The Transparency Series - Series 3, Virtual Reality (Talk)
2017-11-18 17:00 UTC
OPEN TO ALL COLUMBIANS
A unique set of seminars and hands-on workshops that bring new technology and design ideas to the Columbia Journalism community. The goal is simple — help students learn new ways to find and tell stories, new ways to inform and entertain. Each topic will commence with a Friday evening panel discussion and will follow with a Saturday hands-on workshop centered around building.
Students attending three of the seminar-workshops over the course of the year will receive a graduation award indicating the extra breadth they sought out during their time at the J-School.
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Join the Brown Institute in welcoming Raney Aronson-Rath, Executive Producer at FRONTLINE, PBS to talk about virtual reality, and its role in how we tell stories. With the recent explosion of VR – specifically 360-degree video– journalistic outlets are hungry for quality documentary content for immersive platforms. While immersive media experiences have become increasingly prevalent in the gaming and entertainment industry, we are only beginning to explore them within the context of documentary photography and journalism. How can media makers use immersion as a tool to build empathy, engage communities, and forward social change? How does immersing your viewer in content change the nature of the story you are telling? And how does this mode of experiencing a story change how journalists approach the planning, creation, and distribution of stories?

APPLICATION DEADLINE: NYC Media Lab Combine
2017-11-19
OPEN TO ALL NYC UNIVERSITY-AFFILIATED STARTUPS, STUDENTS, AND FACULTY
APPLY
Are you building a startup? Join NYC Media Lab’s Combine accelerator program to help take your idea to the next level and bring your startup to market. Participating teams will receive mentorship from leading media and technology executives and investors from NYC Media Lab Member Companies and up to $25,000 in funding. To date, 15 teams that have completed the Combine program have formed companies in the areas of machine learning, computer vision, VR/AR, and brain computer interfaces.
Eligibility: Faculty members, students (undergraduate and graduate), and/or existing startups affiliated with a NYC-based university are eligible to apply.
Award: Up to $25,000 per team
Application Deadline: Sunday, November 19th, 2017
Apply: http://www.thecombine.nyc/apply/

The Transparency Series - Series 3, Virtual Reality (Workshop)
2017-11-19 10:00 - 17:00
OPEN TO COLUMBIA JOURNALISM STUDENTS
A unique set of seminars and hands-on workshops that bring new technology and design ideas to the Columbia Journalism community. The goal is simple — help students learn new ways to find and tell stories, new ways to inform and entertain. Each topic will commence with a Friday evening panel discussion and will follow with a Saturday hands-on workshop centered around building.
Students attending three of the seminar-workshops over the course of the year will receive a graduation award indicating the extra breadth they sought out during their time at the J-School.
MORE INFO
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The Virtual Reality workshop will take students who have little to no background in virtual reality and teach them the fundamentals of working in the medium. Journalists seeking to expand their storytelling beyond the still image and written word are encouraged to join. Selected participants will gain critical insights into emerging digital strategies in order to engage audiences across new immersive platforms.
The lab will commence with a discussion around exemplary case studies, and will then challeng participants to develop their own immersive story projects. Mixing theory with practice, participants will walk away from this lab with a concrete grasp of how they might integrate immersive storytelling into their practice and what that means for their subjects, audience, and impact.

Design + Serious Play: Building a Stronger Columbia Community Design Thinking Workshop
2017-11-20 19:30 - 21:30
OPEN TO ALL STUDENTS
Design + Serious Play: Building a Stronger Columbia Community Design Thinking Workshop
Monday, November 20 | 6:30pm, Lerner Satow Room
CORE is partnering with the Columbia Digital Storytelling Lab to collaboratively answer the design question: “How might we create a Columbia community where every student can thrive?”
This workshop aims to approach Columbia’s putative empathy problem as a design question with design thinking, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® ideation, and storytelling/listening techniques.
Join us for an evening of intentional conversation, storytelling techniques, and serious play exercises you never knew you could do with LEGO® bricks. Walk away with a toolkit of techniques for empathy, radical listening, and design thinking.

Harlem Biospace Presents: Riverside Chat @ Columbia University
2017-11-21 18:00 - 20:00
OPEN TO ALL
Government Support for Life Sciences in NYC
Tuesday, November 21st
6 to 8 pm
Davis Auditorium of Columbia University
530 W 120th Street
New York, NY 10027
RSVP and Directions Here
One year ago, Mayor De Blasio announced $500 million for life-science initiatives in New York City, and every year SBA administers SBIR/STTR grants in the range of hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars each.
Hear first-hand and ask your questions about these exciting initiatives to government representatives from the city (NYCEDC) and federal government (SBA).

