Hundreds of successful and would-be NYU entrepreneurs will be coming together on Nov 11 and 12 at the first-ever NYU Entrepreneurs Festival to figure out how by answering each other’s questions, offering support and advice, and sharing stories of successes and setbacks on the road to creating a start-up.

NYU Holds First Entrepreneurs Festival

How does a good idea become a successful business?  Hundreds of successful and would-be NYU entrepreneurs will be coming together tomorrow at the first-ever NYU Entrepreneurs Festival to figure out how by answering each other’s questions, offering support and advice, and sharing stories of successes and setbacks on the road to creating a start-up.

Frank Rimalovski, the Managing Director of NYU’s Innovation Venture Fund and the Festival’s organizer, said, “This is more than just a showcase of NYU-related businesses.  The NYU Entrepreneurs Festival is an opportunity for up-and-coming entrepreneurs – students, faculty, administrators, and alumni – to talk with and learn from those who have already taken an idea from concept to reality.  Entrepreneurship runs deep at NYU, and the Festival is a great way to surface it and celebrate it.

“And the response has been amazing.  It’s hard to say who’s more enthusiastic -- the speakers or the attendees – but the sense of excitement is huge and universal.

“Pulling off the NYU Entrepreneurs Festival would not have been possible without generous support, encouragement, and sponsorship from a fabulous group of businesses who are proud of their connection to NYU.  On behalf of the University, I would like to personally thank Sorin Royer Cooper; Wiggin and Dana; eos Products; Silicon Valley Bank; Vapur; Peter J Solomon Company; FirstMark CapitalFlybridge Capital PartnersAdSafe Media; EveryScreen Media; Rickshaw Dumpling Bar; MilkMade Ice Cream; Gust; and Popchips.”

Providing advice on everything from leaving the corporate world to creating a start-up while still in college, the Festival’s 60 panelists, speakers and exhibitors include:

·         Dennis Crowley, founder/CEO of Foursquare

·         Shelley Harrison, founder/former CEO of Symbol Technologies

·         Don Katz, founder/CEO of Audible

·         Carley Roney, Rob Fassino, and  Michael Wolfson, co-founders of The Knot (now XO Group) 

·         Fred Wilson, managing partner of Union Square Ventures (and NYU Trustee)

The Festival is a joint effort of the NYU Innovation Venture Fund, the student leaders of the NYU Entrepreneurs Network, and the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, collectively bringing together eleven of NYU’s fourteen schools and colleges.

For more information on the NYU Entrepreneurs Festival, go to http://nyuentrepreneur.org/festival/

About the NYU Innovation Venture Fund

A $20.0m seed stage venture capital fund created in 2010 to invest in startups commercializing technologies and intellectual property developed by NYU students, faculty and researchers.

About the NYU Entrepreneurs Network

A multi‐disciplinary collaborative of 20 entrepreneurship, technology and innovation related graduate and undergraduate student organizations representing 10 schools across NYU.

About the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Provides NYU students with real‐world, hands‐on startup experiences through co‐curricular programs that complement the rigorous instruction received in the classroom.


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