Bright Ideas, Meet Entrepreneurs

As an officer in the Entrepreneurship Club I wanted to bring together the bright brains of the technolgy and science schools with the business minds of the MBA program. To do so I organized an event with fellow students that would foster cross campus relationships.

It was held in the atrium of the brand new LEED certified Weill Hall which now houses the biomedical engineering school. Its about a 10 minute walk from the business school.

The event was great and not only did we have speaker David Fischell '75, MS '78, PhD '80, Chair of Cornell BioMed Society (Issued 86 patents, founded 9 BioMed Device Companies, Director of 8 tech companies, is one major serial Entrepreneur), but we also had a little speed networking take place. I enjoyed meeting many great students from across campus. I hope that events like these foster more startups coming out of Cornell.

Touchdown!...now meet some people

Saturdays in the fall mean crisp weather and American Football. Watching Cornell beat Yale on Saturday afternoon not only exhibited big hits, cheerleaders, and salty pretzels, but also an aspect that I love about Cornell and the Johnson school - the collegial atmosphere. About 25 students showed up to enjoy each others company and the game, and even more showed up for an impromptu tailgate party on the roof of a student's apartments.

The Sage Social (a weekly event) leading up to the game was football themed and included hot wings, sausages, drinks, nachos and lots MBAs and faculty. During the social I met new first year classmates: Paco from Mexico City who talked about the country's President Calderon and how the leader is addressing the drug trade, and Oded from Israel who conversed about his military experience in his home country. Later, I caught up with Matt who interned at Goldman Sachs and discussed his thoughts on the recent market bailout and Goldman's reaction.

These events really lend themselves to good times, meeting interesting classmates, and creating the "strong and weak ties" that you'll learn about in Managing and Leading Organizations.

What to wear on the first day of school...

Remember worrying about what to wear on the first day of class? We'll for a married guy with kids those days are long gone, I've just been worrying what classes to take. I'm planning to take a strategy class taught by a grizzled industry veteran Jan Suwinski who is also on the board of 4-5 companies. Entrepreneurship classes take up another load, one being taught by the super practical Laywer/VC/Entrepreneur Zach Shulman. The second is taught by Professor Ola Bengtsson who brings to class an entrepreneur and the venture capitalist that funded the entrepreneur's startup. After hearing the VCs and the Entrepreneurs two sides of the story, Ola gives his academic thoughts on the story.

Finally, I've thrown in a sailing class -- I just purchased some Sperry Top-Sider shoes. I think sailing is a requirement of all Ivy League schools.