Design Workshop: Fundamentals of User Research
2017-11-29 15:00 - 17:00
OPEN TO ALL COLUMBIANS
REGISTER HERE
One of the core tenets of human centered design is understanding the needs of others. The ability to uncover and solve unmet needs is something all successful startups do well. Additionally, this acute awareness of users has been proven to drive innovation and creativity in more traditional settings.
Join us in this introductory sprint to learn how to use design tools, including interviewing, analogous spaces, empathy probes, and more. By the end of the sprint, you will have practiced these tools to understand communities and pinpoint areas of opportunity for entrepreneurship. This workshop will be incredibly helpful for students who will use the holiday break to conduct in-depth field research for a capstone project.
This sprint is hands-on and fast paced! Come with your own idea or we will provide you with a topic to research. This event is open to all Columbia affiliates.
Wednesday, November 29th
3:00pm-5:00pm
Design Studio, 490 Riverside Drive, Room 430

Developing Your Fashion Tech Product
2017-11-30 18:00 - 21:00
In partnership with the NY Fashion Tech Lab, Stacklist is thrilled to host its next founder panel on November 30th. They have curated this conversation to help provide insight and advice to entrepreneurs who are building a physical or digital product at the intersection of fashion and technology.
They’ll speak with founders about how they have tested their ideas, validated product-market fit, analyzed the B2B vs. B2C market opportunity, developed partnerships, and brought their product to market.
Join for a conversation, drinks & startup networking.
Panelists
Alexandra Wood (@alexcwood): COO, Wearable X
Matt Hornbuckle (@stanttbrand): Co-founder & CEO, Stantt
Nadia Boujarwah (@NBoujarwah): Co-founder & CEO, Dia&Co
Veronika Harbick (@SMczarina): Co-founder & CEO, Thursday Finest
Moderator
This panel will be moderated by Andrea Wasserman (@andreawass). Andrea is a consumer sector leader and entrepreneur with a background in both stores and e-commerce. In her leadership roles at Nordstrom, Hudson’s Bay and Lord & Taylor (among others), her focus has been the “new” and using it drive sales and build long-term brands. She continues to focus on innovation through CAPTAIN CUSTOMER, LLC, her platform for advising B2B and B2C on retail, tech, customer experience, marketing, and merchandising.
About NY Fashion Tech Lab
The New York Fashion Tech Lab is a community-driven, relationship building, collaboration, and business development platform. The nonprofit program was co-founded by Springboard Enterprises and key fashion retailers to support women-led companies that have developed innovations at the intersection of fashion, retail, and technology.
Schedule:
6:30- 6:50: Drinks & Networking
6:50-7:50: Panel
7:50-8:15: Audience Q&A
8:15-9:00: More drinks & networking

DEADLINE: Pre-proposals for Life Science Lab-to-Market Resources
2017-12-01
OPEN TO COLUMBIANS
Project funding, education and support for interdisciplinary teams working to advance innovative ideas with the potential to positively impact health outcomes.
Accelerator programs aim to catalyze innovation via support to interdisciplinary engineer / scientist / clinician teams, with the goal of increasing the potential for private investment towards continued product development, clinical testing, and, ultimately, improved patient care and healthcare outcomes.
Selected teams work closely with business, legal, and regulatory experts to define commercially-relevant hypotheses for research towards technical and business proof-of-concepts.
PRE-PROPOSALS are due by FRIDAY, DEC 1, 2017.
APPLY TO: THERAPEUTICS / DRUG DEVELOPMENT

Accelerating Cancer Therapeutics (ACT)
Translational Therapeutics Resource (TRx)

APPLY TO: MEDICAL TECHNOLOGIES / DEVICES

Columbia Biomedical Technology Accelerator (BioMedX; formally Columbia-Coulter)

DEADLINE: Project Entrepreneur
2017-12-01
Calling all Female Founders: Apply now for a chance to join the Project Entrepreneur Class of 2018 and attend the PE Intensive in NYC. 5 Winners will receive a $10,000 grant and a spot in the 5-week accelerator program hosted at Rent the Runway.
projectentrepreneur.org/apply
Project Entrepreneur is on a mission to increase the number of women building high-growth, economically impactful companies. Launched by Rent the Runway Foundation in partnership with UBS, Project Entrepreneur is a national initiative providing women access to the tools, training and networks to build scalable companies. #WhatWillYouBuild?

The Transparency Series - Series 4, Illustration (Panel)
2017-12-02 17:00
OPEN TO ALL COLUMBIANS
A unique set of seminars and hands-on workshops that bring new technology and design ideas to the Columbia Journalism community. The goal is simple — help students learn new ways to find and tell stories, new ways to inform and entertain. Each topic will commence with a Friday evening panel discussion and will follow with a Saturday hands-on workshop centered around building.
Students attending three of the seminar-workshops over the course of the year will receive a graduation award indicating the extra breadth they sought out during their time at the J-School.
MORE INFO
***
Word and image work together to produce beautifully told stories. Metaphor, humor and empathy are powerful visual tools to further engage a reader. Join us in the Brown Institute for a Friday night panel discussion with Andrew Horton, Alissa Levin, and Victor Juhasz on illustration as it relates to journalism. The panel will be moderated by Ellen Weinstein, who will conduct the Illustration workshop on Saturday.

The Transparency Series - Series 4, Illustration (Workshop)
2017-12-03 10:00 - 17:00
OPEN TO COLUMBIA JOURNALISM STUDENTS
A unique set of seminars and hands-on workshops that bring new technology and design ideas to the Columbia Journalism community. The goal is simple — help students learn new ways to find and tell stories, new ways to inform and entertain. Each topic will commence with a Friday evening panel discussion and will follow with a Saturday hands-on workshop centered around building.
Students attending three of the seminar-workshops over the course of the year will receive a graduation award indicating the extra breadth they sought out during their time at the J-School.
MORE INFO
***
Journalistic outlets like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Atlantic and Nautilus use illustration as an important part of its content. A strong visual will draw a reader to a story. In this day long workshop, Ellen Weinstein, world-renowned illustrator and frequent contributor to many publications, will introduce basic visual thinking skills that will lead you through visualizing a story from text. How do you employ visual metaphors without being cliché? How do you create visual empathy with a subject? When is humor appropriate? During the day, we will create, discuss and think about word and image, not as separate entities but as halves of a whole.

