hear from Columbia founders and other experts on their startup experience, and more. During this presentation/interactive session, serial entrepreneur Hugh Thomas will dig into the details of what a business plan “pitch deck” contains and what you will need to create in preparation for talking with investors and various audiences.

REGISTER HERE

Application Deadline: Startup Me Up Bootcamp
2025-06-20
The Start Me Up Bootcamp is a virtual program designed to build your startup. The bootcamp introduces participants to the Lean Launchpad methodology and techniques to direct customer discovery through field interviews. Teams conduct at least 20 customer interviews; attend online sessions and engage with other bootcamp teams and entrepreneurs.
Teams “get out of the building” to learn from potential customers to determine if they are solving a real-world problem with a sizeable market opportunity. Upon completion, eligible teams may apply for a $50,000 NSF I-Corps grant to continue customer discovery. Additional funding is available to support conference travel for commercialization. In addition to providing entrepreneurial training, the program enables students and researchers to identify new ways to apply research to solve problems across several fields.

Startup Me Up Bootcamp Kickoff
2025-07-09
*Application Deadline, June 20*
The Start Me Up Bootcamp is a virtual program designed to build your startup. The bootcamp introduces participants to the Lean Launchpad methodology and techniques to direct customer discovery through field interviews. Teams conduct at least 20 customer interviews; attend online sessions and engage with other bootcamp teams and entrepreneurs.
Teams “get out of the building” to learn from potential customers to determine if they are solving a real-world problem with a sizeable market opportunity. Upon completion, eligible teams may apply for a $50,000 NSF I-Corps grant to continue customer discovery. Additional funding is available to support conference travel for commercialization. In addition to providing entrepreneurial training, the program enables students and researchers to identify new ways to apply research to solve problems across several fields.

2025 Fast Pitch - Columbia Engineering
2025-09-19 08:00 - 17:00
Do You Have a Startup Idea?
Apply to compete in Fast Pitch, Columbia Engineering’s campus-wide annual elevator pitch competition to win prize money for your startup idea.
Learn more and sign up here.

Innovation Forum: Welcome Entrepreneurs
2025-09-25 17:00 - 19:00
Join Columbia Engineering to kick off the monthly Innovation Forum for the 2025-2026 school year! The Columbia Innovation Forum provides students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to hear startup ideas, network, form teams, and explore next steps. You’ll hear from Columbia faculty and other experts on ways to engage at Columbia, their experience in startups, and more.
The event will feature Professor Harry West, co-faculty director of IDE, and Ivy Schultz, Director of Entrepreneurship Programs joined by guest speaker Neil Daswani, ENG’96, co-director of the Stanford Advanced Security Certification Program, and an expert in data security. Learn more and register.

Kickoff: Start Me Up Bootcamp
2025-10-03
Join a select group of entrepreneurs for a two-week hybrid program designed to build your successful startup. The bootcamp introduces participants to the Lean Launchpad methodology and techniques to direct customer discovery through field interviews. Participants are required to conduct at least 20 customer interviews; attend online sessions and engage with other bootcamp teams and entrepreneurs. Teams “get out of the building” to learn from potential customers to determine if they are solving a real-world problem with a sizeable market opportunity. In addition to providing entrepreneurial training, this program helps students and researchers identify new ways to apply research to solve global challenges.
Faculty, staff, postdoctoral researchers, graduate and undergraduate students may apply with a team of one to three people. Enrolled teams are required to attend all short-course sessions. Teams that successfully complete this bootcamp may be eligible to receive conference travel or stipend funding, including eligibility to apply for the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program, which includes a $50,000 grant.

