|
|
Register Now for the 6th Annual Corporate Entrepreneurship Forum!
Date: Thursday, October 24, 2024
Location: Tepper School of Business, 4765 Forbes Avenue, Pgh, PA 15213
The Corporate Entrepreneurship Forum is the Corporate Startup Lab’s signature event, part of Corporate Startup Week, that seeks to help companies build and create transformative growth opportunities by applying venture best practices to corporate innovation and entrepreneurship projects. The theme of this year's Forum is "Accelerating Innovation: Driving Value to Scale."
Leaders in industry, venture and academia will share the latest ideas, trends, example case studies and impactful conversations in corporate innovation.
Join us and share the event details with any colleagues whom you think would benefit from attending.
There is no cost to attend thanks to our sponsor, Deloitte!
| |
 | VentureBridge Demo Day (San Francisco, Bay area)
| |
| | |
The VentureBridge 3-City Demo Day Wraps Up This Week
The CMU VentureBridge (VB) team concluded its 3-city Demo Day annual series this week with over 600+ guests and 27 CMU-alumni and CMU-faculty startups in attendance across New York, San Francisco, and Pittsburgh. Our gratitude goes out to Andy Gollach, Partner at SOSV and Tepper alumnus for hosting the CMU founders and investors in New York City, and Matt Kirmayer, Partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, for hosting CMU founders and investors in Palo Alto, San Francisco
Bay area.
Thank You's:
Thank you to all of the twenty seven startup founders, CMU alumni and faculty representing the College of Engineering, Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Integrated Innovation Institute, Heinz College, School of Computer Science (SCS), School of Design and Tepper School of Business who participated at these events:
Chelsie Hall, Co-Founder ViralMoment, Master's III, VB ’21; Dipan Pal, Founder Voaige, PhD Robotics, VB ’22; Sarika Bajaj, Co-Founder Refiberd, Undergrad / Masters ECE, VB ’20; Rohan Pandya, Co-Founder Focal, Master's Robotics, VB ’22; Vishakha Gupta, Co-Founder ApertureData, Master's INI, VB ’20; Arman Hezarkhani, Founder Parthean, Undergrad ECE, VB ’21; Clark Haynes, Co-Founder Velo AI, PhD Robotics, VB ’23; Joe Mullenback, Co-Founder Fluid Reality commercialized out of Chris Harrison’s Future Interfaces Group, HCI, VB ’23; Saurabh Misra, Co-Founder CodeFlash, Master’s ECE; Stuart Diller, Founder ESTAT, PhD Mechanical Engineering, VB ’21; JJ Xu, Founder TalkMeUp, Tepper MBA, VB '18; Mathew Polowitz, Tepper MBA & Heinz Public Policy, Co-Founder Equa Health commercialize out of David Creswell's Health and Human Performance Lab, Department of Psychology, VB '21; Andreas Pfenning, CMU Faculty SCS, Computational Biology, Founder Snail Biosciences; Spencer Matonis, Founder Edulis, PhD Material Sciences; Logan Nye, Co-Founder Galen Health, Master's SCS; Jay Reddy, Co-Founder Advanced Optronics commercialized out of Maysam Chamanzar's lab, ECE, VB '22, Rob Miller, Co-Founder Off The Line, Tepper MBA, VB '23.
Thank you also to Tom Matta, Co-Founder Nomikai, Undergrad Material Sciences & Tepper MBA, VB '24; Dylan Mikus, Co-Founder Fixpoint, Undergrad SCS, VB '24; Satyajit Naik, Co-Founder Aiirify, Tepper MBA, VB '24; Anna Fuller, Co-Founder Halo, Tepper MBA, VB '24; Michael Kaess, Co-Founder Aquatonomy, CMU Faculty Robotics, VB '24; Biao (Leo) Ma, Co-Founder Roboforce, Master's SCS, VB '24; Saisri Akondi, Founder D.Sole, Master's III, VB '24; Kyle Henson, Co-Founder Arda, Undergrad Business, Uriel Eisen, Co-Founder Arda, Undergrad Design, VB '24; Vijeyta Aggarwal, Co-Founder Vectro, Master's III, VB '24; Bob Dimicco, Co-Founder Reveal AI, Tepper MBA, VB '24.
Thanks also to all of the volunteers: Gus Jenkins (Swartz Fellow), Jordan Tab (Swartz Fellow), Harper LaFave (Swartz Fellow), Nisha Maharaj and David Chan.
| |
|  | VentureBridge Demo Day (Pittsburgh)
| |  | VentureBridge Demo Day (New York)
| |
| | |
|  | Akshaya Anand (left) and Anna Li (right), co-founders at Korion Health
| |
| | |
Korion Health Wins $1M Hult Prize
Korion Health, an at-home heart and lung screening company that was No. 5 on Technical.ly’s 2024 RealLIST Startups, was awarded the prestigious Hult Prize recently in London. Out of a field of 100,000 teams, cofounders Anna Li, a CMU/Pitt graduate student, and Akshaya Anand were one of six to reach the finals, and subsequently won the final pitch competition.
The startup’s focus on healthcare advancements, combined with its Pittsburgh roots, helped land the win, according to Li.
| |
Why Pittsburgh’s Poised to Lead the AI Revolution
AI Horizons Summit Scheduled for October 14
The former steel capital has already made the transition to advanced manufacturing. Its combination of tech talent, universities and power sources make it well-equipped to be a leader in AI. The positioning of Pittsburgh’s unique economic opportunity has already begun.