Global Social Venture Competition
2017-12-04
OPEN TO ALL STUDENTS
GSVC is a social entrepreneurship competition hosted by UC Berkeley, along with Georgia Tech as their Eastern Region partner. There is no entry fee, no travel, and no in-person presentation required until the finals. For the finals, our sponsors fund your travel to UC Berkeley to present your business for $80,000 in prizes.
First Round submissions are due on December 4th. Click here for more details on GSVC!

Additional details for the competition are below.

Team Entry Requirements:

Your team must include a student, current or recent graduate, from any level of higher education (undergraduate, masters level/graduate, or doctoral) in any area of study in the world;
No entry fee
No limit to the number of applicants from a particular program or university
Full Eligibility Requirements here

Competition Benefits:

Global Reach – In 2017, the GSVC received over 600 entries from prestigious schools in 65 countries
Collaboration – Teams are encouraged to collaborate with professionals, seasoned entrepreneurs, and students from other schools
Networking – The competition introduces early-stage social venture entrepreneurs to the investment community. Nearly 25% of past GSVC entrants are now operating companies
Prizes – Since its inception, the GSVC has awarded more than a quarter of a million dollars to emerging social ventures

Competition Structure and Deadlines:

Executive Summary, Concept Deck and Interviews submitted online (12/4/17, hosted by Georgia Tech)
Semi-Finals materials submitted online (2/17/18, hosted by Georgia Tech)
Regional Finals (3/9/18, hosted by Georgia Tech)
Global Finals presentations (4/11/18–4/13/18, hosted in Milan)

