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Princeton Engineering Atom FeedCopyright 2009 The Trustees of Princeton Universitynews:www.princeton.edu/engineering/news/ news:16368 Transportation hackathon bridges technology and civic engagement Catherine Shen 2016-03-07T00:00:00-05:00 2016-03-07T00:00:00-05:00 A smartphone application that alerts drivers to local road hazards could help avoid accidents and be a step towards improving transportation policy, Princeton University professor Garnet Chan told an audience during the hackathon sponsored by the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) and Code for Princeton on February 27 and 28.

A smartphone application that alerts drivers to local road hazards could help avoid accidents and be a step towards improving transportation policy, Princeton University professor Garnet Chan told an audience during the hackathon sponsored by the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) and Code for Princeton on February 27 and 28.

In an intensive 48 hours of coding, Chan and two partners created just such an app. The team's project, "Save Your Car," was one of four that won recognition at the hackathon, an event that attracted about 90 computer coders, policy enthusiasts, and interested citizens – from Princeton students and faculty to local middle school students. Teams spent the weekend in Sherrerd Hall brainstorming and creating digital technologies to solve transportation problems. Participants also could join transportation policy discussions and introductory coding tutorials.

Save Your Car provides optimal driving directions between two points while avoiding problems such as unfixed potholes and fallen branches. It goes beyond existing tools such as Google Maps, Chan said, by incorporating local user inputs collected in municipal databases such as Access Princeton. The app could be used by local governments to report issues such as road closures in case of emergencies like hurricanes or snowstorms, Chan said.

True to the ethic of hackathons, which bring together new collaborators, Chan, the University's A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Chemistry, teamed up with local programmer and hackathon veteran Edderic Ugaddan and eighth grade student Ben Mathews to create Save Your Car.

"We're looking to develop this app so it can work globally, so if someone was in India or China and was not familiar with the road conditions, then they could use this," Ugaddan said. "It's something that is useful and almost anybody can use."

Chan said his work with the University involves a lot of scientific software development, and he sees group coding events as an important way to energize software development. His own research team, the Chan Group in theoretical chemistry, have hosted their own small hackathons.

For CITP's hackathon, the chemistry professor wanted to see what technical and management skills he could bring as a participant. "In addition to that, transportation software is broadly relevant to many lives, including my own, so it was not difficult to be interested," he said.

Save Your Car took home the prize for "Best Advancement of an Existing Technology." The panel of judges included Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert, CITP Acting Director and Professor of Computer Science Nick Feamster, transportation expert Nat Bottigheimer, and Sustainable Princeton's Energy Director Christine Symington.

The event was the inaugural hackathon sponsored by CITP and Code for Princeton, a community tech group interested in open government and "civic hacking."

CITP developed the idea of a policy hackathon as a way to harness the power of technology to work on urgent social issues, said Feamster. The event encouraged interdisciplinary teams to keep projects focused on responding to policy needs in a practical manner.

"We chose transportation because it's relevant to almost everyone," said Feamster, noting that transportation policy is not a traditional theme for hackathons. "We wanted to find different ways to discover new strategies where technology plays a role."

Issues addressed at the hackathon reflect an "intersection of digital technology and public life," which is the focus of the center, Feamster said. CITP also saw the hackathon as a way to reach out to the local community and strengthen ties between the University and the municipality.

For Claire Ralph, director of Code for Princeton, building connections between programmers, technologists and the government is vital to keeping communications open and building trust in government.

"We want to encourage open data," she said. "There's a disconnect between the public and the government, so it's important to get people talking and see what are the possibilities by bridging that gap."

Seeing a diverse group of people coming together to find solutions to a problem has been very exciting, said Ralph. "There's a lot of learning going on and I think it's also important for people to see that they have a role in creating something that can change policies."

Team "Ghost Bus," who came up with a tool for local transit agencies to translate their route schedules into a standardized data feed readable by applications like Google Maps, won the prize for "Most Likely to See Immediate Use," while Team "Uncrash" won "Most Likely to Affect Policy" through their web-based application that allowed citizens to download and visualize New Jersey vehicle-crash data.

"Hacking energy" was high throughout the hackathon but perhaps nothing compared to the exuberance that emanated from four Montgomery Upper Middle School students, whose project on school transport won the prize for "Most Creative Solution."

Eighth grade students Iccha Singh, Venkat Cherukupalli, Sanjana Jagadish Bharath and seventh grader Arnav Dashaputra impressed the audience with their mobile app that allows students to send quick messages to a bus driver if a school bus missed a pick up.

"We wanted to focus on an issue that's common," said Singh, who has attended numerous hackathons. "We also wanted to empower other middle school students who wanted to be involved but were intimidated by competing against adults."

At first, it was a scary experience for the middle schoolers. But Cherukupalli said they eventually found that everyone was very friendly and helpful.

"It's exciting to know what we built could actually be implemented," he said. "I learned so much and really enjoyed being around all the tech people. It was a fun experience."

 news:15634 Creativity, tenacity, critical thinking urged at Keller Center symposium Catherine Shen 2015-10-15T00:00:00-04:00 2015-10-15T00:00:00-04:00 It takes more than just a good idea to begin an entrepreneurial venture, Tom Leighton, a Princeton University alumnus and CEO of the Internet infrastructure company Akamai Technologies, told a Princeton University audience on Oct. 13.

It takes more than just a good idea to begin an entrepreneurial venture, Tom Leighton, a Princeton University alumnus and CEO of the Internet infrastructure company Akamai Technologies, told a Princeton University audience on Oct. 13.

