News

Cornell researchers-turned-entrepreneurs are commercializing a technology with the potential to upend the rare-earth elements industry – with implications for sustainability and even national security.

The startups battling for $3 million in prize money in the fifth annual Grow-NY Food and Agriculture Business Competition aren’t just bringing revolutionary innovations to market that could change the way we feed our planet – they are enriching the region’s robust agri-food system, too.

After its inaugural cycle in 2022-23, Cornell University’s Life Sciences Technology Innovation Fellowship, formerly known as the BioEntrepreneurship Initiative, enters its second year with a new cohort of 15 business students and 12 researchers who are eager to embark on their journeys to becoming C-suite startup leaders.

Modern societal shifts and emerging trends in the startup ecosystem present new challenges and opportunities for women, particularly for mompreneurs – those juggling the responsibilities of motherhood and entrepreneurship.

Students who have an interest in business creation, venture capital, technology, startups, social enterprises or anything related to entrepreneurship can learn more about the vast array of available campus resources during Entrepreneurship at Cornell’s kickoff event Sept. 6 at eHub Collegetown, 409 College Ave.

While some may think of Silicon Valley as the hub of startup activity, there’s no shortage of innovation and entrepreneurship on the East Coast. Participants in the Johnson Summer Startup Accelerator found that out firsthand during the annual JSSA NYC Trek on July 14.  The startup teams convened in the city to connect with founders, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders for a day of education and discussion.  Offered through the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, JSSA is an intensive, summer-long program. MBA students with a budding passion for entrepreneurship programs have the opportunity to explore their ideas for a startup venture and go through three phases of entrepreneurship education — customer discovery, developing solutions, and testing.   Hosted in the Cornell ILR School space at 570 Lexington Avenue, the trek contained no shortage of inspiration. The first presentation of the day came from Randy Kane, managing partner at Profec Partners. Kane spoke about the dynamic between founders and angel investors, and gave the teams insight into the importance of finding the right fit when seeking investments.   “Randy taught us the power of an extremely pointed pitch, that you want to get to the point quickly and effectively. A strong pitch […]

The newest episode of a podcast hosted by Entrepreneurship at Cornell, Startup Cornell, features Seth Feuerstein ‘94, founder of Oui Therapeutics, a company developing a digital therapeutic going through the FDA process and seeking to be the first prescription product available for people at risk of dying by suicide.

CaféNana, a banana-inspired, caffeinated pick-me-up snack, partly made with food waste and produced by a team of Cornell students, has won the 2023 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Student Association’s Mars Wrigley Product Development national competition in July in Chicago.

When you’re shopping online for clothes, it’s so easy to put that $10 T-shirt in your cart and check out without much thought about why it’s only $10 or how well or ethically it was made.

Director's Note: Summer is here! Happy July, everyone!  It is full on summer in Ithaca.  Hot, rainy, sunny, calm, windy – I am guessing you remember the saying about Ithaca weather “if you don’t like it, just wait 5 minutes!” We are looking forward to kicking off the fall semester soon in late August and [...]

A new program from Entrepreneurship at Cornell is helping alumni entrepreneurs across the country forge meaningful close connections with their colleagues and move their companies and businesses forward.

The 22st episode of a podcast hosted by Entrepreneurship at Cornell, Startup Cornell, features Steven Izen ’13, Founder and CEO of Lokai and Elements.

As the demand for product managers and tech executives continues to grow, Cornell Tech has purposefully designed a flagship Product and Tech Executive Leadership Program in collaboration with eCornell, offering professionals a unique opportunity to enhance their leadership skills and take their tech innovation strategies to the next level.

CareTech Human, a startup developing a device to monitor urological symptoms at home, is joining Cornell’s Center for Life Science Ventures business incubator.

Director's Note: Congrats Class of 2023 Spring has turned to summer too fast!  The weather has been unbelievably gorgeous over the past few weeks with more sunshine in the forecast.  Cornell had a fantastic graduation over Memorial Day Weekend, and now we are planning for fall semester and a new bunch of entrepreneurial minded students!  [...]

Cornell Tech’s Behavioral Health Next Summit: Showing the importance of integrating tech and behavioral health working together.

As biotechnology and pharmaceutical professionals continue efforts to make advances in medicinal drug formulation, safety and efficacy, experts in the field are implementing innovations to address regulatory hurdles, research costs and global health challenges.

