Columbia Entrepreneurship

Athena Entrepreneurs
2021-09-23 18:30 - 20:00 UTC
Embracing Risk as an Entrepreneur: Drop by the Athena Entrepreneurs meetup on Thursday, September 23, 6:30 to 8 PM at the Athena Center, Milstein 4th Floor to get to know other students interested in entrepreneurship and learn more about how you can embrace positive risk-taking as an entrepreneur. Before we jump into working on our ideas, we’ll be joined by Jennifer Perusini ‘10, head of BEnet (Barnard’s alum entrepreneur group) and co-founder and CEO of biotech startup Neurovation Labs, Inc., for a conversation about what it takes to become comfortable with uncertainty and expand your comfort zone. We welcome all women and non-binary aspiring and emerging entrepreneurs at Barnard and Columbia. Come work on your startup – or just explore your interest in entrepreneurship with us. We’re joined by visiting experts nearly every week. No RSVP is required! Learn more about Athena Entrepreneurs at athenacenter.barnard.edu/eship.

Deadline: SIPA Dean’s Public Policy Challenge Grant Program
2021-09-27
Learn more and apply here.
The program, which is part of the campus-wide Columbia Venture Competition, invites students to turn their policy passions into entrepreneurial ventures – whether for profit or not for profit – and to design cutting-edge projects or prototypes that use ICT and/or data analytics to advance a public policy objective. Students across CU can apply, as long as they have at least 1 SIPA member.

Athena Entrepreneurs Weekly Meetup
2021-09-30 18:30 - 20:00
Open to aspiring and emerging women and nonbinary entrepreneurs from Barnard and Columbia (current students).
No RSVP required!

These meetups are a forum for collaboration, peer support, and mentorship from experts, including Athena’s Director of Applied Learning & Entrepreneurship and Athena’s Entrepreneur-In-Residence. Guest experts regularly drop in to share wisdom and insights, sticking around for one-on-one conversations with student entrepreneurs.
Drop by on a Thursday evening from 6:30-8 pm at the Athena Center and you’ll find your people and the help you need.
Learn more

Deadline: Columbia-CareOne Healthcare Innovation Challenge
2021-10-01
APPLY HERE Deadline Oct. 1st — Grand Prize $25,000 —
American healthcare is undergoing unprecedented change driven by rapid innovations in technology, care delivery, and services all responding to changing demographics, inequality, pandemics, politicized policy, retail healthcare, and consumerism. Calling All Healthcare Innovators and Entrepreneurs. Applications from startups or from individuals/teams developing IP with commercial potential will be considered. This challenge focuses on innovations in the non-regulated healthcare space (no pharma or class three devices, please). Examples of eligible categories include: Healthcare Delivery and Services, Diagnostics, Memory Loss and Cognitive Decline, Social Determinants of Health, Class 1 and 2 Medical Devices, Remote Care and Telemedicine, Medication Management, Wellness, Substance Abuse, Nutrition, Education, Public Health, and Policy, Content and Communications, and Age-in-Place solutions. More examples HERE.

Deadline: CTV Fellows
2021-10-01
Columbia Technology Ventures (CTV), Columbia’s technology transfer office, will be hiring graduate students and post-docs for the Fellows Program. It is a unique internship opportunity that introduces scientists to technology commercialization.
CTV will host two virtual information sessions: one on Sept 14th at 10am and the other on Sept 15 at 5:30. Please check the CTV website for the meeting information if the provided links do not work. This is a paid position $25/hour for up to 10hrs/week. The application (due Oct 1) can be found here: https://ctvfellows.smapply.io/

Info Session: Lang Fund for Columbia Business School Alumni Founders
2021-10-01 12:00 - 13:00
The Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurial Initiative Fund (“The Lang Fund”) is opening up its fall selection process for early-stage, CBS alumni-founded startups. Winning companies typically receive $25-$50k investments.
Criteria: The Lang Fund is looking for Columbia Busines School alumni-founded ventures that fit the following criteria:

Pre-seed or seed-stage companies, ideally post-revenue with 6 months of customer data (exceptions can be made)
At least one member of the founding team must be a CBS alum
The founding team must all be working full-time on their venture, or in the process of transitioning to full-time
The venture must be raising, or looking to raise a round within the next 12 months
The Lang Fund is geographically and sector agnostic

Important Dates

9/07/21 – Alumni Submission Window Opens
10/01/21 – Alumni Info Session (Zoom)
10/05/21 – Alumni Submission Window Closes – Companies will be selected on a rolling basis
10/20/21 – Selected Alumni Ventures Pitch to Screening Committee
11/17 – Final Round Pitch, investment decisions are made by Lang Fund Investment Committee

Questions? Contact langcenter@gsb.columbia.edu.