To pursue entrepreneurship is to take risks, to work hard and not be afraid of making mistakes, he said. "You have to operate with a sense of urgency. Once you have an idea, you have to do something about it fast because if you don't, someone else will."

Leighton joined educators, entrepreneurs and students at the Keller Center's 10th Anniversary Symposium, celebrating the center's decade-long mission of fostering innovation in education and entrepreneurship.

Delivering the event's keynote, Leighton, who earned a bachelor's in engineering at Princeton in 1978, described his own journey of entrepreneurship as like "riding a rollercoaster." He was a mathematician leading the Algorithms Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the mid-1990s, when he was approached by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, to come up with a solution to freeing up web congestion.

Through much trial and error, writing grant proposals, entering a business plan contest and negotiating outside business partnerships, Akamai Technologies was born. It is now the world's largest distributed computing platform, hired by providers of web content to speed the delivery of their websites and video through the Internet. Akamai dynamically routes as much as 30 percent of all Internet content across its network of more than 200,000 servers in over 110 countries.

There was never an intention to create a company, said Leighton. But his research team realized if they wanted to have a broader impact with the technology, they needed to be able to do things their own way.

"You can start a successful company, but you are expected to work really hard," said Leighton. He also emphasized the key to a successful business is not just working with great people to come up with a great product; it is to be "tenacious as hell."

"My team and I were not going to give up," he said. "That's the reason for our success. You have to take risks and realize that it's fine to fail."

In addition to Leighton's talk, the Keller Center symposium included two panel discussions. One panel included conversations on the goals of higher education as well as discussions of the pros and cons of online classes, the importance of preparing students with real life skills, and the challenges of implementing cross-disciplinary curriculums.

Panelist Janet Vertesi, an assistant professor of sociology, noted three key elements of a Princeton education.

The first is critical thinking, because contemporary knowledge work is not just about facts and formulas, but being able to assess a situation, Vertesi said. "It's about taking the knowledge and processing it. It's important to think critically about the information and being able to discuss it with other people. This is a skill that is transferable to any environment and it gives students the ability to move comfortably anywhere," she said.

Making interdisciplinary connections and being surrounded by inspiring minds are other components that are vital to empower students.

The university can give students the environment to be surrounded by inspiring minds in a way that nowhere else can, she said. It is not just a warm and fuzzy feeling to be with people with similar interests, but it's a key to entrepreneurship.

"It doesn't take one person to come up with new ideas, it takes a small group of people that can work together effectively," Vertesi said. "If students can work and think outside the box and listen to each other, it enables them to be able to create something amazing."

The panel included Chris Brinton, a graduate student in electrical engineering and an entrepreneur working on an educational startup, Zoomi; Kevin Guthrie, a Princeton alumnus and president of Ithaka; and Lisa Herschbach, director of the McGraw Center and associate dean of the college. It was moderated by Derek Lidow, a professor of entrepreneurship at the Keller Center.

Guthrie said the world is changing rapidly in its demand on people and what it takes to be successful, whether at an academic institution, in the work place, or just understanding the world around them. "The role of higher education is to prepare people with the skills to face those challenges, what you can do with your mind and how you can extend yourself," he said.

However, many people cannot compete in this economy, Guthrie said, noting that higher education is terribly challenged by cost, which creates a "learning gap" between rich and poor. "We need to try to bridge that gap. I'm not saying higher education is not innovative, it's been evolutionarily innovative. But the pace required to keep up with the ever changing environment is not fast enough," he said.

"There's a need to accelerate that change so more people who are outside of the elite can get the experience they need to be prepared for the environment we're facing now," Guthrie said.

During the afternoon's second panel discussion on entrepreneurship, Christine Blauvelt, a 2012 Princeton graduate and co-founder of Duma Works, a recruiting platform that connects businesses and prospective employees in Kenya, said the University fosters a positive and ongoing dialogue on active learning and taking practical action.

There is something special about Princeton that gets students talking about issues and giving them resources for problem solving, said Blauvelt. "I came to school wanting to be involved in global health and I was exposed to the idea of creating a company to tackle those issues. It was revolutionary to me," she said.

"I was taught humility and learned to express my ideas while taking into consideration what other people have to say," said Blauvelt. "I also realized you learn more when you are doing your own thing. You learn from experience and that growth is valuable."

In addition to Blauvelt, the panel included Martin Johnson, founder of Isles, a Trenton, N.J.-based sustainable development organization; Katherine Hays, founder and CEO of Vivoom Inc.; and Brian O'Kelley, CEO and cofounder of advertisement technology company AppNexus. The discussion was moderated by Chris Kuenne, founder of the marketing agency Rosetta.

Leighton closed the event by encouraging students to take advantage of the opportunities the Keller Center and the University are able to provide.

It is invaluable to talk to experienced professionals and ask for advice, said Leighton. "When it comes to trying new things, you have to take risks. You'll learn quickly and it's essential to have an open mind.

"You have everything you need to be fabulously successful at Princeton University," he said. "It is a great place to inspire startups."
 news:15616 Keller Center: A decade of 'broadening pathways' to positive impact Stacey Huang '16 2015-10-14T00:00:00-04:00 2015-10-14T00:00:00-04:00 Ten years ago, the founding director of Princeton University's new center for engineering education set a simple goal: "To inject more engineering into the liberal arts and inject more of the liberal arts into engineering."
Ten years ago, the founding director of Princeton University's new center for engineering education set a simple goal: "To inject more engineering into the liberal arts and inject more of the liberal arts into engineering."