Four student companies receive co-working space and $100,000 in pre-seed funding to pursue their startups after graduation

Darren Key ’25 was tired of listening to the same lofi hip-hop songs on repeat while studying.

The 21st episode of a podcast hosted by Entrepreneurship at Cornell, Startup Cornell, features Nona Ullman ‘88, CEO of LessonLoop and president of Improve LLC, companies focused on the public education and information technology sectors.

A small biotech, armed with technology out of Cornell University and a former Dana-Farber chief at its helm, has raised $90 million for its cancer drugs.

Big Red Ventures (BRV), Cornell’s early-stage venture capital fund, showcased the student-run portfolio and highlighted 2022-23 investments during the Annual Meeting on April 20 at Cornell Tech.

Director's Note: Springing forward as the semester ends We have much to be thankful for as we wind down the semester.  Lots of excited interns being placed through our internship program. Lots of cool end of the year competitions, like the NYS Business Plan Competition, in which many Cornell student-founded companies participate.  Lots of engaged [...]

There will soon be a second “Feeney Way” at Cornell: a central thoroughfare at Cornell Tech to be named in honor of the transformative impact and legacy of Charles F. “Chuck” Feeney ’56, the university’s most generous donor.

How do New Yorkers react to robots that approach them in public looking for trash? Surprisingly well, actually.

Cornell MBA students, doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers focusing on clean energy and climate technology now have the opportunity to collaborate on real-world startup creation through a new fellowship and certificate program offered by the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

Some advise for life from Barry Beck ’90, Cornell’s Entrepreneur of the Year 2023

Kayla Wooley, MBA ’22, came of age in the senior care industry. She began learning the family business of operating nursing homes from the bottom up—beginning work in the seventh grade as a summer intern and eventually becoming licensed after college to assume a leadership role at a facility in Rhode Island. “For as long as I can remember, every family dinner conversation was about the quality of senior care,” said Wooley, the founder and CEO of StaffOnTap, a digital marketplace that connects understaffed nursing homes to temporary nurses interested in earning extra money. Her grandmother founded a nursing home 50 years ago—today her family operates a portfolio of nursing homes across Connecticut and Rhode Island. “I discovered that I loved coming up with strategic programs, such as cardiopulmonary or dementia programs, but I had a difficult time implementing these programs due to nursing staff shortages. The problem was so bad that I couldn’t reliably find a nurse for an eight-hour shift, let alone to successfully implement a new program.” With the staffing gap at the forefront of her mind, Wooley decided to continue her family legacy in senior care—returning to school to pursue a master’s degree in public health […]

Innovative agribusinesses are encouraged to apply through June 15 for the fifth iteration of the Grow-NY food and agriculture business competition.

Statler Hall will fill with hundreds of Cornell students, faculty and alumni on Thursday and Friday, April 13-14, for the Entrepreneurship at Cornell Celebration, an annual event for the entrepreneurial community that recognizes Cornellian startup successes.

Teams from eLab, Cornell’s student accelerator, and Cornell Tech’s Runway Startups program will pitch their ideas to the West Coast Cornell community at Cornell Silicon Valley Presents: Student Startup Showcase March 30 at the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco.

Students working to support local Indigenous heritage, dairy farmers, formerly incarcerated people and entrepreneurs in Uganda and Ithaca competed for a total of $7,500 in prize money that will fund their community collaborators.

Bank of America, in partnership with Seneca Women, has launched a new online marketplace for women entrepreneurs, providing them access to new markets and opportunities for consumers to shop and support their businesses.

A new center for entrepreneurship – operating both in Ithaca and on the Cornell Tech campus in New York City – will deepen Cornell Law School’s commitment to supporting entrepreneurship initiatives through clinical education.

The 19th episode of Startup Cornell features Trishala Dessai ’17 MBA ‘23, founder of Gig-Up, a , a startup that matches gig-economy workers to consumers to complete the consumer’s to-do-lists.

