Beginning Monday, April 13, IST Startup Week will again bring Silicon Valley to Happy Valley, and this year a few sharks will be coming along, too.
In its fourth year, IST Startup Week, hosted by the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) at Penn State, will feature entrepreneurs and innovators from around the country, coming together at University Park campus for a week-long celebration of ingenuity and inspiration, and encouraging students to be visionaries in their careers from day one.
“Startup Week is about entrepreneurship as well as intrapreneurship -- the ability to think creatively and take initiative within an organization for the sake of innovation. And we have many great new events scheduled for both aspiring entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs,” said Mary Beth Rosson, interim dean of the College of IST.
For entrepreneurs, the new-for-this-year Startup Tank is bringing investors (aka “sharks”) who are willing to fund enterprising startups in the State College community. “The ‘Tank’ is open to undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and members of the community,” said Lee Erickson, lecturer in the College of IST and organizer of Startup Tank.
“If you have a business that has advanced to the point where outside investment would be appropriate and beneficial either now or within the next six to nine months, the Startup Tank can give you the opportunity to pitch to investors and face their questions,” Erickson added.
The Startup Tank is taking place from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Friday, April 17, in Freeman Hall of the HUB. Applications for Startup Tank are being accepted on a rolling basis, and more information is available at http://startuptank.ist.psu.edu/.
In addition to Startup Tank, the IST IdeaMaker Challenge final pitch competition will take place at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 15, in 262 Willard Building. The competition will feature six cross-college teams selected as finalists after previous judging, each of which have identified a problem along with a potential technology-based solution that they will pitch to a panel of industry judges.
The first-place team will win a trip to Silicon Valley to network and spend time at a startup, the second-place finishers will win a trip to an incubator or innovation center in the Washington, D.C., area and the third-place team will receive a Jawbone Jambox (in Penn State blue).
Besides offering Penn State students and other innovators in the community a chance to develop their businesses through competition, IST Startup Week will give attendees the opportunity to try out the latest technologies and preview cutting-edge prototypes from industry leaders, including Verizon Wireless, Alcatel-Lucent, Arris, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Cisco as well as student technology projects, during the interactive Innovation Showcase, part of the Innovation Expo sponsored by Verizon Wireless, from noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 14, in Heritage Hall, HUB-Robeson Center.
During the Innovation Expo, participants can also attend iTalks -- similar to the popular TED talk format -- that will educate students about current projects, highlight innovative technologies and advise students on the skills that companies are looking for in new hires.
A hallmark of IST Startup Week is the speaker series, and this year’s speaker schedule includes tracks for both aspiring intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs, with the founder and CEO of Dropbox, Drew Houston, headlining the lineup.
On Monday, April 13, a full lineup of industry speakers (i.e. intrapreneurs) will discuss driving change and leading innovation within their respective organizations. On Wednesday, April 15, and Thursday, April 16, entrepreneurs from around the country will share their stories and provide insights on what it takes to create a successful startup, including “The Weebly Story: What We Know Now,” with David Rusenko (Class of 2007, IST) and Dan Veltri (Class of 2007, business) of Weebly, at 4:15 Thursday in the IST Cybertorium.
The Silicon Valley Speaker Finale, taking place in the HUB’s Alumni Hall from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, April 17, will top off the week’s speaker series with talks from Adora Cheung (co-founder and CEO, Homejoy), Tikhon Bernstam (co-founder, Scribd; founder and former CEO, Parse), John “Trip” Adler (co-founder and CEO, Scribd), Steve Huffman (co-founder, Reddit and Hipmunk), Justin Kan (partner, Y Combinator; co-founder, Justin.tv, Twitch, Exec Inc.), and a conversation with Drew Houston (founder and CEO, Dropbox) facilitated by the newly named dean of IST, Andrew Sears.
All events listed above are open to the public, and all speaker talks will be livestreamed on the website. For detailed information on IST Startup Week, including the full week’s schedule, visit ist.psu.edu/startup.