"We saw technology affecting nearly every aspect of public and private life and knew we needed to broaden engineering education far beyond its traditional borders," said H. Vincent Poor, now dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. "Our vision was to teach technology more broadly in a societal context and also to engage with the community outside the University."

This purpose was reflected in the center's inaugural programs: the integrated Engineering, Mathematics and Physics course for incoming engineers, a set of cross-disciplinary courses including an entrepreneurship class, and the first annual Innovation Forum. Over the past 10 years, the Keller Center has continued these initiatives and expanded much further.

Started in 2005 as the Center for Innovation in Engineering Education, the center was renamed in 2008 in honor of educational innovator Dennis Keller, Class of 1963, and his wife, Constance Keller, when the couple gave $20 million to endow the center. Now students, faculty and alumni from all parts of the University take part in Keller programs each year — attending one of the center's 15 courses, participating in any of 60 events, obtaining an internship to explore engineering beyond Princeton, participating in its eLab entrepreneurship program, or taking advantage of the services offered by the University's new Entrepreneurial Hub.

"When we celebrate the 10th birthday of the Keller Center, it's not only about cutting the cake," said Mung Chiang, the director of the Keller Center and the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor ofElectrical Engineering. "This is about planning the future decades that will continue to broaden Princetonians' pathways to make a positive impact in society."

A video and the following student stories reflect just a few of the ways students engage with the Keller Center.

 Jack Hudson

Senior; Concentration: Computer Science; Certificates: Technology and Society, Engineering Biology

In Jack Hudson's freshman year, the thought of starting a company was far from his mind. That was until he and his roommate, Evan Corden, met Colin Lualdi, a deaf student in their hallway. Hudson ended up collaborating with Corden and Lualdi in the TigerLaunch competition hosted by the Princeton University Entrepreneurship Club and pitched the idea of SignSchool, an easy-to-use and interactive website to learn American Sign Language. They won first place, and with it, admission to the Keller Center's eLab Summer Accelerator Program in 2014.

"The Keller Center gave us a lot of really helpful resources, and the program was an awesome experience. There were classes every week that would cover a different topic related to starting a company. The Keller Center also provided us with an advisory team of successful entrepreneurs, who had experience in our field. These advisers helped us through the challenges we had, such as whether to target businesses or go straight to the general consumer. The fact that the Keller Center was able to connect us with these advisers made a really big difference.

"The Keller Center really embraces any ideas you have. They do everything they can to help you develop it, whether it's connecting you with advisers who have been through the whole entrepreneurship process or venture capitalists and lawyers."

 Hannah Miller

Senior; Concentration: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Certificates: Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Applications of Computing

Hannah Miller had no previous exposure to entrepreneurship when she started her summer internship with IguanaMed, a small startup founded by a Princeton alumnus focused on developing medical scrubs. But Miller, who has worked as a member of the Keller Center's student advisory [1]board since fall of her junior year, credits the internship with exposing her to the workings and passion of a start-up company.

"I really enjoyed working in the relaxed but hard-working environment of a small, young business, where conversations with the president happen on a daily basis and the whole company enjoys lunch together every Friday. Going into the position, I had no knowledge about the medical apparel industry, or about how smaller, startup businesses operate. But at the internship, I was able to do a lot of meaningful jobs that dealt with different aspects of the company, from sales and marketing to quality control.

"My internship with IguanaMed showed me how rewarding it is to come up with inventive ideas and solutions for challenges that initially seem insurmountable. On day one, I was assigned an open-ended marketing project. I was initially a little overwhelmed since I didn't know much about the industry and there wasn't a 'right way' to do it. But it turned out to be a great exercise in learning to research and figure things out on my own. I learned that this is an extremely valuable skill when starting a business."

 Kasturi Shah

Senior; Concentration: Physics

Kasturi Shah has worked extensively with the Keller Center through Engineers Without Borders (EWB) as co-project manager of the chapter's Peru team. For three successive summers, Shah was part of a student team that EWB sent to La Pitayaja, Peru, to implement a multi-stage potable water distribution system. The past summer they succeeded in provided running water to every house.

"The Keller Center has handled a lot of behind-the-scenes administration — they take questions from the EWB board and help us plan reunions events, speakers and so on. They also organize the Sustainable Engineering and Development Scholars (SEADS) Program, which helps EWB evaluate their development projects.

"Throughout the years, the Keller Center has provided Engineers Without Borders with absolutely essential logistical and financial support. They handled our accounts and coordinated our funding to make sure we were supported abroad by issuing us credit cards, which was a godsend. Given that we do a lot of international trips as a chapter, sometimes more than once a year, that kind of support is absolutely essential. If anything goes wrong and there's an emergency, we can rely on the Keller Center for help. They've done a huge amount and I don't know where we'd be without that support."

 David Prilutsky

Sophomore; Concentration: Computer Science

In his freshman year, David Prilutsky enrolled in EGR 191: An Integrated Introduction to Engineering, Mathematics and Physics, a course offered by the Keller Center. Better known as EMP, the course replaces the standard math and physics curriculum taken by engineers. EMP offers a hands-on approach to engineering principles with a lab that is centered on building, launching and analyzing a water-powered bottle rocket.

"The classes are so small that's there's an instant sense of community. The teachers and staff were amazing, and I also made most of my best friends from EMP — we'd always do problem sets together every night.

"The physics lectures and demos were cool—but the best part was the lab. We created a model for how our rocket would fly based on certain parameters and compared it to our actual flight path. It was really cool how we were actually able to able to create a pretty accurate model of how the rocket would fly in the end. It was a lot of work, but really in-depth and hands on — and a lot of fun."

