How To Build A Strong Start-Up

 In partnership with
How To Build A Strong Start-Up
January 24, 2015
#CUStartups
WELCOME
Dear Guests,
Thank you for joining our entrepreneurship conference today:
How To Build A Strong Start-Up
We are excited to introduce you to four panels of accomplished speakers including venture
capitalists, industry leaders, start-up founders and lawyers who will share their expertise and
vision on building sustainable and triumphant businesses. Learn how to build a strong
foundation and guide the success of your new business and investment.
We invite you to engage with other conference guests on campus and online via #CUstartups.
Regards,
Lisa Chau,
Ivy Oasis Executive Director
Canberk Dayan,
Ivy Oasis President
Director
Please send any feedback to: canberk.dayan@ivyoasisnyc.com
HOW TO BUILD A STRONG START-­‐UP|COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2 AGENDA
1:00pm
Networking (20 minutes)
1:20pm
Welcome Remarks (10 minutes)
1:30pm
Technology Panel
(50 min + 5 min Q&A)
2:25pm
Law Panel
(40 min + 5 min Q&A)
3:10pm
BREAK (25 minutes)
3:35pm
Non-Profit Panel
(40 minutes + 5 min Q&A)
4:20pm
Keynote Address
4:40pm
Future of Entrepreneurship Panel
(60 minutes + 10 min Q&A)
5:50pm
Closing Remarks
HOW TO BUILD A STRONG START-­‐UP|COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 3 TECHNOLOGY PANEL
Alejandro Crawford (Moderator)
Senior Consultant | Acceleration Group
Alejandro, as part of the, Acceleration Group, develops actionable
strategies that enable them to shift position in the marketplace,
transform their organizations, turn around underperforming
divisions, and generate disruptive innovation. Crawford previously cofounded cross-platform marketing agency Nolej Base and teaches
courses in strategy, entrepreneurship and growth for FIT, the New
School and Baruch. Alejandro earned his Bachelor's degree from
Cornell University and his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at
Dartmouth.
Michael Barnathan
Director of Engineering | Amplify Access
Amplify Access deploys educational tablets to K-12 schools across the
country. Prior to joining Amplify, Michael founded Clipless, the first
contextual deals startup, which survived two appearances on the front
page of TechCrunch, gained massive traction in a short period of time,
and was acquired 8 months from founding. Michael's prior experience
also includes a Senior Software Engineer position at Google. He holds
a PhD in Machine Learning from Temple University.
Tarek Pertew
Co-Founder | Uncubed
Uncubed is a platform that connects people to exciting companies,
publishes a daily insider's guide to the digital world, called Wakefield,
and produces the most creative recruiting event in the country. Tarek
is also the co-founder of NYC Footy, an adult soccer league favored by
many tech companies. Earlier, Tarek founded MyWorkster, a job fair
platform for college alumni. Tarek is an advisor to the United
Kingdom Trade & Investment (UKTI) and Enstitute.
HOW TO BUILD A STRONG START-­‐UP|COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 4 Deepti Sharma
Founder and CEO | FoodtoEat
FoodtoEat is the first social online ordering and catering company to
work with food trucks, restaurants and caterers. Deepti’s company
teaches immigrants how to use new technology to grow their small
businesses. She was honored as a 2013 Forbes 30 Under 30 and serves
on the board of the Business Center for New Americans, a non-profit
that encourages immigrant entrepreneurship by providing microloans. Deepti also recently joined the board of The Lamp, which is
bringing 21st century hands-on services that help this audience type
understand media.
Sam Hamadeh
Founder and CEO | PrivCo & Co-Founder | VAULT.com
VAULT.com is leading career information website. Sam served as
the venture-capital-backed company’s President through his sale of a
majority stake in Vault in 2007 to a major private equity firm for
nearly $100 million. In 2009, Sam founded the leading private
company financial data provider PrivCo and has since served as
PrivCo's CEO. Sam holds a JD from the University of Pennsylvania
Law School, and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. His
honors and awards include “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Crain’s
magazine, the Harvard Business School Club’s “Entrepreneur of the
Year”, Silicon Alley Reporter’s "100 Most Influential Media
Executives," Deloitte & Touche's “50 Fastest Growing Technology
Companies”, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School's
“Young Alumnus of the Year Award”.
HOW TO BUILD A STRONG START-­‐UP|COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 5 LAW PANEL
Ellina Astakhova (Moderator)
Masters Student | Columbia University
Ellina will be joining Millward Brown Vermeer’s London office in
2015. She serves as the president of Columbia's Graduate Organization
of Aspiring Leaders (Columbia's GOAL). Her goal is to help
entrepreneurs through her work before leaving Columbia. She
recently graduated from Columbia University with a Masters in
Management Science & Engineering, holds an undergraduate degree
in Theoretical Physics from Imperial College London and has
interned at UBS, TNK-BP, Tokyo Electron, Grantoo and R/GA.