Innovation Forum: Business Plans, Pitching and Customer Discovery with Hugh Thomas
2025-10-07 17:00 - 19:00
Join us on October 7 and Hugh Thomas, serial entrepreneur and teacher, with over 30 years’ experience in international technology companies as corporate leader. Hugh has been through all phases of the technology company lifecycle, from company formation, fund raising, product development, sales and marketing, organization growth through to company acquisition. Hugh will be speaking about startups, pitching, and the value of customer discovery.
Hugh is a serial entrepreneur and teacher, he has over 30 years’ experience in international technology companies as corporate leader. Hugh has founded and run 4 startup companies of his own, as a 4x CEO he has raised multiple rounds of investment capital (>$50M in total), grown teams from 1 to over 150 employees, built and sold many successful products (software and semiconductors) and grown revenues from zero to tens of millions of dollars in annual sales.
Open to CUID card holders only.
Davis Auditorium, CEPSR
530 W 120th Street
Tuesday, Oct 7, 2025, 5-7pm

RSVP HERE

Fast Pitch 2025
2025-11-19 17:00 - 20:00
Fast Pitch 2025 – Fast Pitch is Columbia’s longest running pitch competition on campus since 2013. Entrepreneurs pitch in 60 seconds to a panel of judges and win up to $5,000! Fast Pitch is FREE and open to all undergraduate and graduate students across campus.

Innovation Forum: Immigration & Entrepreneurship
2026-01-28 16:30 - 18:30
RSVP Here
Join Columbia Engineering for its monthly Innovation Forum, an open space to listen, share, and learn more about entrepreneurship as well as network with the Columbia University startup community. Each month features a unique guest and theme, and is followed by a set of low-stakes student pitching. Have an announcement or idea to pitch to the group? Contact Ivy Schultz (is2350@columbia.edu) in advance and come prepared to pitch it!
This month’s Innovation Forum features Jonathan Grode, the U.S. Practice Director and Managing Partner for Green and Spiegel, who will lead the forums on all things entrepreneurship, immigration and building a team.
Jonathan has worked continuously in the U.S. business immigration law field since 1999 and has amassed considerable experience obtaining nonimmigrant and immigrant visas for new company start-ups, professional workers, artists and entertainers, athletes, physicians, and scientific researchers. In addition, Jonathan has significant experience dealing with Department of Labor and Department of Homeland Security enforcement actions as well as immigration related aspects of Mergers and Acquisitions.
Jonathan has been a panelist and moderator on immigration law topics for numerous organizations, including the American Bar Association, Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, French Chamber for Commerce and Industry (Paris, France), and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He also writes regularly for industry publications and academic journals. In addition, Jonathan is an Adjunct Faculty at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law where he teaches Business Immigration Law, Advising Global Corporations, and Law Practice Management. In 2020, Jonathan Grode was named Adjunct Faculty of the Year by Temple University.
Notably, Jonathan has been listed as one of SuperLawyers Rising Stars from 2012-2019 and since 2020 continuously been named a Super Lawyer. He has also been honored with the 2014 Pennsylvania Bar Association Special Achievement Award for “Dedication and Commitment to the High School Mock Trial Competition”, for which he has served as Lead Author since 2007. Jonathan was also the recipient of Lexology’s Client Choice Award in 2019 and was named in the 2020 and 2023 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America. Jonathan graduated first in his class from Temple University Beasley School of Law in 2008.
This event is open to CUID card holders only.

AI and Entrepreneurship Talk: Parag Agrawal, Parallel.ai CEO and Cofounder
2026-02-05 11:00 - 12:00
The Columbia Engineering AI Entrepreneurship Series is a bi-weekly speaker series that brings students and faculty at Columbia together with founders, VCs, technologists, and business leaders to learn about the process of transitioning lessons from research and the classroom into products and value.

This week join to hear from:

Parag Agrawal, Parallel.ai CEO and Cofounder
11AM February 05, 2026 Davis Auditorium
Parag Agrawal is the founder of Parallel Web Systems, a company unlocking the web for AI agents. Previously, he spent 11 years at Twitter, where he joined as an engineer before serving as CTO, and then CEO. Parag has a PhD from Stanford University in Computer Science and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT, Bombay.