<img alt="" class="figure" src="http://news.princeton.edu/uploads/243/image/keller-center-10th-anniversary-03.jpg" style="width: 503px; height: 317px;" title="Jenna Rodrigues, center, who graduated in 2014, credits the class "Creativity, Innovation and Design" with changing her outlook toward solving problems and inspiring her to help bring new types of thinking into the educational system. The class is taught by Derek Lidow, left, who is part of the entrepreneurship faculty at the Keller Center. (Photo by Danielle Alio, Office of Communications)" />

 Jenna Rodrigues

Alumna, Class of 2014; Concentration: Economics; Certificate: American Studies

As the daughter of two entrepreneurs, Jenna Rodrigues had much exposure to startups from a young age. Still, even as she became involved entrepreneurship herself, she found that her greatest challenge was to create ideas and examine society with a critical eye. Rodrigues, who was involved in founding the Sustainable Fashion Initiative at Princeton as well as Deià, a social commerce company, was inspired by design classes offered through the Keller Center. Specifically, Rodrigues took the course "Creativity, Innovation and Design" taught by Derek Lidow, an entrepreneurship specialist with the Keller Center and the Department of Electrical Engineering. Building on years of his own business experience and scholarship, Lidow breaks conventions in his class by replacing a lecture approach with hands-on problem solving and culminating in developing creative solutions to extremely difficult social problems such as high-risk drinking and sexual assault.

"Professor Lidow's class taught me to access a part of my brain that I had otherwise completely neglected up until that point. After being exposed to new ways of thinking, I came to realize that for the majority of my academic career, I had been a part of an education system that largely reinforced 'convergent thinking' — where a question was posed that had only one right answer. This class challenged me to think divergently and to question assumptions to identify new problems and develop new solutions. It was amazing to see people really pushing themselves and come up with different ideas. By the end of the class, students were taking risks left and right and came to see that learning is not only about giving the right answer, but also about asking new questions and pushing themselves to new limits.

"I wish I had understood how to think like this from when I was young. The class made me really interested in the role that divergent thinking plays in the education system at large. There are many naturally innovative students who fall through the cracks because the system does not typically enforce the type of thinking that they do best. This class really inspired me to begin thinking more about how we could bring design thinking to students at a younger age, so at the most basic level, they become inherently curious and start asking questions about the world around them. The people thinking divergently are the ones changing industries, so in many ways, the progress of our society depends upon them. It is our responsibility to give students the foundation that they need to build something from nothing, to implement change — and that is exactly what this class did for me."

 news:15365 Student teams build and pitch businesses in summer program John Sullivan 2015-08-21T00:00:00-04:00 2015-08-21T00:00:00-04:00 Teams presented pitched startups ventures to packed audiences at the Keller Center's annual Demo Day events -- at Princeton on Aug. 11 and the following day at AppNexus in Manhattan.
<img alt="" class="figure right" src="http://news.princeton.edu/uploads/243/image/keller-center-demo-day-10.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 211px; float: right;" title="Princeton University students and recent graduates presented entrepreneurial projects they developed over the summer in the Keller Center's fourth annual eLab Demo Day on Aug. 11-12. Above, Mung Chiang, the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor of Electrical Engineering and director of the Keller Center, delivers opening remarks before student presentations of their projects at the AppNexus headquarters in Manhattan on Aug. 12. Photo by Steve Freeman for the Office of Engineering Communications" />Like most guitar makers, Adam Klosowiak demonstrated his instrument by playing. His fingers flew over the strings, and the sound was clear and pure, but Klosowiak did not stop there.

He thumped the guitar against a podium, telling a gathering at AppNexus's Manhattan headquarters that "you wouldn't be able to do that with a wooden guitar." And when his business partner Jake Sheffield tossed him a rubber softball, Klosowiak, who graduated from Princeton University this year with a degree in electrical engineering, quickly switched his grip and swung the guitar like a bat, popping the ball in a high loop over the crowd. The guitar, he said, not only sounds good but "for everyday use, it's pretty much indestructible."

KLOS Guitars, featuring a new type of carbon-fiber travel instrument made by Klosowiak and four associates, was the first of seven teams that presented their startups at the Keller Center's annual Demo Day events last week. The teams appeared before full crowds in the Friend Center at Princeton on Aug. 11 and the following day at AppNexus in Manhattan. In addition to the live presentations, the teams produced videos highlighting their efforts.

This was the fourth year that the Keller Center has held its Demo Day, the culmination of the center's eLab student startup accelerator. The summer-long program provides work space, instruction and support for student teams who compete for admission. The program also provides up to $20,000 in funding without taking any equity in the fledgling ventures. Team members are matched with veteran entrepreneurs who serve as mentors, and they attend workshops and coaching sessions that concentrate on different aspects of launching a startup.

This summer marked the first year that the teams worked at the University's new Entrepreneurial Hub at 34 Chambers St. The 10,000-square-foot incubator space in downtown Princeton offers working space and information technology support for student ventures as well as startups founded by faculty members and alumni.

<img alt="" class="figure" src="http://news.princeton.edu/uploads/243/image/keller-center-demo-day-07.jpg" style="width: 503px; height: 300px;" title="This summer's eLab program was the first to operate from the University's new Entrepreneurial Hub at 34 Chambers St. in downtown Princeton. The 10,000-square-foot facility offers working space and information technology support for student ventures as well as startups founded by faculty members and alumni. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski for the Office of Engineering Communications)" />

"The Hub symbolizes the University administration's commitment to strengthening entrepreneurship as part of students' education," Mung Chiang, the Keller Center director, said in his address kicking off the Demo Day presentation at AppNexus's headquarters on West 23rd Street. Chiang, who is the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor of Electrical Engineering, said eLab is an important part of that commitment, allowing students "to explore themselves as entrepreneurs and to explore the world of entrepreneurship."