Ian Scott
Founder | Scott Legal Services
Mr. Scott specializes in Business Immigration Law & New Business
set-up. Prior to owning his business, he worked as a corporate litigator
in the law firm Cleary Gottlieb. He graduated from Harvard “Law
School and authored Law School Lowdown: Secrets of Success from
the Application Process to Landing Your First Job” (Barron's
Publishing) and currently runs his own law firm. Mr. Scott has been
published/featured by Forbes, the New York State Bar Association,
Super Lawyers (Thomson and Reuters), New York Times, Above the
Law, Bloomberg, Barron’s, LexisNexis, Lawyerist, The Student Appeal
Journal and other journals.
HOW TO BUILD A STRONG START-­‐UP|COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 6 Stephen M. Davis
Partner | Business Law Department | Goodwin Proctor LLP
Mr. Davis, a partner in Goodwin Proctor’s Business Law Department,
and a key contributor to the Goodwin Procter Founders Workbench,
an online resource for founders, start-ups, emerging companies and
the entrepreneurial community. He has extensive experience in
several areas of corporate practice with a focus on venture capital,
corporate finance and securities, mergers and acquisitions, private
equity and corporate counseling. Steve is a key Steve is frequently
quoted in business journals and a frequent speaker at venture
conferences.
Kevin Kong
Vice President | Legal Affairs | TruFund Financial Services
TruFund Financial Services, a national not-for-profit organization
with $50 mil in assets under management. TruFund seeks to stimulate
economic development in communities underserved by traditional
banking institutions by providing affordable capital, hands-on
business assistance, and innovative solutions to small businesses, notfor-profit organizations, and real estate developers. Mr. Kong started
his career as a corporate finance attorney at Wall Street law firms,
served in-house as General Counsel of two Chinese NASDAQ-listed
companies and provided leadership as executive management of
microloan companies in New York and China.
HOW TO BUILD A STRONG START-­‐UP|COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 7 NON-PROFIT PANEL
Maxim Thorne (Moderator)
Executive VP | Development | The Paley Center for Media & Professor | Yale University
Maxim is the Executive Vice President of Development of The
Paley Center for Media, where he oversees all development
and fundraising activities and is focused on developing key
external alliances in the philanthropic community. He serves
on the Yale Board of Governors, the Executive Committee of
Yale Law School, the National Board of GLAAD, the National
Board of Yale Black Alumni Association, and the Advisory
Board of the Division of Gender, Sexuality & Health, Columbia
University Department of Psychiatry and NYS Psychiatric
Institute. He also teaches courses in philanthropy, law, and
management at Yale University. Maxim received his B.A. in
Economics and Political Science, cum laude honors, from Yale
University, and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School.
Tim McDonald
Co-Founder | Creatingls
Tim McDonald is the Purveyor of Purpose at Be The Change
Revolutions, the co-founder of Creatingls, and formerly the
Director of Community for The Huffington Post, where he
helped launch HuffPost Live. Co-Founder of Creatingls, Tim,
and his partner Ayelet Baron, are re-imagining leadership
beyond money, fame and big titles by brining together unsung
heroes who are changing the world and amplifying their voices
to create action. He builds communities - not networks through individual relationships that create movements.
HOW TO BUILD A STRONG START-­‐UP|COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 8 Elmira Bayrasli
Co-Founder | Foreign Policy Interrupted
Foreign Policy Interrupted is a startup focused on increasing the
number of women commenting on foreign policy in the media.
She is also a fellow at the World Policy Institute and the author of
the upcoming book, “Steve Jobs Lives in Pakistan: Extraordinary
Entrepreneurs in the Developing World”. Her work has appeared
in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The
Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Forbes, and Reuters. She is a
commentator on foreign policy and global innovations for AlJazeera America and has appeared on the Charlie Rose Show and
NPR. She sits on several boards, including Turkish Women's
International Network, the Turkish Philanthropy Funds, and
Innvest2Innovate.
Jorge I. Montalvo
Director | New York Office of New Americans
Jorge currently serves in New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s
administration as the top policy advisor to the New York
Secretary of State. In this role, he has created the New York State
Office for New Americans. Montalvo developed the State’s
Opportunity Agenda to ensure those living in poverty were
included in the state’s economic revitalization, helped merge the
State’s consumer protection and occupation licensing agencies
and created the Empire State Fellows program. Previously, he
helped managed the New York City’s 2012 Olympic Bid’s
corporate relations and volunteerism efforts and served in New
York City Mayor Bloomberg’s economic development agency.
Jorge graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in
Chemistry.