Beyond Blockchain - Emerging Markets for Decentralized Applications
2017-12-04 18:00 - 20:30
By invitation only, but livestream is available here.
Monday, December 4th
6:00-8:30 pm
Hosted by Columbia University School of Professional Studies
Pulitzer Hall, Lecture Hall
2950 Broadway New York, NY 10027
6:00-7:00 pm: Reception
7:00-8:30 pm: Program and Q+A
Speakers:
Siddhartha Dalal, Ph.D. is a Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies. Prior to joining Columbia he was Chief Data Scientist and Senior Vice President at AIG in charge of R&D that included creation and application of AI, Statistics and CS to Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, and Sensors/IOT for managing risks. He came to AIG from RAND Corporation where he was the CTO. Dalal also was Vice President of Research at Xerox, overseeing their worldwide imaging and software services research, and Bell Labs and Bellcore/SAIC as Chief Scientist and Executive Director. Dalal has an MBA and a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester with over 100 peer-reviewed publications, patents, and monographs covering the areas of risk analysis, medical informatics Bayesian statistics and economics, image processing, and sensor networks. At Rand he was responsible for the creation of technology and spinning-off of Praedicat, Inc., a casualty insurance analytics company. Dalal is a member of US Army Science Board, an advisory board of 20 scientists appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Defense to advise the U.S. Army on technology. He has received several awards including from IEEE, ASA, and ASQ.
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Chris Dannen is a founder and principal of the Iterative Capital management company, which manages three pooled vehicles: Iterative Instinct Fund I, L.P., i2 Storj SPV, LP and Iterative Mining, LLC. Prior to founding the Investment Manager, Mr. Dannen was an independent strategy consultant. He has engaged clients including Bloomberg LP and Atlantic Media Group.
At Bloomberg, Mr. Dannen worked with the infrastructure engineering team to collect ethnographic research from senior engineers, to be used in strategic recruiting. At Quartz, he worked with the Senior Director of Branded Content in order to come up with market-focused enterprise software content franchises in conjunction with senior marketers at HP and Hitachi.
Before consulting independently, Mr. Dannen was a Senior Strategist at Undercurrent LLC, a 30-person management consulting company which was acquired in 2015. During his time at Undercurrent, Mr. Dannen developed long-term technology-focused business tactics for C-suite clients at American Express, General Electric, and Pepsico.
At Fast Company magazine Mr. Dannen served as senior technology editor for two years, launching a content vertical aimed at engineers, and building out a nationwide e-commerce hackathon sponsored by Target.
Mr. Dannen began his career as a technology reporter for CBS News covering publicly-traded enterprise software companies. He has authored four books. A self-taught programmer, Mr. Dannen holds one provisional patent on a computing hardware device for blockchain video distribution, filed Mar 8, 2016 number US 62/299,493.
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Meltem Demirors is the Director of Development at DCG and serves as the “connective tissue” between our subsidiaries, portfolio companies, investors, and corporate partners and is focused on creating new models for partnership and growth. A former management consultant and finance professional, Meltem has built several early stage companies and is an expert in crafting strategy, facilitating and building complex stakeholder groups, and developing new business models and sales strategies. Meltem has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a B.A. in Mathematical Economics from Rice University.
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Joseph Lubin is a Canadian entrepreneur and a co-founder of blockchain computing platform Ethereum, a decentralized application platform incorporating a virtual machine that executes peer-to-peer contracts paid for via micropayments of the cryptocurrency ether. He is the founder of Consensus Systems, a Brooklyn-based software studio building decentralized applications. ConsenSys is one of the largest and fastest-growing companies in blockchain.
Joe graduated from Princeton with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He worked in the Princeton Robotics Lab, at tomandandy music developing an autonomous music composition tool, , and at private research firm Vision Applications Inc. building autonomous mobile robots.
As a software engineer and consultant, Joe worked with eMagine on the Identrus project, and was involved in the founding and operation of a hedge fund with a partner.
Switching gears, Joe moved to Kingston, Jamaica to work on projects in the music industry. Two years into his musical endeavors, Joe co-founded the Ethereum Project, and has been working on Ethereum and ConsenSys since January 2014.
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Joshua Ashley Klayman, J.D. is Of Counsel in the Financial Transactions Group and is a founding member and the head of MoFo’s Blockchain + Smart Contracts Group. Ms. Klayman is resident in the New York office and is a member of the firm-wide Women’s Strategy Committee, as well as Co-Chair of the New York Women’s Affinity Group. Ms. Klayman’s practice focuses on finance and corporate matters. In her finance practice, Ms. Klayman regularly represents lenders and borrowers in leveraged finance transactions involving senior, mezzanine and subordinated debt and equity offerings and co-investments, as well as in general lending matters. In her corporate practice, Ms. Klayman represents public and private organizations in a broad array of commercial transactions (including mergers and acquisitions, as well as royalty purchase and licensing transactions) and corporate governance matters.
Ms. Klayman has served for several years as an adjunct professor at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, where she has taught “U.S. Business Planning for International Transactions,” a capstone seminar for J.D. and L.L.M. candidates. At Morrison & Foerster, Ms. Klayman is active in diversity recruiting efforts and is the founder and serves as the senior advisor for MoFo’s Pro Bono name change practice assisting low-incomed transgender men and women. She also Chairs the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance’s Legal Working Committee and is a member of the Steering Committee for the New York City Opera. Prior to attending law school, Ms. Klayman served as Corporate Consultant, Global Accounts for a global, publicly traded organizational consulting and career transition firm and as Deputy Chief of Staff and Director of Special Projects for a nationally recognized political watchdog group based in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Klayman received her J.D., cum laude, from Temple University Beasley School of Law, where she was a Law Faculty Scholar and a member of the Temple Law Review. Ms. Klayman received her B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania.
Ms. Klayman is admitted to practice in New York and Pennsylvania, and before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
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Gillian Tett serves as US managing editor, leading the Financial Times’editorial operations in the region across all platforms. She writes weekly columns for the Financial Times, covering a range of economic, financial, political and social issues throughout the globe.
Ms. Tett previously served as assistant editor, U.S. managing editor from 2010-2012, and prior to this as assistant editor responsible for the Financial Times’ markets coverage. Her other roles at the Financial Timeshave included capital markets editor, deputy editor of the Lex column, Tokyo bureau chief, Tokyo correspondent, London-based economics reporter and a reporter in Russia and Brussels.
Ms. Tett’s latest book The Silo Effect, published by Simon & Schuster in September 2015, looks at the global economy and financial system through the lens of cultural anthropology.
She is the author of New York Times bestseller Fool’s Gold: How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe (Little Brown, UK and Simon and Schuster, US) published in May 2009, and Saving the Sun: A Wall Street Gamble to Rescue Japan from its Trillion Dollar Meltdown (Harper Collins, 2003). Fool’s Goldwon Financial Book of the Year at the Spear’s Book Awards in 2009.
Before joining the Financial Times in 1993, Ms. Tett was awarded a Ph.D. in social anthropology from Cambridge University based on field work in the former Soviet Union. While pursuing the Ph.D., she freelanced for the Financial Times and the BBC. She is a graduate of Cambridge University.

The Future of Investing: Enhance Human Intelligence or Replace It?
2017-12-05 18:30 - 21:00
OPEN TO COLUMBIA ALUMNI AND RESEARCHERS
Columbia Engineering researchers and alumni are leading the way through the fintech revolution.
Join Dean Mary C. Boyce, Professor Xunyu Zhou and Addepar CEO, Eric Poirier (SEAS ’04) as they discuss how new advances in technology are transforming traditional investing practices. Is Artificial Intelligence or Intelligence Augmentation the answer to making better financial decisions? Zhou and Poirier are two experts offering insight on the breakthroughs taking place and shaping the future of the finance industry and beyond.

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Four Seasons Palo Alto
2050 University Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94303
6:30 p.m. doors | 7:00 p.m. discussion
8:00-9:00 p.m. networking reception

$15
includes beer, wine and heavy hors d’oeuvres

VC Funding for Life Sciences in NYC (Event)
2017-12-07 18:00 - 20:00
Thursday, December 7th, 2017
6 to 8 pm
Davis Auditorium of Columbia University
530 W 120th Street
New York, NY 10027
RSVP and Directions Here
Join Harlem Biospace for a panel discussion on VC funding for life sciences in NYC! Panelists include representatives from a life science angel investor group, a venture capital firm, and a pharmaceutical company.

