News

Director's Note: Happy holidays, everyone! First off, Gobble Gobble!!  We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  On our end, our big Eclectic Convergence conference at Cornell Tech earlier in the month was fantastic!  One of our best due to our superb speakers.  And our team also held two hackathon events in November, one in [...]

Ponsi Trivisvavet MBA ’99 knew she had found her true north when the seeds she delivered to an Indonesian farmer helped him to increase his crop yields enough that he was able to buy a cow – to provide meat for his family — for the first time in his life.

Unibaio of New York City, which offers naturally derived particles that trap the active ingredients of pesticides and fertilizers, enabling them to penetrate plants more efficiently, was awarded the $1 million grand prize in the sixth annual Grow-NY Food and Agriculture business competition.

For a person with hearing loss, a room full of people talking all at once can be a nightmare scenario.

By Veronica Buezo Talavera The Cornell SBIR/STTR Assistance Program continues to support early-stage companies in securing non-dilutive funding from federal agencies. In the third quarter of 2024, two Cornell startups in the program were awarded STTR Phase I grants totaling nearly $775,000:  EchoICs: Awarded a $275,000 STTR Phase I grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a tunable resonator circuit technique for radio frequency integrated circuits. This technology aims to improve the quality, reliability, and coverage of wireless networks, including defense communication and commercial cellular (4G/5G) networks. The company, founded by Alyssa Apsel, Ph.D., Director of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University, and Thomas Tapen, Ph.D., a postdoctoral associate in Apsel’s lab, propose a project that could lead to higher data rates, increased user density, and lower energy use in wireless communications.  Neuralenz: Founded by Oybek Kholiqov, a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell Tech, Neuralenz received a $498,995 STTR Phase I grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to develop Neuralenz Flow, an integrated platform for rapid, non-invasive, real-time measurement of critical factors used in diagnosing and treating stroke patients. The technology focuses on measuring cerebral blood flow, cerebral blood volume, intracranial pressure, and critical closing pressure, […]

Director's Note: Happy Halloween! October was a big month for eship news!  We hope you enjoy all the features.  We are heads down focusing on the final Eclectic Convergence logistics and execution.  Hope to see you at Cornell Tech on November 15th for a great day of inspiring speakers and connecting with the Cornell eship [...]

John Marks ’65 has spent the past four-plus decades addressing some of the world’s most intractable conflicts through his nongovernmental organization (NGO), Search for Common Ground.

Rev: Ithaca Startup Works has incubated more than 117 businesses and its member companies have created 849 new jobs, raised $205 million in capital and generated over $123 million in revenue, according to data released to mark the downtown business incubator’s 10-year anniversary.

The sixth annual Grow-NY Summit, to be held Nov. 6-7 at the new Ithaca Downtown Conference Center, will feature business leaders and entrepreneurs working to advance sustainability, address global challenges and shape the future of food and agriculture.

Entrepreneurship at Cornell is hosting more hackathons than ever before this year – on topics as broad as food, AI, health tech, digital ag, animal health and talent management. The weekend-long events allow students from diverse backgrounds to come together to develop innovative solutions to the world’s biggest challenges.

Ratan N. Tata ’59, B. Arch. ’62, one of India’s most influential and respected business leaders and philanthropists, and a former Cornell trustee who became the university’s largest international donor – supporting scholarships, research to reduce rural poverty and malnutrition in India, and technology innovation – died Oct. 9 in Mumbai. He was 86.

Thirteen faculty members are recipients of 2024 Louis H. Zalaznick Teaching Assistantships, receiving funds of $1,500 to $3,000 to help develop or expand courses and add teaching assistants.

Cornell Engineering is proud to announce the Jiang Fellows program with the generous support of Tianyi (TJ) Jiang ’96, Ph.D. The program will succeed the Kessler Fellows program, which sunset this year after 15 years of fostering entrepreneurial growth among Cornell juniors.

Director's Note: Go teams! Happy fall, everyone!  Leaves are starting to change….slowly.  Cornell beat Yale in football….YAY! Our 24 teams for eLab are selected and busy doing customer discovery.  And our big NYC conference is around the corner – we hope to see you at Eclectic Convergence on November 15th at Cornell Tech on Roosevelt [...]

Sitting in the passenger seat, Terry Wehe Ryan ’69 grabs the steering wheel and veers the car off to the side of a country road. Her husband, Rob Ryan ’69, has just broken the news that he’s firing her from their tech startup—so he can afford to keep another female employee on the payroll.

With funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Cornell and a group of institutional partners have created the Upstate New York Energy Storage Engine to advance energy storage technology and boost large-capacity battery manufacturing in upstate New York – which could enable advances in electric vehicles and renewable energy storage.

Fourteen Cornell MBA students, PhD candidates, and a postdoctoral innovation fellow have joined the second cohort of the Green Technology Innovation Fellows program, an interdisciplinary entrepreneurship and translation program offered by the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

For Joseph Astrachan, a co-author of Cornell’s Family Business Leadership online certificate program, a family-run business is a generational tradition.

Director's Note: Welcome Back!! Our fall semester is off to a great start, with our eShip Kickoff event on Thursday, September 5th.  It is wonderful to have the students back on campus and feel all the entrepreneurship energy!  Reminder, if you want to be on top of the Cornell eShip ecosystem, join our listserv – [...]

Cornell Tech today announced the newest cohort of 13 startup companies that will enter its established Runway incubator program this September.

Kush Jain ’22 has been named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for work by his company, ORama AI, which has developed a high-tech glove to help people learn to read Braille.

Cornell Law School and Cornell Tech are pleased to announce that David Reiss joined their faculties on July 1, 2024, as Clinical Professor of Law and Research Director of the Blassberg-Rice Center for Entrepreneurship Law.