This year's presentations included a precise-dosage applicator for topical medicines, a system for efficient processing of pharmaceutical clinical trials and an app that allows college students to make new friends in a safe online environment. The eLab program is often hectic as teams cram as much work as possible into 10 weeks. Vaidhy Murti, co-founder of the Friendsy team, recalled one point at which his group realized they needed to add a chat feature to their college social networking platform.

"We got together on a Tuesday afternoon to whiteboard our thoughts," Murti, who graduated this year with a degree in computer science, said after his presentation. "We managed to build out a fully functioning chatroom feature and launch it by Friday."

The teams receive weekly instructions on entrepreneurial topics and follow a program designed to emphasize flexibility and response to potential customers' needs.

"eLab is a fantastic program," said Andrew Klutey, who graduated this year with a degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. "We have a place to work, mentors, incredible resources."

The teams also received feedback, and sometimes pointed questions, from expert panelists at the Princeton and Manhattan events. This year, the panelists included: Matthew Barbieri, partner, Wiss and Company; Morgan Battle, director, Tucker Capital; Dina Brewer, Class of 1988, managing partner, Princeton Law Partners; Daniel Chiou, Class of 2005, vice president, Insight Venture Partners; Thanasis Delistathis, managing partner, NAV VC; Saahill Desai, Class of 2006, portfolio manager and founder, DS Maris Advisors; Kwame Dougan, managing partner, iYa Ventures; Kef Kasdin, Class of 1985, general partner, Battelle Ventures; Alice Lloyd George, Class of 2009, associate, RRE Ventures; Dianna Raedle, Class of 1984, chief executive, founder and managing director, Deer Isle Capital; Jim Shepard, Class of 1978, founder and managing partner, GenNx360 Capital Partners; and Joe Studholme, Class of 1984, managing partner, Union Atlantic Ventures.

 <img alt="" class="figure" src="http://news.princeton.edu/uploads/243/image/keller-center-demo-day-09.jpg" style="width: 503px; height: 300px;" title="Friendsy is a college-based social network that allows students to make social connections in a safe environment. Vaidhy Murti, who graduated from Princeton this year, explains how the network has ballooned since the team participated in the 2014 eLab accelerator, and how team members have added new features such as a chat room to expand users' opportunities to meet new people. (Photo by Steve Freeman for the Office of Engineering Communications)" />

 Friendsy

The first eLab team to return for a second year, Friendsy is a social networking platform that allows college students to make new friends through a private and secure system open only to fellow students. Murti and classmate Michael Pinsky, who graduated this year with a degree in psychology, met by chance after they sat on adjacent couches to watch a New York Yankees game freshman year.

"Pretty soon, Mike and I became roommates, best friends, and we started this company together," Murti said. But they realized that "more often than not, it does not happen this way."

Since beginning as a website at Princeton, Friendsy has expanded to 84,000 users on campuses across the country.

To avoid the pitfalls of some other social networking programs, Friendsy limits membership to people with a valid college email address. The program, available on a wide range of mobile devices, allows members to remain anonymous and only reveal certain details about themselves, such as their class year and major.

The system, which now includes a chat feature, is monitored to prevent harassment and negative comments. Murti said the goal was to make it possible "to make friends based on the actual conversation."

"Chat rooms were wildly popular on the Internet of the past," Murti said. "We feel we can make chat rooms great again."

 <img alt="" class="figure" src="http://news.princeton.edu/uploads/243/image/keller-center-demo-day-05.jpg" style="font-size: 12px; width: 503px; height: 300px;" title="Bodhi Tree Systems is a logistics software system that computerizes paper records often used in clinical trials for pharmaceuticals. Jared Crooks, who has a bachelor's and two master's degrees from Princeton, gives a presentation on how the system will reduce waste and inefficiency by focusing on a mundane, but critical, aspect of trials. (Photo by Steve Freeman for the Office of Engineering Communications)" />

 Bodhi Tree Systems

Clinical trials for new pharmaceuticals involve some the most cutting-edge technology available. But, as Jared Crooks pointed out, the foundation of many trials rests upon one of humanity's oldest technologies: paper.

"Seventy percent of clinical trials are handled through paper," said Crooks, the CEO of Bodhi Tree Systems.

Crooks, who graduated from Princeton with a degree in astrophysical sciences in 2011 and received a Master in Public Affairs and a Master of Engineering this year, said the average form takes about seven minutes to fill out by hand. With large clinical trials involving thousands of patients, the time can add up quickly.

To avoid spending enormous sums on treatments that eventually prove unsuccessful, "clinical trials are designed to fail as soon as possible," Crooks said. "Delayed notification when things go wrong can cost time and money."

Crooks said his company has developed an automated form that allows a nurse to enter information by scanning a patient's identification, such as a hospital wristband, rather than filling out the form with a pen. Not only does the system greatly speed up the process, it eliminates handwriting errors than can prove costly for some trials.

"It is the simplest solution to these routine, mundane problems that can drive a lot of value," he said.

 TeachMe

TeachMe is a different kind of social network — one based on learning rather than socializing.

"Often what makes or breaks a new endeavor is having at least one connection with someone who is already excellent at the thing you are trying to learn," said Emma Trefethen, a co-founder and CEO of TeachMe who graduated from Princeton this year with a degree in mathematics.