Application Deadline: TigerLaunch
2017-12-22
OPEN TO ALL STUDENTS
APPLY HERE
TigerLaunch, Princeton’s national, student-run entrepreneurship competition, is accepting applications until December 15th. Applicants from all over the country have the chance to be invited to TigerLaunch Regional Competitions to pitch their startups, with $30,000 in prize money on the line.
More information

Timeline
Round 1:
Teams across the country submit applications detailing their ideas or existing products/services. Winners are paired with mentors and resources and invited to regional competitions. Deadline: Dec 15
Round 2:
12 teams are invited to each of 3 regional events to present their products and any updates since December, pitching their MVPs and pitching business plans. Winners are invited to the final Demo Day at Princeton campus. Date: February to March
Round 3:
In April, finalists from each region network with VCs and entrepreneurs and compete for prizes and exclusive opportunities. Date: April 13-14

APPLICATION DEADLINE: SIPA Entrepreneurship Fellows
2017-12-22
Open to all young NYC entrepreneurs working full time on startup venturs.
Apply here.
The SIPA Entrepreneurship Fellows program is for young entrepreneurs with an interest at the intersection of digital technology, entrepreneurship and public policy working in the key areas of 1) Education Tech 2) New Technologies of Currency 3) Urban Innovation and Civic Tech 4) Internet of Things and 5) Addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Who can apply: The Fellowship is intended for young entrepreneurs who are working full time on startup ventures in New York City and can commit throughout either the Fall or Spring semester for Fellowship-related activities. The Fellowship will start in the Spring semester (January – May) 2018.
Fellows can apply using this form: https://goo.gl/forms/Qv5bcvT1TdQvgat1 until December 22nd.
For questions, please contact Dr. Hollie Russon Gilman hr2377@columbia.edu

Steve Blank and Avril Haines on How Students Can Keep Their Country Safe
2018-01-10 18:30 - 21:00 | Casa Italiana, 1161 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, 10027, United States
Hacking for Defense and Diplomacy

An evening in conversation with
Lean Startup Pioneer and Columbia Senior Fellow for Entrepreneurship
Steve Blank
and Former Deputy National Security Advisor
Avril Haines
Moderated by Bloomberg View Columnist
Justin Fox

Wine & Networking Reception Following the Talk
Can university students keep our country safe and secure? Can they solve refugee problems, make energy solutions better, and make nonprofits work better to improve the social good?
Come hear how the Hacking for X classes are doing just that with the Department of Defense, State Department, Department of Energy, and nonprofits.
The courses, such as Hacking for Defense, Hacking for Diplomacy, Hacking for Energy, and Hacking for Impact, are a series of classes adopted by universities across the nation to solve critical real-world problems and give students a new platform for participating in national service.
Join Lean Startup pioneer Steve Blank, creator of the Hacking for X series of classes, in conversation with Avril Haines, former White House Deputy National Security Advisor and former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, for a provocative discussion of how proven tools for innovation can be successfully applied to complex problems inside our national defense structure.

Sponsored by tempCFO

tempCFO has served the venture startup sector for 20 years with outsourced accounting, CFO and tax services. Our proven approach enables entrepreneurs to gain insights into their business, communicate effectively with their board and investors and plan a strategy for success. Learn more.

Columbia University Senior Fellow for Entrepreneurship Steve Blank is a retired eight-time serial entrepreneur-turned-educator and author. He has changed the way entrepreneurs around the world build their startups. His bestselling The Startup Owner’s Manual, and his earlier seminal work, The Four Steps to the Epiphany are both credited with launching the Lean Startup movement. His Lean LaunchPad class at Stanford, Berkeley, and Columbia has redefined how Universities approach entrepreneurship. His Innovation Corps class for the National Science Foundation forever changed how the U.S. commercializes science.
Avril D. Haines is currently a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University and a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School. She served as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, was the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and served as the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council. Before joining the NSC, she led the Treaty office at the Department of State, was the Deputy Chief Counsel for the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, worked for The Hague Conference on Private International Law, and served as a law clerk for Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Avril received a bachelor’s degree in Physics from the University of Chicago, a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, and founded and ran a bookstore café for five years while engaged in community service in Baltimore.
Justin Fox is a columnist for Bloomberg View, writing about business. He started there in January 2015, after serving as editorial director and executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. He is the author of The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street, which was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book of 2009, and the Amazon.com editors’ choice as the best business book of that year. Before joining HBR in 2010, he wrote a weekly column for Time and created the Curious Capitalist blog for Time.com. Previously, Fox spent more than a decade as a writer and editor at Fortune magazine, and worked at several newspapers. He has appeared frequently on radio and TV, including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and written for The Atlantic and The New York Times Book Review, among other publications. He has been a senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School and a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, son, and dog.