February 27 Lecture Series in AI: Ali Farhadi, CEO of AI2
2026-02-27 10:30 - 12:00
Columbia Engineering Lecture Series in AI
Friday, February 27: Ali Farhadi, CEO of Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) & Professor, University of Washington

10:30-11:00am Check-in
11:00-12:00pm Lecture

Advance registration is required for both Columbia affiliates and non-affiliates
REGISTER HERE
ABOUT THE LECTURE
“What is the Language Model of a Crow?”
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Ali Farhadi is the CEO of the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) and a Professor at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. Ali has been a professor at the UW Allen School since 2012. He first joined Ai2 in 2015 to lead the institute’s computer vision research team with a focus on visual common-sense reasoning and the role of actions and interactions in visual understanding. While at Ai2, he co-founded Xnor.ai, the first on-device deep learning startup that was acquired by Apple in 2020. Ali led Apple’s next-generation machine learning efforts until 2023 when he rejoined Ai2 as CEO in July. Ali’s research impact has been globally recognized with several best paper awards at CVPR, NeruIPS, AAAI, NSF Career Award, and the Sloan Fellowship, and he was named one of Forbes’s Top 5 AI Entrepreneurs in 2018.

Columbia Engineering Lecture Series in AI
2026-03-27 10:30 - 12:00
“Integrating Past and Present in Continual Learning”
Continual learning aims to bridge the gap between typical human and machine-learning environments. The continual setting does not have separate training and testing phases, and instead models are evaluated online while learning novel concepts and tasks. The most capable current AI systems struggle to learn new knowledge sequentially without forgetting old ones. Challenging research questions include how to rapidly assess a learner system’s abilities and how to most efficiently train it to improve on a sequence of tasks. I will describe recent progress on these questions, across various research groups in ARNI, our NSF AI Institute for Artificial and Natural Intelligence. Finally we will consider open issues and challenges in continual learning.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Richard Zemel is the Trianthe Dakolias Professor of Engineering and Applied Science in the Computer Science Department at Columbia University. He is the Director of the NSF AI Institute for Artificial and Natural Intelligence (ARNI), and was the co-founder and inaugural Research Director of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. His awards include an AI Lifetime Achievement Award (CAIA) and a Pioneer of AI Award (NVIDIA). His research contributions include foundational work on systems that learn useful representations of data with little or no supervision; graph-based machine learning; and algorithms for fair and robust machine learning.
Register here

Application Deadline: Spring 2026 Start Me Up Bootcamp with Columbia Engineering
2026-04-10
Join a select group of entrepreneurs for a two-week hybrid program designed to build your startup. The bootcamp introduces participants to the Lean Launchpad methodology and techniques to direct customer discovery through field interviews. Participants are required to conduct at least 20 customer interviews, attend online sessions and engage with other bootcamp teams and entrepreneurs.
Teams “get out of the building” to learn from potential customers to determine if they are solving a real-world problem with a sizeable market opportunity. In addition to providing entrepreneurial training, this program helps students and researchers identify new ways to apply research to solve global challenges. Teams that complete this bootcamp may be eligible to receive conference travel or stipend funding, including eligibility to apply for the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program. Click here to explore eligibility and expectations.
Spring 2026 Dates
April 24, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
May 1, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
May 8, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Rolling admissions, apply by April 10th

IDE x CORE Entrepreneurship in Hard Tech: A Conversation with Alumni Founders
2026-04-14 17:30 - 19:30
Join Columbia Engineering and CORE for a candid look at building a hard-tech startup before the pitch decks and headlines. Hear from young Columbia founders about ideation, finding mentors and co-founders, testing early ideas, and navigating the early stages of a tech venture as Columbia students. The talk will feature Vignesh Karthik and Valentina Marini Fichera, and will be moderated by Katherine Brown, SEAS ’28.
This event will include Q&A, networking and mentorship opportunities, and dinner will be provided.
When: April 14, 2026, 5:30 – 7:30pm
Where: Columbia Engineering, Mudd Building, Carleton Commons