TeachMe is an online platform that connects college students interested in learning a variety of subjects with fellow students who are skilled in that area. The startup has run testing over the summer and plans to launch at four campuses, followed by a wider launch in January.

"We had someone who wanted to learn about quantum mechanics," Trefethen said. "We have had other people who wanted advice about career choices and majors."

Connections are not limited to academic subjects. Users can also find instructors for hobbies and random skills. Instructors can offer lessons for a fee or for free. Trefethen said the exchange would benefit both the student and instructor to "meet and share skills and knowledge with others in their community."

"We want to give students an opportunity to make money doing what they already know how to do and what they love," she said.

<img alt="" class="figure" src="http://news.princeton.edu/uploads/243/image/keller-center-demo-day-03.jpg" style="width: 503px; height: 300px;" title="BLOC is an online professional network that connects black collegians to professional resources and each other. From left, Amina Yamusah, a 2013 Princeton graduate, and Achille Tenkiang, a rising junior at Princeton, explain how the network can help college graduates attain success. (Photo by Steve Freeman for the Office of Engineering Communications)" />

 BLOC

Achille Tenkiang opened his presentation with a few questions.

"How many of you remember applying for your first job?" asked Tenkiang, a rising junior pursuing a concentration in African American studies. "How many remember that as particularly stressful?"

Tenkiang said the process of moving from college to the workforce is difficult for all young professionals, but particularly for African American students who often lack access to networks available to many of their peers.

"Yes, grit and perseverance can make a substantial difference," he said. But in a world in which hiring decisions are frequently based on personal contacts, it is often not enough.

BLOC is an online professional network connecting graduating black students with potential employers. The company offers connections and career coaching to students and access to a pool of qualified graduates to employers. Tenkiang said that companies are spending millions of dollars on recruitment with minimal impact on employment rate for African Americans, particularly in tech sectors.

He said that BLOC will enable companies to efficiently find employees whose skills meet their needs and work with firms on hiring and retaining qualified workers. The company is presenting a conference at New York University in November and plans an official launch of its web app this fall.

 Rodeo

Even for the most connected generation, it can be hard to find something new to do.

"I have 20 different ways to talk to my friends on my phone but nothing to find new things," said Andrew Klutey, who presented for the Rodeo team.

Rodeo is a new app that allows users to add new events to their calendars and browse for other events in their communities. If they find something interesting, users can invite a friend or "lasso" a group of friends to form a group to attend an interesting gathering.

"If that is not enough, you can go into our discover feed," said Klutey. "What is trending, what is hot — you can do that, too. Or you can just browse different events and see what is out there."

The group plans to launch their application at Princeton in September and expand beyond that.

"We can create buzz," Klutey said. "We can make it social and fun to discover new things to do on campus."

<img alt="" class="figure" src="http://news.princeton.edu/uploads/243/image/keller-center-demo-day-02.jpg" style="width: 503px; height: 300px;" title="Combining a carbon-fiber body and a wooden neck, KLOS Guitars produces a lightweight, durable and affordable travel guitar. From left, team members Adam Klosowiak, a 2015 Princeton graduate, and Jake Sheffield, a rising junior at Brigham Young University, demonstrate their guitar's toughness and tone. (Photo by Steve Freeman for the Office of Engineering Communications)" />

 KLOS Guitars

"I left the window open last winter break," Adam Klosowiak said, holding up a wooden guitar and gesturing to its base. "A crack opened up here."

Frustration with less durable guitars led Klosowiak's brother, Ian, to design a guitar with a carbon-fiber body. The sound and durability were great, but carbon fiber can be expensive to produce. So the brothers designed a guitar with a carbon-fiber body, a wooden neck and sturdy joints connecting the parts.

"It's the perfect hybrid of wood and carbon fiber," Adam Klosowiak said during his presentation. "All that together makes a small, affordable and durable guitar."

In addition to funding received through eLab, KLOS Guitars has raised money through a Kickstarter campaign. The group has also joined with the Bruce Arnold Foundation to provide guitars to military veterans to assist in treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Besides the softball- and podium-hitting tests demonstrated at their presentation, the team has produced a small video library that includes members golfing, playing table tennis and rowing a canoe with a KLOS guitar. (The guitar used in the videos was available for strumming at the team's demonstration table after their formal presentation.)

"Above all, we are targeting travelers and kids," Klosowiak said. "It is a very durable guitar, and it is very easy to learn on."

<img alt="" class="figure" src="http://news.princeton.edu/uploads/243/image/keller-center-demo-day-01.jpg" style="width: 503px; height: 300px;" title="ClickStick has developed an accurate dosage applicator for topical medicines that is refillable and easy to use. Members of the team include, from left: Zachary Ogle, a 2015 Princeton graduate; Carla Bahri, a doctoral student in mechanical and aerospace engineering; and Gilad Arwatz, a postdoctoral researcher in mechanical and aerospace engineering. (Photo by Steve Freeman for the Office of Engineering Communications)" />

 ClickStick

New drugs are being developed for treatments that require application directly to the patient's skin, but it can be difficult and messy to apply the correct dosage. To address the problem, a team of researchers from Princeton has developed a portable and highly accurate system to apply medication to the skin. Called ClickStick, the device is the size and shape of an ordinary deodorant stick. It uses a motor and a microcontroller to apply topical creams and gels at a precise dosage.

"You simply press a button and you get an exact amount of application," said Gilad Arwatz, a postdoctoral researcher in mechanical and aerospace engineering and one of the team's founders.