Design Your Future Applications Open
2018-01-15
Apply Here
Applications Open: January 15
Applications Close: January 29, 11:59pm
Accepted Applicants Notified: February 5, by 5pm
The future can feel uncertain, so we’ve created Design Your Future as a three-session program where students learn to apply human-centered design to their careers and to life after graduation. The goal of this program to help you to better navigate your career and life choices in the face of this uncertainty.
Design Your Future is designed for graduate students who are nearing the end of their studies and preparing to launch out into the world. This can be both an exciting and unnerving time. What if you discover that your new job isn’t for you? What happens if you start to drift away from the things you feel passionate about? Many recent graduates feel stuck after leaving school.
Dates and Times:
February 13th — 11:00am to 1:00pm
February 20th — 11:00am to 1:00pm
February 27th — 11:00am to 1:00pm
March 6th — 11:00am to 1:00pm

@Sree's Social Media One-Night Stand NYC
2018-01-17 17:00 - 21:00
You Asked. Sree Answered “Yes”
Sree’s Social Media One-Night Stand NYC Is Back! #sreetips
Join @Sree on Wednesday, January 17, 2018, for a dynamic and fun-filled night of learning.
This is one of a series of events produced by Sree with his longtime partners, Linda Bernstein (@wordwhacker) and Liz Borod Wright (@travelogged).
Time:
5:05 p.m. to 6:15 p.m.: [optional & complimentary with paid ticket] Sessions with the Social Media Doctors. Get help with your social profiles. Learn new phone photography tricks. Discover great apps that will make your social postings pop.
6:30 p.m to 9:45 p.m.: THE MAIN EVENT! Sree presents everything (or quite a bit) you need to know NOW about social media, apps and more. Watch for the surprise guest experts.
Place:
W83, 130 West 83rd St, New York, NY 10024 (btw Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues; the event is upstairs in the Loft Space; closest trains are: 1, C, B. Use this Google map link for directions.
Sree will share:

What’s working – and what isn’t in 2018 in social, apps and more.

Best practices that he learned while Chief Digital Officer of New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Columbia University (and his 21 years teaching at Columbia Journalism School)

How to cut through the noise using innovative tools and strategies.

Tips and tricks for reinventing yourself and job searching.

On-stage “How I social” with multiple social stars in various fields
Confirmed speakers include:
Gregory Galant, cofounder of Shorty Awards, MuckRack: @gregory
Niketa Patel of Twitter News: @niketa
Arun Venugopal, reporter and host, WNYC: @ArunNYC
Carla Zanoni, Editor of Audience & Analytics, WSJ: @CarlaZanoni

*ALSO INCLUDED WITH ADMISSION: Social Media Doctors!One-on-one and small group consultations with top experts will be available before Sree begins at 6:30 (and during the break).
Here’s what @TamarSatov tweeted about Sree’s workshops: “So glad I signed up for this @sree master class on #socialmedia. Best. Session. EVER!”
NOTE: Sree will be doing 40+ workshops in 20+ cities in 5+ countries in 2018. Sign up to hear more or to bring him to your town: http://bit.ly/sreelist3
AMONG THE CITIES IN THE WORKS:
NYC (multiple times a year + Social Media Weekend in June 2018), DC, LA, San Diego, San Fransisco, Philly, Chicago, Phoenix, Detroit, Tampa, Toronto, Austin (and counting)
COUNTRIES IN THE WORKS:
India, Ireland, Dominican Republic, UAE, Italy (and counting)
If you’d like to sponsor this or the other workshops around the world, please email sree@sree.net (SPONSORSHIP in the subject line)
There’s something for every professional in Sree’s dynamic lectures and gatherings.
ABOUT SREE: Sree Sreenivasan is a leading social and digital media consultant and trainer, working with nonprofits, startups, companies and executives around the world. He has served as Chief Digital Officer of New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Columbia University (where he was a full-time professor of journalism for 20+ years).
He has also been a paid on-air tech expert for the three largest news stations in NYC.
He taught a course on entrepreneurship at Columbia for four years with Ken Lerer, the co-founder of Huffington Post, chairman of Buzzfeed and co-founder of venture firm LererHippeau.
Sree is the creator of three popular social media learning opportunities that have been attended by thousands of attendees in NYC, several U.S. cities and more than a dozen countries: Social Media Weekend, Social Media Day and Social Media One-Night Stand (coming in June 2018 in NYC).
In 2015, Fast Company named him one of the 100 most creative people in business and in 2010, he was named one of the 35 most influential people in social media by the Poynter Institute. In 2014, he was named most influential CDO by CDO Club.
Be sure to join Sree’s Advanced Social Media FB Group.
Read his recent NYT guide to social media. Some articles on Sree: How to use social media in career transition:http://bit.ly/sree3oh3PBS Newshour feature on Sree’s journey: http://bit.ly/sree3oh10Fast Company: Most Creative 2015 profile: http://bit.ly/sreefcNYO on Sree as “The Twitter Tutor”: http://observer.com/2010/04/the-twitter-tutor/See also: Sree’s 5 TEDx videos.Twitter: @sree – http://twitter.com/sreeInstagram: @sreenet – http://instagram.com/sreenetFacebook: /sreenet and /sreetips – http://facebook.com/sreenetand http://facebook.com/sreetips
FAQs
Please explain ticket pricing.