An AI Horizons Summit is scheduled for October 14, featuring Gov. Shapiro and a plethora of industry leaders. The summit aims to highlight the city’s commitment to “human-first” AI and responsible technology, differentiating it from other cities competing for leadership in this space.
| |
| CorePower Magnetics Receives Over $1M Backed in Large Part by DoE
Carnegie Mellon spinout CorePower Magnetics has received an approximately $1.2M investment as part of a push from the Department of Energy. The funding will help CorePower develop and prototype a high-performance electric motor free of rare earth metals. Throughout the development process, the company will compare several rare earth element free magnet technologies.
| |
| Near Earth Autonomy Partners with Austin Aircraft Company to Develop Autonomous Casualt
Evacuation System
Near Earth Autonomy has partnered with Austin-based LIFT Aircraft for an Army contract to design and develop an autonomous craft capable of transporting blood supply through combat zones and perform emergency casualty evacuations.
| |
Tepper MBA and Swartz Fellow Ruben Quesada Hosts Clean Tech Startup Mixer at the Swartz Center
Ruben Quesada, Tepper School of Business MBA and 2023-25 James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellow, has heard from many students across campus who are interested in entrepreneurship and sustainability, but struggled to find ways to connect with people in other departments. To encourage some cross-pollination, he reached out to different groups across campus with a simple message: “If you care about climate solutions, meet us here on October 1 for free pizza.” The result was amazing and within two weeks, over 100 students registered to attend his CleanTech Startup Mixer.
Ruben, who is also CEO and co-founder of Sabana, a collaborative platform for architects and design engineers to streamline construction material selection and specification writing—along with Meredith Meyer Grelli—led an interactive associative thinking exercise for the students. At the end, they pitched their new ideas to the room—but more importantly, they had the chance to meet and collaborate with peers from across campus.
Congrats Ruben!
| |
|  | 2023-25 Swartz Fellows in front of the Tepper School of Business
| |
| | |
Apply for the 2024-26 James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellows Program by Sunday, October 13!
The Swartz Center has opened applications for the 2024-26 James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellows program. Applications will be open through Sunday, October 13, 2024 at 11:59 pm ET.
This highly selective, two-year program for CMU graduate students, develops the students entrepreneurial potential and leadership skills through hands-on experiences, networking, mentoring and courses in entrepreneurship. The program's core is a mentored summer internship with a top-tier VC-backed startup within the high-tech, high-growth environment of California's Silicon Valley and San Francisco.
| |
Join the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, Project Olympus and Samsung Next and Radical Ventures on October 29, 2024 for an exclusive event bringing together investors, founders and academics to explore cutting-edge AI/ML topics, including on-device AI, agent/action models and synthetic data. Speakers include Tianqi Chen (OctoML), Matt Fredrikson (Gray Swan) and Vyas Sekar from Carnegie Mellon University, who will discuss the practical applications of their research in real-world settings.
| |
Fireside Chat with Rohyt Belani and Mirza Baig
Date: Thursday, November 14, 2024
Time: 12:30 - 1:30 PM | ET
Location: Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, Tepper Quad, 4765 Forbes Avenue, Pgh, PA 15213
Hot startups are often pursued zealously by multiple venture capitalists. The entrepreneur, in this case, has a difficult decision to make on choosing their partner. This fireside chat is with one such investor-entrepreneur pair that navigated and nurtured their relationship with care and respect. The outcome— a bumper 5x money on invested capital in three years.
Mirza Baig (the VC) and Rohyt Belani (the entrepreneur). The pair will discuss why they each chose to work with one another, how they navigated challenging times together and where they are now
in the relationship.
Sponsored by: Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, Graduate Entrepreneurship Club, Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Association and Scottie Ventures.
| |
| CONNECTS/START SMART LAW SEMINARS
| |
|  10/8
REGISTER
The Lean Startup
(Dave Mawhinney, Executive Dir., CMU Swartz Center)
| |  10/9
REGISTER
Pitching Innovation to the C-Suite (Melissa Murphy, CMU, President, Melissa Murphy Marketing)
| |  10/10
REGISTER
START SMART LAW: How to Handle Your (and Others) Intellectual Property (David Lehman and Lauren Shuttleworth Murray, K&L Gates
| |
| | |
| Can't make a CONNECTS? Watch on our YouTube channel.
Find out more and see the full schedule.
| |
|
The mission of 99 Tartans is to partner with the highest potential, early-stage CMU alumni companies and accelerate their success through access to capital and networks. Find out more.
| |
CMU ENTREPRENEURSHIP CLUBS
| |
| Click the images to see upcoming Club events!
| |
| 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. Find out more and
get involved!
| |
The following companies help directly support our programming and entrepreneurs.
| |
| 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.
| |
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
| |
|
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 for office hours outside of these regular hours.
| |
| PATRON SPOTLIGHT
PwC
PwC: Building trust for today and tomorrow.
Our purpose—to build trust in society and solve important problems—is at the core of everything we do. It guides how we serve our clients, our people and the world. To help our clients build trust and deliver sustained outcomes, PwC provides professional services across two segments: Trust Solutions and Consulting Solutions. Within these segments we bring a range of capabilities to help organizations solve faster, solve more and realize more value. These capabilities include cloud and digital, deals, ESG, cybersecurity and privacy, governance/boards, risk, transformation, tax services and more. Across our global network of over 295K professionals in 156 countries, we are committed to advancing quality in everything we do.
| |
HOW TO WORK OUT OF THE SWARTZ CENTER
| |
| |
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.
| | |
| |
Project Olympus Incubator Program
Want more help with finding product/market fit, developing your business model, making connections and attracting funding? Project Olympus will team you up with a business coach to develop a personalized ‘roadmap. Find out more.
| | |
COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITIES/RESOURCES
| |
FIND OUT WHAT OUR PARTNERS ARE DOING
| |
|
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.
| |
|
|
|
Carnegie Mellon University Swartz Center For Entrepreneurship
5000 Forbes Avenue | Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 |
|
|
|