Cornell Engineering’s Scientific Artificial Intelligence (SciAI) Center has partnered with Pasteur Labs, an alumnus-founded startup, to break new ground in human-AI collaboration for scientific discovery and industrial applications.

Director's Note: Enjoy summer! Summer means lots of planning for Entrepreneurship at Cornell – budgeting, planning, new program discussion, etc.  But the news just keeps coming!  Enjoy the rest of your summer! -Zach Shulman '87, JD'90 Director, Entrepreneurship at Cornell $10M gift from Seneca Foods will support the Cornell Food Venture CenterArthur Wolcott ’49 went [...]

Rev: Ithaca Startup Works launched applications for the business incubator’s new Protofacturing Hardware Accelerator — a program connecting the existing Prototyping and Manufacturing Hardware Accelerators and helping entrepreneurs refine their prototypes.

Entrepreneur Saira Patel has always been reluctant to jump into a pool or an ocean because of the hassle it creates with her hair.

Joe Gelber MBA ’18 thinks he has a great idea for a machine to help people recycle more efficiently. So, he came to a Cornell Entrepreneur Network in partnership with Cornell Alumni Career Programs event in New York City June 18 to get some ideas for moving his idea forward.

Director's Note: Summer...Internships! Have a wonderful summer, everyone!  We are especially delighted to share that our Entrepreneurship at Cornell program placed 83 student interns at a variety of relatively smaller companies for summer 2024.  These students are ready to make an impact!  If you are a business owner and would like to hire a student [...]

The newest episode of a podcast hosted by Entrepreneurship at Cornell, Startup Cornell, features Andrea Ippolito ’06 MEng ‘07, CEO and founder of SimpliFed.

Dylan Seale ’25, is an avid freestyle skier, the kind of slopestyle Olympic event that enraptures audiences with its gravity-defying aerial flips, jumps and sliding down rails.

A company that originated in Syracuse and is aiming to use agricultural waste to replace the petroleum-based plastic liners in coffee cups, takeout containers and other consumer products has joined Cornell’s Center for Life Science Ventures incubator.

Director's Note: Summer mode Summer has arrived in Ithaca. If you have any plans to come upstate, please let us know as we’d love to get together in person!  Students have mostly left for the summer, including to over 75 internships placed through our office.  Fall semester will be here before we know it! -Zach [...]

Cornell Tech awarded four student startup companies with investments worth $100,000 each in its eleventh annual Startup Awards competition.

The city-seeded research campus on Roosevelt Island has been a quiet force in New York City’s tech economy yet is still little known even as students, faculty and alums play a crucial role in the booming AI marketplace.

Cornell University’s 2023-24 cohort of Green Technology Innovation Fellows  gathered in Statler Hotel’s amphitheater on April 27 to showcase their green technology startups and to celebrate the conclusion of the program’s core course, Green Tech Entrepreneurship in Practice. Each team, consisting of MBA students paired with PhD candidates from across Cornell University, pitched startups based on Cornell research to an audience of their peers, entrepreneurs, mentors, and prospective 2024-25 fellows.

The newest episode of a podcast hosted by Entrepreneurship at Cornell, Startup Cornell, features Trisha Beher ’25, founder of Women Leaders of Color at Cornell and the Art Shine Foundation.

Director's Note: Entrepreneurship in sight Student course finals are in sight!  End of semester is in sight! And next year’s planning is in sight!  We will take a big breadth, but not a big pause.  Keep in touch, and if you are not already on the eship listserv, please join to stay up to speed [...]

For Malika Grayson, M.S. ’14, Ph.D. ’16, earning advanced degrees in mechanical engineering at Cornell propelled her entrepreneurial journey in STEM advocacy, inspiring her to motivate others to pursue their dreams and overcome challenges.

Richlove Nkansah ’26 was buzzing with excitement the week before spring break – she had just launched her business and was headed to California to pitch it to a group of Silicon Valley Cornell alumni and entrepreneurs.

Anyone tying the knot or attending a wedding in recent years has likely heard of The Knot Worldwide,

Whipped cream in a can has three big days: Thanksgiving (pie topper), Christmas (more pie) and Mother’s Day (to gussy up Mom’s breakfast in bed). Otherwise, the aerosol cylinder usually sits forlornly in the fridge door with its condiment brethren.

During his sophomore year as a full-time student in Applied Economics and Management at Cornell, Dan Cane ’98 co-founded CourseInfo, LLC, which would become Blackboard, Inc., an online learning platform and global educational technology solution.

Student teams from eLab, Cornell’s student startup accelerator, and the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute Runway Startups program will pitch their startup ideas March 28 at San Francisco’s Autodesk Gallery.

Everyone knows the feeling: a jolt of attention that heightens your senses in a crowded room, looking over the edge of a tall structure, during an important moment in a sports event, or when startled by an unexpected sound. It’s a central component of a biological response—our bodies are hardwired in this scenario to, among other things, sharpen their senses in response to stimuli.

Students from all three of Cornell’s campuses – and 26 other universities – gathered in New York City over a packed weekend to brainstorm and develop solutions to health care challenges.

Spotlighting How Groundbreaking Research at Weill Cornell Medicine Translates into Revolutionary Care Through Collaborations

In her remote village in Bangladesh, Moushumi Akhter provides childcare for neighborhood kids.

Director's Note: Signs of spring Spring is, well, starting to spring! We have been teased by some warmer days, which truly seem to transform Cornell overnight.  For entrepreneurship, spring is the time for one of our big conferences.  The Entrepreneurship at Cornell Celebration is April 11th and 12th.  Hope to see you then!  Also, spring [...]

Very few venture-backed startups move from their original location to a new country, but those that do benefit financially, according to new research.