A Feb. 11 conference at eHub Collegetown aimed to strengthen the black entrepreneurship community at Cornell with networking, content sessions and a fireside chat featuring Jerry Raphael, CFO of Axonius. Organized by the Black Entrepreneurs in Training (BET) program and student leader Kareem Hill ’23, BET Community Day offered an introduction to the entrepreneurship ecosystem at Cornell and beyond.  Hill became involved with BET in 2022 after having the idea to hold an entrepreneurship conference. Hill’s experience founding a clothing company called Rare Concepts in 2020 made him want to bring students together to learn about entrepreneurship.  “The values of BET align with the values that I have for myself,” Hill said. “I was trying to host a conference on Cornell’s campus to introduce younger students to entrepreneurship and teach them the necessary skills to be successful, and it turns out the BET community wants to do the same thing.”  The goal of the BET program, founded in 2019 by Ansumana Bangura ’20, Jehron Petty ’20 (now the program lead) and Julia Reeves ’20, is to empower black students to pursue entrepreneurship and to take advantage of entrepreneurship opportunities at Cornell.   “BET Community Days continue to be a testament to […]

It was a gray April in the spring of 2022. My friends and I, sick of dining hall food and paltry collegetown offerings, were itching for something different. Everyone was raving about this niche noodle shop in collegetown, Bool Street Noods, but no one seemed to be able to get on the list.

The College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) hosted the seventh annual Animal Health Hackathon on Feb 3-5, in-person once again since going virtual during the pandemic.

Scott Belsky has a kaleidoscopic outlook on the tech industry. The creative, entrepreneur, and author has touched nearly every aspect of the ecosystem. He’s been a startup founder and CEO, an executive at a household brand, and an investor and advisor to companies like Pinterest, Uber, Sweetgreen, and Periscope.

Entrepreneurship at Cornell recently announced Barry Beck ’90 as the recipient of the 2023 Entrepreneur of the Year award, which University President Martha Pollack will present to him at the annual Entrepreneurship at Cornell Celebration on April 14.

The 18th episode of a podcast hosted by Entrepreneurship at Cornell, Startup Cornell, features Natalie Egan ’02 (she/her), founder of Translator Inc., a startup that builds diversity, equity and inclusion software for corporations, schools and nonprofits.

For Abena Foli, the farm-to-table lifestyle is a birthright. Each day she uses the knowledge she gained from growing up on her father’s farm in Ghana to enrich her career as a food scientist and regulatory affairs leader.

The future of creating animal protein won’t need a drafty barn, but instead may reside in a toasty greenhouse: Forte Protein – a new startup that grows commercial animal proteins inside agricultural plants – has joined Cornell’s Center for Life Science Ventures business incubator.

Of the 28 teams that eLab, Cornell’s student accelerator, welcomed in the fall, 12 student startups will continue on to the spring semester having validated their diverse business ideas.

In 2014, Charles K. Whitehead ’83, the Myron C. Taylor Alumni Professor of Business Law, was invited to lecture at a premier university in Ukraine – a country that many in the U.S., at that time, might not have been able to locate on a map.

Director's Note: Happy Holidays We hope that you all have a wonderful holiday season!!  We had a large amount of news this month, so take advantage of the time off to read it 😊.  One exciting bit of news is that we will be announcing our 2023 Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year in January 2023.  [...]

Recognizing design’s integral role in the development of technologies reshaping the built environment and how we live and work, Cornell has established the multicollege and transdisciplinary Department of Design Tech.

The 2022 W.E. Cornell cohort celebrated the end of the semester on December 2 with a presentation from Joanne Rodriguez, founder and CEO of Mycocycle, a startup developing a process for using mushrooms to recycle waste. Rodriguez shared her experience building a company and offered advice to the cohort.  Rodriguez started her presentation by asking the cohort to imagine a world without waste.   “Most of the materials in the United States as well as globally are never reused, are never resourced again,” she said. “90% of materials that we manufacture, on average across all the industries globally, end up as trash. They end up in the waste stream. As you can imagine, that’s a very big problem.”  Before becoming an entrepreneur, Rodriguez spent 30 years working in the construction industry and noticed problems with disposing of construction waste materials. She founded her startup when she learned that fungi have the power to naturally break down toxins.   “What I developed is a company called Mycocycle that would license a patent-pending process to minimize waste, create new materials, and reduce greenhouse gases using mushrooms,” she said.  Not only does Mycocycle’s process remediate waste, but the byproduct that results from the process can […]

For more than 30 years, the Cornell Food Venture Center (CFVC) has helped entrepreneurs transform family recipes and homemade eats into successful commercial food products.