RSVP

Lecture Series in AI: Byron Cook, PhD, VP/Distinguished Scientist, Amazon-AWS
2026-04-17 10:30 - 12:00
Schedule:
10:30-11:00am Check-in
11:00-12:00pm Lecture
Advance registration required for both Columbia non-affiliates and Columbia affiliates.
About the Speaker
Byron Cook is a vice president and distinguished scientist at Amazon, program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and a professor at the University College London (UCL). He is well-known for his work on automatic methods for proving program term ination and the Terminator termination prover, showcasing that automatic termination proving was impossible. He contributed to Microsoft’s SLAM and Static Driver Verifier. Bryan Cook revived automatic program verification research in various ways and founded Amazon’s Automated Reasoning Group (ARG). He has received multiple awards for his research contributions, notably the Roger Needham Award and the distinction of Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
About the Lecture
“Neurosymbolic AI at AWS”
This talk will discuss work at AWS to bring the power of agentic/generative AI with the safety and correctness of formal reasoning.
Campus Access
In accordance with the University’s current visitor guidelines, all non-Columbia guests will receive a QR code within a few hours of the event date. The code will be sent to you via email from CU Guest Access and must be presented for campus entry, along with a government-issued ID.
Accessibility
Columbia University makes every effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities. If you require disability accommodations to attend an event at Columbia University, please contact the Office of Disability Services at 212.854.2388 or access@columbia.edu.
Photography/Videography
Columbia Engineering reserves the right to capture and use images (including video, photo, audio) of student participants at this event in its current or future marketing materials. These materials include but are not limited to: social media, digital and/or print posters, email and web-based materials. By attending and participating in this event, you are consenting to having your image captured for these purposes. If you have concerns about your likeness being used, please reach out to engineeringcommunications@columbia.edu and we will accommodate your request.

Funding Opportunity: Ignition Grants 2026
2026-04-30
Ignition grants assist Columbia University engineering students in launching new businesses, social and not-for-profit ventures. Ignition grants support the initial stages of early venture development from formation, IP protection, and incubation to building prototypes and creating proofs of concept. Teams that have won the Technology Challenge or received Ignition Grants in the past will not be eligible. Applicants must have a current SEAS student on the team to apply. Teams who applied to Startup Columbia Round 2 in the Tech Challenge are welcome to update their applications before resubmitting.
Deadline: Friday, April 30
APPLY HERE

Bridging Innovation and Entrepreneurship
2026-06-02 13:00 - 17:00
Looking for fresh insights from leading researchers during NY Tech Week? Join on June 2 for an afternoon exploring how research, engineering, and entrepreneurship come together to drive innovation.
Hear from Columbia Engineering faculty Elisa Konofagou, Helen H. Lu, and Kostis Kaffes, alongside industry leaders and Lab to Market founders, who will share what it takes to move ideas from discovery to scalable ventures.
This convening brings together leading academics, industry experts, and emerging founders to share insights on translating scientific discovery into real-world impact. From breakthroughs in biomedical engineering and computing to perspectives from industry leaders, the program highlights the pathways that transform ideas into scalable ventures.
This event is hosted by the Hellenic Institute of Advanced Studies in collaboration with Columbia University and the Columbia Global Center Athens.
Registration available through June 1, 2026, 11:59am

APPLICATION DEADLINE: Start Me Up Bootcamp Summer 2026
2026-07-08
The Start Me Up Bootcamp is a virtual program designed to build your startup. The bootcamp introduces participants to customer discovery to assess the commercial potential of their technology through interviews. Teams complete 20 customer interviews, attend online sessions, present findings and determine their next steps.
Teams “get out of the building” to learn from potential customers to determine if they are solving a real-world problem with a sizeable market opportunity. Teams who successfully complete the bootcamp may be eligible to apply for a $50,000 NSF grant to continue customer discovery in the national I-Corps program. In addition to providing entrepreneurial training, the program enables students and researchers to identify new ways to apply research to solve problems across various industries.

How to Stop Living in Fundraising Mode with Steven Zausner, WhiteLabel
2026-08-05 16:00 - 18:00
Happy Hour + Building a Capital Strategy That Lets You Focus on Your Company! Raising capital is an important milestone but it shouldn’t become your full-time job. Join Columbia alumnus Steven Zausner at the Columbia Startup Lab on August 5 for a special startup happy hour and conversation on how founders can build a thoughtful funding strategy that supports long-term growth instead of constant fundraising.
Wednesday, August 5, 4:00 – 6:00pm
Columbia Startup Lab
RSVP