Deadline: Almaworks
2021-10-04
Working on a startup? Almaworks helps early-stage Columbia affiliated startups achieve significant, sustainable growth. We offer cohort companies a unique set of value-adds including world-class mentorship, access to VCs and investors, corporate perks, discounted legal access and more. Almaworks has graduated 90+ startups which have gone onto raise $45M+ and have graduated into YC, Techstars, and more and have won hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants and prizes. Learn more at the Almaworks website and direct any questions to almaworks@columbia.edu.
Apply at alma.works/apply by Monday, October 4th at 11:59pm

Deadline: Lang Fund for Columbia Business School Alumni Founders
2021-10-05

NYC Media Lab Summit 2021: Future Imperfect
2021-10-06 10:00 - 2021-10-07 14:00
RSVP HERE
The two-day online conference will bring together 1,000+ virtual attendees from NYC Media Lab’s core community—including executives, university faculty, students, investors, and entrepreneurs—to explore the future of media and tech in New York City and beyond.
Please note: The livestream link will be shared with all registrants as we approach the October 6-7 event.

Athena Entrepreneurs Weekly Meet Up
2021-10-07 18:30 - 20:00, 2021-10-14 18:30 - 20:00, 2021-10-21 18:30 - 20:00, 2021-10-28 18:30 - 20:00, 2021-11-11 18:30 - 20:00, 2021-11-18 18:30 - 20:00, 2021-12-02 18:30 - 20:00

SPARK with Kaylin Marcotte '12Barnard: Supporting Women Through Entrepreneurship
2021-10-12 18:00 - 20:00
How do you turn a hobby into a business? And how can that business lift up other women? Join this conversation with Barnard alumna and entrepreneur Kaylin Marcotte ’12Barnard. Kaylin is the founder & CEO of JIGGY, a direct-to-consumer jigsaw puzzle brand on a mission to modernize and elevate the humble jigsaw, and support female artists around the world. This SPARK will be in person for Barnard students/faculty/staff, virtual for alums, and members of the public. Learn more about SPARK here.

Deadline: Design Your Future Applications
2021-10-15 22:00
Apply here
Open to current students from all of Columbia’s schools.

The future can feel uncertain. What if you discover that your path isn’t the right fit? What happens if you start to drift away from the things you feel passionate about? What trajectory is right for you? Design Your Future was created to sort through these types of questions.
In this two-session workshop, students will learn to apply design in order to better navigate careers and life choices in school and beyond. You can read about the experience here. DYF is a workshop open to Columbia students (including Teachers College and Barnard) and will meet in the Columbia Entrepreneurship Design Studio.
DYF will meet in the Columbia Entrepreneurship Design Studio:
Friday, October 29th — 9:30am to 12:30pm ET
Friday, November 12th — 10:30am to 12:30pm ET
If you are interested, please fill out the application by 10pm on Friday, October 15th. We will get back to all applicants by 5pm on Monday, October 18th. Due to COVID restrictions, this program is only open to current Columbia students.

Columbia Giving Day 2021 - Support Entrepreneurs
2021-10-20 08:00 - 17:00
Support Columbia Entrepreneurs this Giving Day

Start Me Up Bootcamp
2021-10-21
Join Columbia Engineering’s Start Me Up Bootcamp, a virtual course to test your idea in the market! Participants in this free, two-week course will receive entrepreneurship training and mentor support as they virtually talk with customers to identify the best product-market fit using the lean launchpad methodology. 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 from October 21- November 5. 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. Application Deadline: rolling; first come, first serve.
Apply here.

Third Thursday
2021-10-21 17:00 - 18:00
Join us for our monthly Third Thursday forum to hear from new and current entrepreneurs!
Third Thursday provides students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to hear ideas from across campus, form teams, and explore career options. You’ll hear from Columbia faculty and other experts on ways to engage at Columbia, their experience in startups, and more. Have an announcement or idea to pitch to the group? Contact Ivy Schultz (is2350@columbia.edu) in advance and to pitch it!
Limited seating available. All attendees must continue to wear masks at all times in indoor settings in Columbia facilities, regardless of vaccination status. For more information about COVID-19 protocols visit covid19.columbia.edu.