Early bird price: $79 + processing fee = $85.46 (by 11:59 p.m. on December 24, 2017)

Discount: $89 + processing fee = $96.02 (by 11:59 on December 31, 2017)

Final pre-event price: $99 + processing fee = $106.57 (11:50 p.m. on January 16 2017)

At the door: $150 + processing fee = $160.41, if any tickets remain

What are my transportation/parking options for getting to and from the event?
W83 is easily accessible from the 1 Train West 86th Street or West 79th Street stops, the C or B Train West 81st Street stop, the M7, M11, M10, and M 104 bus lines. There are a couple of parking garages on West 83rd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues. Click here for a Google map link. Or be like Sree and walk!
What can I bring into the event? Please bring dinner, something to drink, and snacks as the class is long and fast-paced, and many of you will be beginning your evening with the Social Media Doctors. There is a Lenwich sandwich shop on Columbus Avenue between 83rd-W84th Street and a convenience store on the northwest corner of West 83rd and Columbus Avenue. Take-out food is available at many of the restaurants in the neighborhood; Pizza, crepes, tacos and bagels can all be found nearby.
How can I contact the organizer with any questions?
You can contact us through the Eventbrite or tweet questions to @wordwhacker or @travelogged.
Is my registration/ticket transferrable? Yes, if you inform us by 1/7/2018. Tickets are not refundable.
What is the event hashtag?
#SreeTips
Can I purchase a ticket for someone as a gift?
YES! YES! YES! Change someone’s life with a ticket to this event. Let us know, and we’ll announce it.
Should I spread the word?
YES! YES! YES! Let your friends know on all your social networks. Here’s a sample tweet:
>>> What you’ve been waiting for: @Sree’s Social Media One Night Stand NYC on 1/17/2018. For info & tickets: bit.ly/sreell2018 #sreetips <<<

Hod Lipson Fellowship Event
2018-01-18
INVITATION ONLY
WHAT: We’re hosting Dr. Hod Lipson, Professor of Engineering and Data Science at SEAS who has graciously agreed to speak to us on the subject: AI: Why Now?
Why is AI suddenly taking off? What are the four exponential trends driving AI?
FROM OUR GUEST:
Artificial Intelligence technology has been making grand strides over the past few years, outperforming humans in tasks once thought to be impossible. Machines can now recognize images, interpret audio and understand language with unprecedented reliability. But where will this technology go next, and how far can it reach?
This talk outlines a brief history of AI, and its embodied cousin, Robotics. We will follow the field from its inception nearly a century ago, into its accelerating ascent in recent years, and look into the future.
AI is a beneficiary of several compounding exponential technologies. But unlike smooth progress observed in many other areas, AI progresses in distinct waves. Each wave leaps forward as a new fundamental capability is mastered, then lulls us into complacency until a wave washes over.
Hod Lipson is a professor of Engineering and Data Science at Columbia University in New York, and a co-author of the award winning book “Fabricated: The New World of 3D printing”, and of “Driverless: Intelligent cars and the road ahead”.
His work on self-aware and self-replicating robots challenges conventional views of robotics. Lipson directs the Creative Machines Lab, which pioneers new ways to make machines that create, and machines that are creative.
For more information visit http://hodlipson.com
We hope you can make it!
Cheers,
Society of Columbia Graduates

Design Studio Open House
2018-01-19 15:00 - 17:00 | Columbia Entrepreneurship Design Studio, 490 Riverside Dr., New York, NY, 10027, United States
Friday, January 19th
3:00pm to 5:00pm
The Design Studio (Riverside Church Room 430)
Want to learn more about the Columbia Entrepreneurship Design Studio? Stop by during our Open House to visit the space, meet our team, and learn more about how the Design Studio can help you in your projects, startup and life over the next year! Stop by anytime between 3 and 5pm; food and drink will be served.
If you have questions, please reach out to us at designstudio@columbia.edu.

Studio Hours at the Design Studio (Open Collaboration Time)
2018-01-24 15:00 - 17:00 | Columbia Entrepreneurship Design Studio, 490 Riverside Dr., New York, NY, 10027, United States
OPEN TO ALL COLUMBIANS
Do you have an idea and want to get personal design thinking feedback from the Design Studio? During Studio Hours, teams or individuals are invited to discuss their projects or ideas one-on-one with human-centered designers in the Studio. Teams of Columbia affiliates are also welcome to use the studio space for working independently on their entrepreneurial projects.

Immigration and Entrepreneurship (Third Thursday Event Series)
2018-01-25 17:30 - 19:30
OPEN TO ALL COLUMBIANS
Third Thursday is a recurring open forum and networking and info session for the Columbia University entrepreneurship community. It provides students, faculty, staff, and alumni the opportunity to hear ideas from across campus, form teams, and explore career options. 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.
Thursday, January 25 (technically Fourth Thursday instead of Third Thursday due to the late start of the semester) will feature Megan Kludt, an attorney at Curran & Berger, LLP, a boutique law firm specializing in all areas of immigration, including business, achievement, investment, family, and humanitarian bases for immigration status.
Megan is very knowledgable on visa options for students after graduation, and specializes in complex immigration cases in the areas of business, academia, scientific research, and the arts. Additionally, she was selected by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) to provide emergency legal aid to children at the US/Mexico border and was honored as one of AILA New England’s Pro Bono Champions in 2016.
Megan holds a BS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, a Master of International Relations from Boston University, and a JD with an international concentration from Boston University School of Law.
At this month’s Third Thursday event, Megan will discuss

Options and requirements for various visas, such as: J1, O-1B, and H-1B
Visa options and NYC/NYS immigration resources for foreign startup founders
How much of an impact a lawyer/representation has on a visa application
How to find out whether or not a startup is qualified to help employees file for work visas
The process of hiring and granting a visa for a non-USA citizen that just finished school in the USA
The STEM extension of the OPT for foreign entrepreneurs launching startups (non-employed by existing and EVerify companies)
Shareholding issues that may caused by the immigration status of foreign entrepreneurs in start-up companies

