Stern Teams Win $200K in 2013-2014 Entrepreneurs Challenge
NYU’s most promising innovators were recently awarded a combined $200,000 in start-up cash at the annual $200K Entrepreneurs Challenge, held by NYU Stern’s Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. The three winning teams – composed of students and alumni from across the University – were chosen after pitching their ideas and enduring Q&A by judges from venture capital, technology and design, education and social enterprise sectors.
April 25 marked the culmination of one of the largest and most rigorous venture competitions in the world. More than 200 teams comprising over 500 entrants from 14 schools at NYU competed this year in one of three challenges: New Venture, for those pursuing start-ups in a variety of sectors; Social Venture, for those pursuing both social impact and financial sustainability; and Technology Venture, for those focused on bringing intellectual property developed at NYU to market. Continue reading…
Enstitute Co-Founder Kane Sarhan to Keynote Tenth Annual Pace Pitch Contest
Pace University’s Lubin School of Business will hold its tenth annual Pitch Contest on Thursday, April 17 at the University’s lower Manhattan campus. The event is presented by Lubin’s state-of-the-art Entrepreneurship Lab.
Kane Sarhan, co-founder of Enstitute, the first national apprenticeship program for 21st century careers in business, technology, design, and entrepreneurship, will be the keynote speaker. Before co-founding Enstitute, Sarhan launched and ran his own magazine, The College Gossip Chronicles, raised over $100k for hackNY, a nonprofit in New York City, and was the creative director at LocalResponse, a top New York City tech startup.
The Pace Pitch Contest is based on the “elevator pitch” concept popular in the venture capital community. Contestants prepare an extremely concise presentation of an entrepreneurial idea, business model, marketing strategy, competitive analysis, and financial plan, which is delivered to potential investors. The premise is that it could be made in a few minutes should the entrepreneur spot a potential investor on an elevator and have the opportunity to pitch his or her idea during the brief ride.
Learn More about Pace’s MBA Programs here.
Smeal College of Business Mourns Passing of Founder of the School’s Venture Capital Center
John D. Garber ’40 passed away last month in Palm Desert, Calif. He and his wife, Bette, were significant contributors to the Penn State Smeal College of Business, establishing the John and Bette Garber Venture Capital Center for Penn State Smeal MBA students in 1999.
The Garber Venture Capital Center—part of the college’s Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship—is a $5 million venture fund that supports student-managed private equity investing in early stage technology-based companies.
“The generous contributions to our college from the Garber family have provided our MBA students with an unmatched opportunity, through the Garber Venture Capital Center, that prepares them to think critically about business, investment, and risk,” said Charles H. Whiteman, John and Becky Surma Dean of Smeal.
John and Bette’s $5 million commitment to Smeal in 1999 to establish the Garber Venture Capital Center was at that time the largest gift across the country to a program of this nature. Over the course of his career, John invested in numerous start-up companies and wanted to provide Penn State Smeal MBA students the opportunity to gain experience doing so as well.
Students engage in the venture capital process by enrolling in the Garber Practicum seminar. Entrepreneurs from several prospective investment properties present their business concepts, then students perform due diligence on these firms. Toward the end of the seminar, the student teams present their findings to their peers and vote on which, if any, properties warrant an investment.
