Deadline: 2026 Startup Columbia Venture Competition
2026-02-03
Applications for the 2026 Startup Columbia venture competition are now open! Every year, this competition gives out over $200,000 in cash grants to Columbia entrepreneurs to build and grow their big ideas.

This year, there are 3 choices of tracks to compete in, each with additional prizes available within each track. Read more about the rules, regulations, and eligibility here.

Apply by February 3! Good luck!

Check out last year’s winners here.

AI and Entrepreneurship Talk: Parag Agrawal, Parallel.ai CEO and Cofounder
2026-02-05 11:00 - 12:00 UTC
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.

Application Deadline: Startup Works
2026-02-06
Startup Works is a practical 6-session workshop series in the spring semester that creates inclusive entrepreneurship opportunities for justice-impacted people forming teams with others with diverse perspectives and experiences, to work together on launching a startup or a small business.
This is your last chance to learn in-person about Startup Works and network to find other team members!
Applications are open and are due on Friday, February 6. Accepted teams and small business founders can expect workshops to take place on Wednesdays at 6 PM beginning on Wednesday, February 18. Justice-impacted community members* and Columbia University affiliates^ are invited to join to learn more and to prepare to apply.

Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change 2026 Annual Reception
2026-02-23 18:00 - 20:00
You are cordially invited to join the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change for an evening of networking and socializing with fellow alumni, faculty members, students, and professionals in social and environmental impact sectors.
At this year’s event, the Tamer Institute will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Tamer Fund for Social Ventures. During the evening’s remarks, we will reflect on a decade of pioneering ventures that have driven sustainable innovation and social impact. The program will include remarks from our honorees on their venture and founder journeys.
Reserve your spot →

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.

Application Deadline: Tamer Fund for Social Ventures
2026-03-01
Are you a nonprofit, for-profit, or hybrid early-stage social or environmental venture with  Columbia affiliation? Apply by March 1 for a chance to receive a $25K seed grant!

This fund provides $25K seed grants to nonprofit, for-profit, and hybrid early-stage social and environmental ventures. 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. Tamer Fund seed grants will be made to approximately seven ventures each year.

Before applying to the fund, watch this short video for all the essentials.

Apply by March 1

Sign up for an info session

Join Karen Hasher, program manager, on Zoom to learn about the application process and ask questions

Sign up for Feb 3 from 6 to 7 PM
Sign up for Feb 19 from 12 to 1 PM

Questions? Email tamersvfund@gmail.com.

Applications Open for the 2026-2027 Cohort of the Columbia Startup Lab
2026-03-01
The Columbia Startup Lab in SoHo is headquarters to 100 alumni entrepreneurs each year.

More information will be released on March 1, when the application opens.

Open House, March 5, 2026 - Columbia Startup Lab in SoHo
2026-03-05 18:00 - 19:00
The Columbia Startup Lab opens its doors to a new group of Alumni ventures! Applications are open March 1 through March 31. Join us for an information session. Meet the team, and founders, and ask us any questions you may have about the Lab. Space is limited! Please only sign up if you are eligible for the 2026-2027 cohort.
Please note that there will be two sessions, so be sure to mark the dates! As we have a waitlist, please do let us know if you’re unable to make it so we can accept waitlisters.
RSVP Here

The Insider Conversation with Founders x Ventures
2026-03-24 16:00 - 19:30
Curious what really happens behind the scenes in startups and healthcare venture? Join Columbia Healthcare Ventures on March 24 for an interactive evening with founders and investors who are building, backing, and scaling innovation in real time.
This isn’t a panel — it’s small-group, discussion-based sessions where you’ll sit face-to-face with founders and VCs, ask your questions, and get unfiltered insights. We’ll wrap up with a networking reception so you can continue the conversation and make meaningful connections.
RSVP here: https://luma.com/vzhr4bfq

Columbia Startup Lab Open House, March 26, 2026
2026-03-26 18:00 - 19:00
The Columbia Startup Lab opens its doors to a new group of Alumni ventures!

Applications are open March 1 through March 31.
Join us for an information session to meet the team, connect with current founders, and ask questions about the Lab. Space is limited. Only guests who RSVP in advance will be admitted to the space. Please only sign up if you are eligible for the 2026–2027 cohort.
RSVP for the Open House on Thursday, March 26 here.

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: Columbia Startup Lab SoHo, 2026-2027
2026-03-31
Applications are now open for the Columbia Startup Lab!
Grow your venture with tailored programming, subsidized space, and a vibrant community of Columbia entrepreneurs – applications are now live for the Columbia Startup Lab through March 31. Questions about the CSL? Join us for an Open House on Thursday, March 5, for a chance to meet the team, see the space, and hear from a few resident ventures.
RSVP here
Note: We have a second Open House on Thursday, March 26
Can’t make an Open House? Get a feel for the space with this video.

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

Data Science and AI Exchange 2026
2026-04-14
Join the Data Science Institute on April 14th to explore how leaders across academia, industry, and government are shaping the future of Responsible AI.
Learn more.

CVC-NY Presents: Incubation Night (May 14, 2026)
2026-05-14 19:00 - 21:00
Details: If you have ideas with a potentially viable business model or just want to hear what people are working on, join the Columbia Venture Community at our Quarterly CVC Incubation Night! This event puts entrepreneurs, “idea people,” and connectors in a room to engage in intense, non-stop collaboration on how to start and grow a venture.
RSVP

Founded in 2006, Columbia Venture Community (CVC) is a private, global network of more than 7,500 Columbia University alumni, students, and staff who are interested in all aspects of entrepreneurship and innovation.
Join the Community Here