The device, which is refillable and uses much less plastic than a standard dispenser, can also be used for personal care and cosmetics. For medical applications, the device is programmable, allowing medical professionals to easily control dosage. It can also connect online, allowing physicians to monitor dosage and timing of use.

"There are many drugs with compliance issues" — both overuse and underuse, Arwatz said. "With ClickStick, you take the right medication, at the right time, and in the right dosage."

 news:15105 University opens new entrepreneurial 'Hub' John Sullivan 2015-05-27T10:00:00-04:00 2015-05-27T10:00:00-04:00 Princeton University is opening a new incubator space to advance entrepreneurial initiatives and education for faculty, students, and alumni. Called the Entrepreneurial Hub and located at 34 Chambers Street, the space will house the Keller Center's annual eLab program as well as shared working space for startups founded by faculty, students and alumni.
After earning a degree in astrophysical sciences, Jared Crooks returned to Princeton to pursue master's degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering and public affairs — but that's not all. This summer, he is adding pages to his busy schedule by starting a business to streamline drug companies' clinical trials.

"You could say that I am curious about a number of different things," Crooks said with a laugh.

On a recent Monday morning, Crooks joined a small group for an impromptu tour of the Princeton University Entrepreneurial Hub, a new incubator space to advance entrepreneurial initiatives and education for faculty, students, and alumni. The hub, located in space leased by the University at 34 Chambers Street in downtown Princeton, will house the Keller Center's annual eLab program, which supports student ventures, as well as shared working space for startups founded by faculty, students and alumni.

Crooks will be one of the first users of the Entrepreneurial Hub as a member of one of the seven eLab teams that will work there over the summer. This summer will be eLab's fourth season; previously, teams worked in offices in the Engineering Quadrangle. "It looks awesome," Crooks said after visiting the space. "I can't wait to start working here."

The eLab program begins June 8 and ends Aug. 11 and 12 with a pair of Demo Days at which the teams present their work to business leaders.

"When I was here as an undergraduate, eLab did not even exist," said Crooks, a member of the Class of 2011 who will receive his master's degrees at Commencement on June 2. Now the program has become an integral part of the University's effort to assist students and faculty to pursue new ventures.

Mung Chiang, who chaired the Princeton Entrepreneurship Advisory Committee, which recommended the creation of the Entrepreneurial Hub, said the new space will provide "an essential anchor" for a wide range of startup activities at Princeton. The 10,000-square-foot facility will offer meeting rooms, offices, classrooms and information technology support. The space is part of Princeton's efforts to provide more entrepreneurship education and support to help University students, faculty and alumni advance their creative ideas and make important contributions to society.

"The University has taken an important initiative in creating space for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship education," said Chiang, who also directs the Keller Center and is the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor of Electrical Engineering. "The hub will provide work space for startups and for the exchange of ideas among students, faculty and alumni."

Jacob Shapiro, whose startup applies "big data" analysis to social systems, said the ability to work with other members of the Princeton community is what makes the new facility so promising.

"Part of what makes it so exciting is the ability to interact with students and help them hone their business ideas," said Shapiro, an associate professor of politics and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. "In a sense, it is taking the most fun parts of being a professor and creating an opportunity to apply them in a new setting. That's exciting as a scholar and a teacher and an entrepreneur."

Chiang said such interactions are only possible with a shared physical space. "We have many colleagues at the University to thank for making the Hub a reality, especially Paul LaMarche from the Provost's office and Cornelia Huellstrunk from the Keller Center," he said.

Founded in 2005, the Keller Center supports innovation in education and entrepreneurship programs, with the goal of preparing leaders in a technology-driven society.

The new roster of eLab teams is scheduled to begin working in the hub in the next few weeks. This summer's program is the first to include a returning team — Friendsy, a college-based social networking service.

"eLab has been tremendously helpful for our growth as a company," said Michael Pinsky, one of the company's founders, who is graduating from Princeton this year with a degree in psychology. He said the company started with a single network at Princeton and has since expanded to 230 campuses nationwide. "The ability to work with mentors in the field and use the working space with what became a very large Friendsy team was incredibly valuable, and it is undoubtedly a major reason for our success during the current school year."

 This year's eLab teams, as described on the Keller Center's website, include:

 Breaking It Down: an online network for collegians from historically disadvantaged groups

 ClickStick: a new dispensing technology with accurate dosage control that drastically reduces plastic waste in products from cosmetics to pharmaceuticals

 Bodhi Tree Systems: an enterprise software system that facilitates the design and management of pharmaceutical trials

 Friendsy: a college-based social networking service that promotes friendships and relationships among members

 Klos Guitars: a portable, affordable and durable carbon-fiber guitar

 Nuna: a social networking platform making it easy to connect online and offline

 TeachMe: a mobile app providing a way to share knowledge one-on-one in a community.

Crooks said he is looking forward to this year's program. Even though the new business he will be involved in — Bodhi Tree Systems — seems different from his academic interests, he said the common thread is finding solutions to complex problems.

"Princeton teaches you to solve problems," he said. "That is really the important thing."
 news:14929 Patagonia CEO: Corporate initiatives are key to sustainability Catherine Shen 2015-04-27T00:00:00-04:00 2015-04-27T00:00:00-04:00 Emphasizing the importance of recognizing Earth's limited resources, the CEO of the outdoor gear company Patagonia told a Princeton University audience April 23 that businesses need to take on social and environmental responsibilities.
Emphasizing the importance of recognizing Earth's limited resources, the CEO of the outdoor gear company Patagonia told a Princeton University audience April 23 that businesses need to take on social and environmental responsibilities.