Join us!
​Register here​

The Transparency Series - Series 5, Networks (Workshop)
2018-01-27 17:00 - 19:00
OPEN TO COLUMBIA JOURNALISM STUDENTS
A unique set of seminars and hands-on workshops that bring new technology and design ideas to the Columbia Journalism community. The goal is simple — help students learn new ways to find and tell stories, new ways to inform and entertain. Each topic will commence with a Friday evening panel discussion and will follow with a Saturday hands-on workshop centered around building.
Students attending three of the seminar-workshops over the course of the year will receive a graduation award indicating the extra breadth they sought out during their time at the J-School.
***
In this installment, we will consider data that describe networks of people and organizations (often called “graphs”). These are structures that don’t fit easily into a spreadsheet — they encode relationships. Who knows who? Who worked for the same company? Who donated to or lobbied for which campaign? Who retweets who? These kinds of data let us connect the dots between people and organizations. Where are conflicts of interest? Can we track money or influence? On social media, can we see important “influencers” or visualize groups of people who share specific kinds of content?

The Transparency Series - Series 5, Networks (Seminar)
2018-01-27 17:00 - 19:00
OPEN TO ALL COLUMBIANS
A unique set of seminars and hands-on workshops that bring new technology and design ideas to the Columbia Journalism community. The goal is simple — help students learn new ways to find and tell stories, new ways to inform and entertain. Each topic will commence with a Friday evening panel discussion and will follow with a Saturday hands-on workshop centered around building.
Students attending three of the seminar-workshops over the course of the year will receive a graduation award indicating the extra breadth they sought out during their time at the J-School.
MORE INFO
***
The world is a complicated place, and sometimes it’s not the things themselves that’s the story, but the connections between the things. two speakers whose projects transform these connections between things into first-rate journalism. The first is Kevin Connor, the director of the Public Accountability Initiative (PAI) and co-founder of LittleSis.org (think the opposite of Big Brother), an online wiki database tracking information on powerful people and organizations. Then we will hear from Mar Cabra, head of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) Data & Research Unit. She led a global team from ICIJ analyzing the 11.5 million documents in the famed Panama Papers leak.

Tamer Fund for Social Ventures Information Session
2018-01-30 18:30 - 19:30
6:30-7:30 p.m.
GSAPP Incubator
231 Bowery, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10002
RSVP
*Refreshments provided from Tamer Fund portfolio venture Eat Offbeat with RSVP
Learn about upcoming Tamer Fund for Social Ventures deadlines and the application process, and network with other social and environmental venture teams. You will also hear from portfolio members Rachel Barnard, ’11GSAPP, founder, Young New Yorkers; Justin Garrett Moore, ’04GSAPP, advisor, Made in Brownsville; and Manal Kahi, ’15SIPA, co-founder, Eat Offbeat, as they share their ventures’ missions and experiences working with the center.
The Tamer Fund for Social Ventures provides seed grants of up to $25,000 to nonprofit, for-profit, and hybrid early-stage social and environmental ventures. Funding is made available to around seven ventures each year.
To be eligible, ventures must be led by Columbia University students, alumni, faculty or researchers, or be advised and have significant involvement by Columbia University faculty or researchers.

DEADLINE: The Point 25 Initiative Spring Series Application
2018-02-04
The Point 25 Initiative matches the most promising women-led companies with amazing C-level Advisors for their Advisory Boards. The ‘Point 25’ name refers to the 0.25% equity incentive that an advisor often receives for serving in the role. It’s based on the belief that – while money is a large part of what determines the success of a company – having the right network of helpful and influential advisors can really propel a business forward. This is also an effort to facilitate advisory board roles for prominent leaders who wish to give back to the startup ecosystem.

Applications for the Point 25 Spring Series are now open!
APPLY HERE

Please share with women-led startups you’d recommend and ask them to cite your name on their application.
Help spread the word in your network using the links on Twitter and LinkedIn below.
C-Level professionals interested in being profiled at future events can express interest via the link on the website.

The deadline for entrepreneurs to apply is February 4. Applications will be reviewed and acceptances extended on a rolling basis.

Studio Hours at the Design Studio (Open Collaboration Time)
2018-02-07 15:00 - 17:00 | Columbia Entrepreneurship Design Studio, 490 Riverside Dr., New York, NY, 10027, United States
OPEN TO ALL IN THE COLUMBIA COMMUNITY
Do you have an idea and want to get personal design thinking feedback from the Design Studio? During Studio Hours, teams or individuals are invited to discuss their projects or ideas one-on-one with human-centered designers in the Studio. Teams of Columbia affiliates are also welcome to use the studio space for working independently on their entrepreneurial projects.

She Opened the Door - Columbia University Women's Conference (Event)
2018-02-09 - 2018-02-11
OPEN TO COLUMBIA
In February, hundreds will convene at She Opened the Door for a weekend of celebrating, learning from, and expanding horizons with fellow Columbia alumnae who are making a difference in our world.
We look forward to welcoming back dozens of incredible alumnae to Columbia to speak at this event, including Abigail Disney ’87, ’94GSAS, A’Lelia Bundles ’76JRN, Claire Shipman ’86CC, ’94SIPA, and more.
On February 11, 2018 at 1:15 p.m., a livestream of the conversation with Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be available.
Check back here for more information and the livestream link.
