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Family Business Leadership Series Talk, November 18
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Family Business Leadership Series Presents: Ida Posner
and Henry Posner III
Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 PM
Location: Swartz Center, Tepper Quad Bldg, 4765 Forbes Avenue, 3rd Floor
Join Henry & Ida Posner for a conversation on stewardship, legacy and leadership across generations as part of the Family Business Leadership Speaker Series hosted by the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship. The discussion will explore how family enterprises sustain growth while navigating legacy and leadership transitions in today’s evolving economic landscape.
Refreshments will be provided.
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Join the CMU Swartz Center's Online Directory!
Carnegie Mellon University's Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship has developed a comprehensive online directory that showcases all active startups affiliated with our entrepreneurial ecosystem. This initiative has created a public-facing platform highlighting the companies that have emerged from CMU—past
and present.
Please take a look at the AirTable as it is growing every week! If you're interested in being included in the Directory, please complete this Form.
The only requirement to be a part of the Directory is a functioning webpage. If you do not feel like you’re ready to be listed on the Directory, no problem at all. You can reach out to us anytime to get added.
Please remember that your answers will be public-facing, so answer to the best of your ability.
Any questions about this project can be directed to mattkat@cmu.edu.
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| RoboForce Featured at NVIDIA GTC Opening Keynote
RoboForce, part of the VentureBridge 2024 cohort co-founded by Leo Ma, CEO and Calvin Zhou, is building the future of Physical AI—dependable, deployable Robo-Labor designed for demanding industrial environments. RoboForce’s TITAN is the general-purpose AI Robot, combining a generalizable and robust 3D foundation model (RF-Net), unique data and efficient pipelines, and a flexible and reliable hardware platform.
Founded in 2023 by experts from CMU, UMich, Amazon Robotics, Google, Waymo, Cruise, Tesla Robotics, ABB, Apple, and more, RoboForce is backed by Myron Scholes, Gary Rieschel, Carnegie Mellon University, and beyond.
At the recent NVIDIA GTC opening keynote, RoboForce and three more Carnegie Mellon affiliated startups—nearly half of the featured companies—were featured in the below video. The CMU Swartz Center is proud of the Tartan founders leading the world in physical AI!
Agility Robotics
Boom Supersonic
RoboForce
Aurora
Watch the video below!
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| The CMU Swartz Center Hosts the CMU Hack-A-Startup 2025 Event
This past weekend, the CMU Swartz Center hosted the Carnegie Mellon University Hack-A-Startup 2025 kickoff. The annual event, organized by the CMU Graduate Entrepreneurship Club (GEC), registered over 130 check-ins with over thirty startup pitches and fifteen incredible teams moving to the much anticipated final demo day, which will take place on
Saturday, November 15.
The lead organizers for this year's Hack-A-Startup are: Ashwini Karanth, President (Tepper School of Business, Swartz Fellow); Dr. Shubhaa Chawla, Startup Initiatives and Partnerships (Tepper School of Business/MIIPS, Swartz Fellow), Nidhisha Voonna, Partnerships and Innovation (MIIPS) and others.
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Toyz Electronics CEO Damola Idowu Raising Funds for ToyzSteam Dah-Varsity For His 50th Birthday
Toyz Electronics Founder and CEO Damola Idowu turns 50 on November 12. In celebration, he is raising funds for one of his programs, #TOYZSTEAM Dah-Varsity Scholars—a fiscally sponsored program focused on increasing diversity, equity and inclusion in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) creator industry.
The program fosters entrepreneurship and improves economic mobility in disadvantaged populations by empowering participants to be the superhero version of themselves through training and multi-generational mentorship.
For as little as $25, you can support the mission.
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Pear VC Seeks to Invest in CMU Talent!
Are you building a startup? Looking for funding and support from past founders/experts? Pear VC is looking to invest in CMU talent.
Pear VC is an early-stage venture firm based in San Francisco. The firm specializes in pre-seed and seed and partners with founders at the earliest stages to turn great ideas into category-defining companies. The team is composed of a deep bench of experts and operators, founding over ten companies and seeded startups now worth over $200B. The track record is strong: 7 companies seeded currently valued at over $1B including DoorDash, Gusto and Vanta.
Interested? Email jiyag@andrew.cmu.edu
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CMU's ScottyLabs Hosts NOVA, GenAI Hackathon on
Saturday, November 8 | 10:30 AM - 8:30 PM ET!
Carnegie Mellon's ScottyLabs organization is hosting NOVA, CMU's first GenAI playground hackathon. At NOVA, you’ll build incredible projects in just seven hours.
Unlike other hackathons, NOVA is uniquely focused on AI. You’ll get free access to top GenAI models through API credits to power your ideas. In teams of up to four, you’ll compete for over $2K in prizes.
NOVA will be held on Saturday, November 8 from 10:30am to 8:30pm and will take place at the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship in the Tepper School of Business. Sponsors include Agentuity, Jane Street, Sandia National Laboratories, CodeRabbit, and Accenture.
Check out the detailed schedule, and follow @cmu.scottylabs on Instagram for Nova updates.
Lunch and dinner will be provided.
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Calling All Current CMU Student Entrepreneurs!
Announcing the 2026 McGinnis Venture Competition
& Social Enterprise Prize
Start your application by December 1 to receive a coach!
