Entrepreneurship@Cornell: Big, Red and Innovative

Rob Katz — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:27:39 -0500

What's big, red and innovative all over? No, it's not Clifford's supremely creative cousin – it's Entrepreneurship@Cornell. A university-wide initiative, Entrepreneurship@Cornell is unique in bringing together students, faculty, alumni and outside experts across a range of sectors (hospitality, biotech, real estate, venture capital, law and more were all represented at the event I attended last week). Other universities could learn from Cornell's approach – a truly multidisciplinary program is hard to find in academia, so kudos to the Big Red for getting this one right.

I went to Ithaca last Thursday and Friday to participate in Entrepreneurship@Cornell’s annual celebration. The 2 day event featured a gala dinner, entrepreneur expo and – of course – panel sessions. Thankfully, the panel session in which I participated was well organized and expertly moderated. (No coincidence here: the organizers – Steve Wang and Sara Standish – are Johnson School students and the moderator was Mark Milstein, a heavy hitter in the BoP space.)

I thought Sara and Steve did a particularly good job finding representatives from distinct stages of the BoP continuum. First to speak was Fernando Lima, founder of Florestas and a New Ventures entrepreneur. Fernando holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Barcelona and has worked for many years in finance – but his passion is personal care products. Specifically, Fernando is all about certified-organic products whose ingredients are sourced from Brazilian cooperatives. Florestas' new line – Ikove – just attained nationwide distribution through Whole Foods, which is the holy grail for any start-up company in the organics sector.

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Entrepreneurship@Cornell: Big, Red and Innovative