On Friday, January 26th, the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute and the NYU Tandon School of Engineering’s Convergence of Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CIE) Institute hosted the Spring Semester Kickoff for the #NYUFemaleFounders, a community-building initiative that engages women entrepreneurs on campus with mentoring programs and networking opportunities throughout Brooklyn and New York. Desiree Frieson, program manager of the Blackstone Launchpad at NYU, led the kickoff with a substantive discussion on how the women entrepreneurs on campus today can integrate inventiveness, technology, creativity, design, and entrepreneurial thinking into the engineering curriculum.
Entrepreneurs from all academic, professional, and technical backgrounds were in attendance, including business journalism, social impact, public policy, marketing, economics, and mathematics. Some of the entrepreneurs in attendance had just finished participating in the J-Term Start-Up Sprint, an intense, experiential opportunities for students in teams to transform their ideas into a viable startup in only 10 days.
Right: Over a dozen women entrepreneurs attend #NYUFemaleFounders and listen to Ms. Frieson give insight on how to build an ecosystem of driven and innovative female entrepreneurs within NYU and NYC.
The event consisted of several 5- and 10-minute icebreakers in which entrepreneurs met one-on-one and talked favorite tech companies, current tech ideas they were working on, and what projects they will work on next for the semester, all while enjoying some classic 80s tracks in the background. Some students raised important issues in their talks, noting the importance of intellectual property protection, facilitating men as STEM allies, navigating the venture capitalist space as women, addressing the balance of working mothers, and raising funds for gender equality projects.
Left & Right: Groups of women entrepreneurs talk tech and their startups while enjoying free pizza and new perspectives in the Leslie eLab.
Hosted by the NYU Leadership Initiative, the next event, the NYU Women’s Leadership Retreat, will be presented by Dr. Carmela Bennett and held Friday through Saturday, March 23rd and 24th, at Palladium Hall. Dr. Bennett is on the faculty of Columbia University where she teaches Embodied Leadership Development within the Organization and Leadership Department. Register for the Women’s Leadership Retreat here, find here other events hosted by the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute, and learn here more about the CIE Institute.