· Applications are now open for the 2026 McGinnis Venture Competition and Social Enterprise Prize!
The McGinnis Venture Competition is a platform exclusively for Carnegie Mellon University’s global community of student entrepreneurs, bringing together the best and brightest to compete for $60K in investments. All participants receive coaching, valuable feedback and an opportunity to raise capital.
This multi-round competition begins with two virtual rounds and will culminate in a final live-round celebration on March 17, 2026.
Social Enterprise Prize
Ready to create a company that makes an impact on the world's biggest challenges? The Swartz Center's Social Enterprise Prize is designed to empower students to develop entrepreneurial solutions for social and environmental challenges.
Virtual Info Sessions
Come learn about the 2026 McGinnis Venture Competition & Social Enterprise Prize. Find out important deadlines and details.
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Register
Wednesday, January 7, 2026
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Register
Advanced registration required for the info sessions. Zoom details will be sent to registered attendees the day before the event.
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| 2025 Pittsburgh Legal AI Summit
Join a select gathering of lawyers, legal operations leaders, AI researchers and academic thinkers for a free, one-day summit at Carnegie Mellon University.
This event is hosted by Coheso, a cutting-edge, end-to-end operations platform for in-house legal and compliance teams co-founded by CMU alumnus Manish Agnihotri, in collaboration with CMU’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship. The event will bring together the leading voices shaping how AI is built, governed, and applied across the legal domain.
Lunch and refreshments will be provided!
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| CONNECTS/START SMART LAW SEMINARS
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| Can't make a CONNECTS? Watch on our YouTube channel.
See the full schedule and register for ALL of the seminars here!
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|  11/12
REGISTER
Financial Modeling (Phil Compton, Technology CFO, Entrepreneur/Mentor)
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START SMART LEGAL SERIES
11/18
REGISTER
How to Form Your Startup Company | 2 Part Workshop
In Part 2 (November 18), your team will be matched with one or more law students to design a “legal roadmap” that will recommend the best entity option for your startup and the basics of a Founders Agreement. You will also receive guidance on other legal issues on your ‘checklist’ – all under the supervision of experienced startup lawyers!
All Fall 2025 Start Smart Legal Series sessions will be held virtually from 5:00-6:15 P.M. Start Smart Legal Series recordings will NOT be made available to the public due to the sensitive nature of the information shared. Program resources may be provided upon request at the discretion of the presenters.
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CMU ENTREPRENEURSHIP CLUBS
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| Click the images to find out more about each of the Clubs!
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The CMU T&E has a jobs board, available for people across the community to share and seek new opportunities in the startup and entrepreneurship ecosystem. Find out more and visit the website here.
The CMU Tech & Entrepreneurship group aims to build a bridge between CMU students and alumni across the startup and tech continuum. With main chapters in NYC, Pittsburgh, and SF, we offer a range of in-person and online events and programming in the form of panels, workshops, founder/investor engagements, startup support, and socials to foster collaboration, innovation, and
networking opportunities.
Join 7,000+ Tartans on our Slack workspace and mailing list for resources and updates on how you can engage in the community and CMU entrepreneurial ecosystem.
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The following companies help directly support our programming and entrepreneurs.
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| Pillsbury and Steptoe & Johnson, PLLC are holding office hours for the CMU Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship. The office hours are for any interested CMU graduate, undergraduate or alumni interested in entrepreneurship or connecting with members of the Swartz Center network.
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Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
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Legal Services Weekly Virtual Office Hours with Matt Kirmayer
Mondays 1:00-3:00 PM ET (10-12 PT)
Matt Kirmayer of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, is offering office hours for newly established startup and emerging companies. Matt specializes in representing technology startups and emerging growth companies, assisting with entity formation, fundraising and overall growth needs. Startup companies with a founder who is a CMU graduate, undergraduate or alumni is eligible to register for
an appointment. Complete the Signup Form for a 30 minute session by the Thursday prior to your
desired appointment.
Contact Daria Stokes or Sean Mawhinney for office hours outside of these regular hours.
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Steptoe & Johnson PLLC
Steptoe & Johnson PLLC is a multi-jurisdictional, full-service law firm that takes a progressive approach to providing counsel at each stage of a client’s life cycle. Our dedicated team works closely with our clients to form entities, advise on the most advantageous entity type, and design and negotiate joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions. If a client has a dispute, Steptoe & Johnson has a team of business and product liability litigators and labor and employment lawyers to guide clients through these often stressful and disruptive situations.
Steptoe & Johnson brings a strong skillset for data privacy, cyber security and intellectual property matters which are frequent concerns for startups and technology companies. We offer competitive and flexible rates and aim to provide value to our clients.
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| HOW TO WORK OUT OF THE SWARTZ CENTER
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Swartz Center Education and Resources
No matter what phase of the entrepreneurship cycle you're in, there are programs and resources at the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship that will take your idea to the next level. Find out more.
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COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITIES/RESOURCES
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FIND OUT WHAT OUR PARTNERS ARE DOING
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Have startup news or opportunities to share? Have questions about the Swartz Center Weekly Bulletin? Send news, opportunities or questions to Sonya Ford, Program Manager.
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Carnegie Mellon University Swartz Center For Entrepreneurship
5000 Forbes Avenue | Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 |
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