Athena Entrepreneurs Weekly Meet Ups
2021-11-04 18:30 - 20:00

Deadline: Nucleate Activator Program
2021-11-08
Are you an academic trainee (Post-doc/Ph.D./MBA/MD/JD) interested in building life science startups? Are you passionate about therapeutics, diagnostics, medtech, or synthetic biology? Apply to Nucleate’s activator program! Nucleate is a student-run nonprofit organization that facilitates the formation of new life science ventures.

Application Deadline: Design for Social Innovation Spring 2022
2021-11-10
Applications are now open for the Spring 2022 Design For Social Innovation course! Taught by Sarah Holloway, Lecturer at the School of International Public Affairs and Adam Royalty, Designer in Residence at Columbia Entrepreneurship’s Design Studio, DFSI is a semester-long course where Columbia University students and faculty support social enterprises, nonprofit organizations, and the public sector to address complex, ambiguous global problems through human centered design. This Spring, we will work with NYC-based organizations around the themes of Education, Public Health, Urban Infrastructure, Mental Health, and Media. Please contact designstudio@columbia.edu with any questions and apply here.

The Wrangler
2021-11-13 - 2021-11-14
Learn more
What is The Wrangler? It is a “choose your own adventure” of unique skills workshops — it is 2 days, each divided into 90 minute to 2-hour sessions. At any point there will be 3 workshops running in parallel and you decide which courses you are going to attend.

Columbia Life Science Accelerators: Call for Pre-Proposals
2021-11-15
The pre-proposal period is open for Therapeutics/Cancer Therapeutics/Drug Development – Accelerating Cancer Therapeutics (ACT) & Translational Therapeutics Resource (TRx); and Medical Technologies/Devices/Software/Coordination of Care/Remote Medicine – Biomedical Engineering Technology Accelerator (BiomedX formerly Columbia-Coulter program). Applicants must have a full-time faculty appointment, and at least one of the lead investigators should be from Columbia University. Graduate students and post-doctorate trainees can act as a project lead, with permission from the principal investigators (PIs). Please refer to the individual program Pre-proposal Instructions (below) and/or reach out to L2M@ctv.columbia.edu.

BiomedX
TRx
ACT

CORE Founderschool
2021-11-17 20:00 - 21:00
Interested in learning about entrepreneurship? Student entrepreneurship group CORE is running Founderschool, a peer-led class on the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. Over the course of the semester, you’ll learn how to determine the viability of your idea, how to build a minimum viable product, how to conduct the customer discovery process, how to do market analysis, how to raise funding, and more. Throughout the semester, CORE will offer office hours, exclusive founder resources, and a network to launch your company. Founderschool is open to everyone, and no startup experience is assumed or required. To register for Founderschool, fill out this form: https://forms.gle/jn3VY5jzfGr7JA4f9

Hacking for Humanity and the Planet Venture Incubator Info Session
2021-11-17 20:30 - 21:30
RSVP here.
This course serves as an incubator for startups making a tangible impact on people or the planet, and is open to interested students across all of Columbia’s schools and programs, including undergraduates – join the info session to learn more!

Fast Pitch Competition
2021-11-19
Fast Pitch is Columbia’s campus-wide annual elevator pitch (similar to Shark Tank) competition where students and teams have 60 seconds to sell their business ideas to a panel of judges to win up to $5,000 for their idea. Teams are judged on their appeal, conciseness, and completeness. Register for Fast Pitch 2021 updates.

Deadline: 2022 Kleiner Perkins Fellows Program
2022-01-09
Apply here.

Kleiner Perkins has been at the center of innovation – investing and building companies like Google, Amazon, Square, Twitter, Uber, Genentech, and many more. An important part of building iconic companies is hiring next generation talent. That’s why it started the Kleiner Perkins Fellows program, now in its 11th year. It has 700+ alumni, which include Figma’s CEO Dylan Field, and Duolingo’s Chief Product Officer Jorge Mazal. Each year, the program places talented technical students into 50+ companies including Stripe, Brex, Robinhood, Figma, and more.

The KP Fellows Program offers:

Experience at a growing startup
Mentorship from CEOs and VC Partners
Support for entrepreneurial endeavors
Community of up and coming 700+ tech leaders
