Recently, the Syracuse University Entrepreneurship Club took a trip Boston to take part in Harvard University’s annual one-day Entrepreneurship Conference, SPARK. The conference was an exciting opportunity to connect with and learn from renowned entrepreneurs, investors, experts and student entrepreneurs from all over the country. Keynote speakers at the conference were Phil Libin, co-founder and executive chairman of Evernote, and James Reinhart, CEO of ThredUP.
Syracuse University Entrepreneurship Club members with Phil Libin, third from left, co-founder and executive chairman of Evernote.
The day started with a pitch competition for student entrepreneurs who are working on their own start-ups. The students who pitched had varied business concepts that included cheap and innovative lung cancer screening kits and solar panel fields for community sharing. The winner of the competition was awarded $1,500. The rest of the day was broken down into hour-long sessions where speakers shared their experience in entrepreneurship and teachers gave lessons in various fields of study related to entrepreneurship.
In these sessions, participants learned how to fund a start-up, code a website, be a student entrepreneur, build a customer base, grow a business, create a team, develop a product and about rapid prototyping, among other lessons. In the middle of the day, some students from SU also competed in a start-up game where participants assumed the roles of employee, CEO and investor. The participants then had to form business teams where CEOs hired employees and investors invested in businesses to win the title of “most successful and profitable business.” Members of the SU Entrepreneurship Club were on the winning team!
The day ended with a great networking opportunity and club members made connections with students from Harvard University, MIT, Boston University, Babson University, Dartmouth University and many other schools.
The Syracuse University Entrepreneurship Club meets Monday nights at 8 p.m. in 002 Whitman. For more information, contact caocon04@syr.edu or xizou@syr.edu.
