Columbia Entrepreneurship

Application Deadline: Design Your Future, Spring 2022
2022-02-13
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 3-hour 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. Apply for our next session on February 18 starting at 1:30pm in the Design Studio (in person!)

Columbia Women's Business Society Annual Conference
2022-02-11 10:00 UTC
This year’s 18th annual Columbia Women’s Business Society Conference, Profiles in Resilience, highlights women making strides in the workplace in the wake of unprecedented challenges. Through our panels, World-Changing Women, Leading Women in Tech, The Business of Art, and Revolutionizing Healthcare, as well as talks from our incredible keynote speakers, Profiles in Resilience showcases women who are leading in tech, finance, healthcare, art, and entrepreneurship.
Get your ticket here.

Athena Entrepreneurs Weekly Meetups with Seisei Tatebe-Goddu
2022-02-03 18:30 - 20:00
Need space to work? Want to meet other women and nonbinary entrepreneurs? Get advice from experts?
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. 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.
Location: Athena Center, 4th floor of Milstein Center

Deadline: Design Nation Applications
2022-02-02
Apply here.

Apply to Design Nation – an all-expenses-paid exploration of the versatility of a career in design, how design is applied differently across industries, and what it looks like to be a design leader facing the business and social challenges of our world. The conference will run from April 9-10th 2022, at The Shed, Hudson Yards, in New York City. Program offerings include keynote speakers, executive seminars, panel speakers, workshops, and networking opportunities.

Deadline: Lang Fund Applications for Alumni
2022-02-01
The Lang Fund is opening up its spring selection process for early-stage, CBS alumni-founded startups. Winning companies typically receive $25-$50k investments and re-applicants are encouraged. Read about the fall winners.

Athena Entrepreneurs Weekly Meet Up
2022-01-27 18:30 - 20:00, 2021-12-02 18:30 - 20:00, 2021-11-18 18:30 - 20:00, 2021-11-11 18:30 - 20:00, 2021-10-28 18:30 - 20:00, 2021-10-21 18:30 - 20:00, 2021-10-14 18:30 - 20:00, 2021-10-07 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

CNY Biotech Accelerator Medical Device Innovation Challenge (MDIC) - Virtual Pitch Event
2022-01-25 13:00 - 15:45
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://upstate.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAsc-qrqT0tG91c4kVeWR2IZO0a7gB3WXfb
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email.

Pitch Teams:
Dancing Eyes – Eye Movement Disorder Technology
JelikaLite – Autism-based Technology
Rubitection – Skin Health Assessment Technology
MindTrace – 3D Neurosurgery Brain Mapping Technology

Pitch Judges:

Gwen Cheni, Partner, IndieBio NY
Arber Ruci, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, NSF I-Corps New York Hub
David Thurlow, Program Manager, Launch NY
Marc Alessi, Executive Director, BIANYS

Presentations by MDIC Graduates:

Dwight Cheu, CEO, ZEPHYRx LLC
Souvik Paul, Founder, Aurie
Longsha Liu, CEO & Co-Founder, Vita Innovations

Program Sponsors:
CNY Biotech Accelerator
SUNY Upstate Medical University
NYS Division of Science, Technology & Innovation, a division of Empire State Development
CenterState CEO
Innovation Law Center, Syracuse University
TDO
Upstate Venture Connect
Upstate Capital Association of NY
FuzeHub

We are now accepting applications for the 2022 CNYBAC Medical Device Innovation Challenge – deadline is April 30: https://www.cnybac.com/medical-device-innovation-challenge-in-the-national-grid-creation-garage/

Third Thursday: Immigration and Entrepreneurship
2022-01-20 17:00 - 18:00
Open to all Columbians, including Barnard and Teachers College.
RSVP

Join Columbia Engineering for an open forum on Thursday, January 20th 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.
Invited speaker Megan Kludt, Partner at Curran, Berger & Kludt LLP, a boutique law firm specializing in all areas of immigration, will discuss options and requirements for various visas, immigration resources for foreign startup founders and much more.

Black New Venture Competition
2022-01-09
Apply here.
The Black New Venture Competition (BNVC) connects promising early-stage Black founders with resources to develop their ventures into dynamic powerhouses. The competition serves as a launching pad for innovative ventures by providing exposure to capital, mentors, and advisors. Previous winners have gone on to raise notable pre-seed and seed rounds and have been accepted into prestigious accelerators (Y Combinator, TechStars).
Founders will have the opportunity to pitch their ventures to a panel of esteemed judges and compete for a chance to win $275K of total prize money. There are two competition tracks: one for pre-revenue ventures and another for revenue-generating ventures.

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

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.

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!

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.
