Join Columbia University’s Senior Fellow for Entrepreneurship Steve Blank in conversation with Columbia Technology Ventures’ Executive Director Orin Herskowitz and four recently-founded Columbia deep-tech startups.

Each year, Columbia alumni launch more than 120 new ventures and raise an average of $6.3 Billion in funding. In addition, through Columbia’s Technology Transfer Office, Columbia faculty and student researchers launch over 20 new startups annually based on science emerging from Columbia’s research labs, including in cybersecurity, IT hardware, augmented reality devices, cybersecurity software, artificial intelligence, clean energy, surgical robotics, biopharma, medical devices, photonics, and more.

On March 12, 2020, Steve Blank and Orin Herskowitz will illustrate and underscore the importance of university-based innovation programs and how deep-tech startups are driving solutions that define our future. They will also discuss the challenges commonly faced by early-stage deep-tech startups, and some of the strategies emerging across the country to address these issues. By working with Columbia founders to navigate the transition from lab to marketplace, the University is helping a new generation of life-saving and life-improving breakthroughs find their path to the market.

Judge for Yourselves
After the talk, CEOs from Columbia-founded deep-tech startups will pitch to a panel of active Bay Area angels and VCs.

Doors open at 6 p.m., pitching starts at 6:30 p.m.
Wine and appetizer reception to follow

Questions? Email entrepreneurship@columbia.edu.

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Steve Blank

Entrepreneur-turned-educator Steve Blank is the Father of Modern Entrepreneurship. Credited with launching the Lean Startup movement, he’s changed how startups are built; how entrepreneurship is taught; how science is commercialized, and how companies and the government innovate.

Steve is the author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany, The Startup Owner’s Manual -- and his May 2013 Harvard Business Review cover story defined the Lean Startup movement.

He teaches at Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley and NYU; and created the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps -- now the standard for science commercialization in the U.S. His Hacking for Defense class at Stanford is revolutionizing how the U.S. defense and intelligence community can deploy innovation with speed and urgency, and its sister class, Hacking for Diplomacy, is doing the same for foreign affairs challenges managed by the U.S. State Department.

Orin Herskowitz

Orin Herskowitz is the Senior VP of Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer for Columbia University, as well as Executive Director of Columbia Technology Ventures (CTV). He also is an Adjunct Professor, teaching an Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs course. He has served on boards or served as the Principle Investigator for a number of innovation and entrepreneurship-focused initiatives, including the NYC Media Lab, the PowerBridgeNY clean energy proof-of-concept center, the Columbia BioMedX accelerator, the NYC ACRE technology incubator, and Harlem Biospace; has been a peer reviewer for innovation and entrepreneurship awards for the National Science Foundation and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities; and is a frequent speaker at IP- and technology-focused events in NYC and across the country. He is a board member for the Center for American Entrepreneurship, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit research, policy, and advocacy organization engaging policymakers in Washington and across the nation regarding the critical importance of entrepreneurs and start-ups to innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Orin was also an appointee to a two-year term on the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE), a Federal committee that advises the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on issues related to accelerating innovation, enhancing entrepreneurship, and expanding workforce skill development.

Columbia Technology Ventures is the tech transfer office of Columbia University, with the core objective to facilitate the transfer of inventions from academic research to outside organizations for the benefit of society on a local, national and global basis. Each year, CTV manages more than 400 invention disclosures emerging from Columbia’s research labs, leading to over 100 license deals and over 20 new start-ups. Columbia Technology Ventures has a particular focus on patent-backed start-up companies. Over the years, CTV has been involved with launching well over 250 companies based on Columbia's technologies.

Orin received his BA from Yale and his MBA from the Wharton School of Business. Prior to joining Columbia, Orin spent 7 years at the Boston Consulting Group's New York office as a strategy consultant, and was previously an entrepreneur and a consultant to start-ups.