HOW TO BUILD A STRONG START-­‐UP|COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 9 KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Murat Aktihanoglu
Co-Founder and Managing Director | Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator
Murat Aktihanoglu is an entrepreneur, investor, author and technologist. He is the co-founder
and managing director of Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, an early-stage investment
fund and technology accelerator in New York City with a growing portfolio of 80 companies
since 2011. He is the also co-author of the book "Location-Aware Applications" published by
Manning Publications. He has managed engineering teams in Silicon Valley, Tokyo and New
York started numerous technology startups. He is a frequent speaker on technology and
entrepreneurship. He holds a Masters Degree in Computer Science from Bilkent University.
HOW TO BUILD A STRONG START-­‐UP|COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 10 THE FUTURE OF ENTREPRENEURHSIP
Stephen Bates (Moderator)
Global Account Director | Defense Intelligence Agency | National Security Group | Oracle
Stephen Bates is the Global Account Director for the Defense
Intelligence Agency within Oracle’s National Security Group. From
2001 to present, Stephen has served in a variety of technical and
leadership positions with both small business and Fortune 500 firms
such as Apple, Sun Microsystems, and Oracle. Selected from industry
for the Commandant’s National Security Program at the Army War
College in 2012, he also serves as an affiliated Research Fellow at the
Network Science Center at West Point. Stephen holds a BA from
Indiana University, an MBA from Villanova, and has completed postgraduate studies in Corporate Strategy at Harvard Business School, and
Marketing Strategy at the London School of Economics, respectively.
Ryan McMunn
Founder and CEO | BRIC Language Systems
BRIC Language Systems is an innovative web-based language
acquisition program. As the former President of Asian Operations at a
leading U.S. manufacturing firm, McMunn has long understood the
importance of learning the native language of his Chinese colleagues.
Over the course of several years, he attempted numerous times to
learn Mandarin through private tutoring sessions, group classes, and
virtually every other language training method available. He
eventually found success with a program, taught by Kassey Wong,
which utilized a unique teaching method specific to Mandarin.
Recognizing that the use of language-specific learning techniques is
essential to grasping any new language, McMunn along with Wong,
founded BRIC Language Systems.
HOW TO BUILD A STRONG START-­‐UP|COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 11 Jason Saltzman
Founder and CEO | AlleyNYC
Jason Saltzman has been featured in publications across the globe for
his work with AlleyNYC. He is a Techstars mentor and advises
hundreds of early stage startups. Jason has experience in scaling
businesses to adjust to the demand of growing markets and has also
written for several publications including Entrepreneur Magazine
and The Wall Street Journal. Most recently he was named "Special
Advisor to Technology and Entrepreneurship" by the US State
Department.
Jide Adebayo
Founder and CEO | Univate
While attending Columbia University, Jide started two companies.
His first company was a nonprofit that helped to connect high school
and middle school students with college mentors. Currently, he is still
working on his second venture called Univate, which seeks to assist
students and alumni who are working on projects and ventures of
their own. His career goals include integrating technology and
scientific research into public policy and administration. He
specifically wants to leverage technology in order to enable
individuals around the world. Jide Adebayo graduated from
Columbia University and completed a 5-year program, receiving a B.A.
in Economics and Philosophy and a Masters of Public Administration.
HOW TO BUILD A STRONG START-­‐UP|COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 12 Arjun Rai
Founder and CEO, Canvs.co
Arjun is a New York City based entrepreneur originally from West
Windsor, New Jersey (aka Princeton Junction). Arjun
launched fuelbrite.com, a social media agency focused on small
businesses
and
startups,
and
a
student-focused
organization, TheBizDen. After interning at a PR and ad agency in the
summer of 2012, Arjun quickly saw the need for yet another startup
within the tech space and raised a seed investment round to
build Cancas+ (Canvas.co), which is now the leader in visual project
management. Canvs+ is currently backed by notable investors and
business leaders from various fields including film, advertising,
finance etc
Bruce Bachenheimer
Clinical Professor of Management and Executive Director |
Entrepreneurship Lab | Pace University
Bruce is a Clinical Professor of Management and Executive Director
of the Entrepreneurship Lab at Pace University. He is also a member
of the Board and past Chair of the New York City Chapter of the MIT
Enterprise Forum, and has served on the organization’s Global Board.
He has been widely quoted in a variety of domestic and international
publications, interviewed on radio and television and has spoken on
entrepreneurship at numerous organizations, including the Youth
Assembly at the United Nations and the U.S. Department of State’s
International Visitor Leadership Program
HOW TO BUILD A STRONG START-­‐UP|COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 13 CONTACT US
We wish to express our deep gratitude to you for joining our conference today. Ivy Oasis
invites you to join us for many more exciting events to come.
Please join our group via http://www.ivyoasisnyc.com/
Thanks to our Partners & Sponsors:
Dartmouth
Entrepreneurial
Network
Special Thanks to:
Dartmouth Alumni
Ivy Oasis
Charles Allison
Caroline Hribar
Felice Baker for web-design
Osman Niazi |Founder|
Alumni of the Ivy League & Goldman
Consortium
HOW TO BUILD A STRONG START-­‐UP|COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 14