"I see some movement in corporate America and there has been a lot of development in the sustainability world," Rose Marcario said. "But there needs to be more action." If an ethic of social and environmental sustainability does not take hold in the business community in the next 25 years, we are in serious trouble, she said.

The event, co-sponsored by Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Keller Center, is part of the University's G.S. Beckwith Gilbert '63 Lecture series established in 1988. The goal is to bring innovative leaders in business, government, and the professions to campus to share their ventures and insights gained in their careers.

Marcario described Patagonia's own corporate responsibility practices and urged that other companies build social and environmental sustainability into their cultures. Manufacturers must take responsibility for the products they market, and consumers must take responsibility in their choices, she said.

"We're consuming at such a high rate that we're using up all the planet's resources," Marcario said. "That's a reality. It's time to stop thinking about being consumers and start thinking about being a citizen."

Catherine Dennig, a Princeton senior and co-president of the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative, opened the event by introducing Marcario to a large audience of students, aspiring entrepreneurs, and community members at the University's McCosh Hall.

Marcario joined the outdoor adventures retail empire in 2008 and embarked on transforming the company's infrastructure to improve its operations and financial performance, according to Dennig.

"Under her leadership, the company has doubled its scale of operations and tripled its profits," said Dennig.

Marcario, 50, described her journey to Patagonia as "amazing," and said it began when she became "disillusioned" with the corporate world and decided she wanted to live a more meaningful life.

She met Yvon Chouinard, climbing enthusiast and founder of Patagonia when he was looking for someone to help run the business. After a few years, he asked her to become the company's CEO.

Marcario elaborated on her career path during vibrant question and answer period moderated by Derek Lidow, a Princeton alumnus and professor at the Keller Center, and Sharon Gao, a Princeton senior.

Asked how she was able to contribute to such a significant growth in the last several years, Marcario said it was making a 42-year-old infrastructure better and working with great people.

There is no "genius" way, she said with a laugh. "It's also the simple things like delivering product on time, having good suppliers, and making it easy for people to shop."

Marcario also believes that being more outspoken on social and environmental issues has been very helpful for the company.

"People resonate with it," she said. "People who connect with the brand really appreciate it."

The company, established in 1973 by Chouinard, was inspired by his desire to create mountain-friendly climbing tools that did not destroy the environment. It soon expanded from his parents' backyard to a "Certified B Corporation," a designation for companies that create a positive impact on society and the environment while generating profit.

As part of its environmentally conscious philosophy, Patagonia donates one percent of sales to environmental activism groups annually. Since 1985, the company has donated over $60 million to grassroots organizations.

It is in the company's DNA to preserve the culture of environmental activism and maintain employee benefits, while making the best quality product with the least environmental harm, said Marcario.

When it comes to building high-quality items, the number one priority is durability and functionality. If a customer's gear is broken, they can bring it in for repair, she said. Patagonia is also creating on-the-road repair centers where people can learn how to repair their own gear.

After several years of research, the company found that the single most valuable step toward sustainability that people can take is to "keep their stuff" and repair it. "The idea is to not be in a situation where you're constantly buying new things," she said.

At Patagonia, once the product developers have determined a new product's quality, the social and environmental impacts of each working process comes into focus, such as the way factories' are evaluated and creating ethical supply chains.

As one of the largest makers of wetsuits (a suit that keeps divers warm in cold water), Patagonia views the petroleum-based rubber used to make the suits as a prime example of an ongoing environmental issue the company is addressing. Patagonia is also dedicated to helping its supply chain partners in meeting human rights standards, particularly human trafficking and child labor, Marcario said.

Beyond the products themselves, Marcario said it is important to her personally to be involved in a company that takes initiative and educates its consumers.

"That's what really drove me to be a part of Patagonia," she said. "Sitting around and doing 'business as usual' isn't ok anymore."

What advice can she give to aspiring entrepreneurs?

"Pay attention to what you're feeling. Continue to look for places where you can be your complete and total self," Marcario said. "You can bring your whole self to work. It's possible."
 news:14825 Google chair Schmidt '76 stokes student innovation at HackPrinceton Stacey Huang '16 2015-04-15T00:00:00-04:00 2015-04-15T00:00:00-04:00 In the age of big data and artificial intelligence, the young generation is poised to revolutionize the way humans and computers interact, said Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, speaking to an audience of more than 500 students at the biannual HackPrinceton on campus on April 11.
In the age of big data and artificial intelligence, the young generation is poised to revolutionize the way humans and computers interact, said Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, speaking to an audience of more than 500 students from the United States and Canada at the biannual HackPrinceton on campus on Saturday, April 11.

"It's an exciting time to be young," said Schmidt, who graduated from Princeton in 1976 with a degree in electrical engineering. Schmidt looked to the students in the audience as the leaders in a future of efficient electricity grids, self-driving cars and interactive buildings that provide useful data-driven tips such as, "You can sleep in 20 more minutes because your professor will be late." Finding the right balance of what work should be done by humans and what could be handled by technology will make society much stronger and more productive, he said.

HackPrinceton is one of a growing number of "hackathons" taking place around the country — collaborative events in which large numbers of students gather for one to several days to write computer programs and build devices. HackPrinceton, part of a rising culture of quick innovation and entrepreneurship, is run by a team of 16 students from the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club and sponsored by companies such as Twitter, Kensho and Two Sigma.

Now in its fourth year, HackPrinceton brought together students from dozens of institutions for 24 hours of working on any project of their choice. The event organizers helped participants supplement their long hours of programming with activities such as specialized workshops and laser tag.

"Hackathons are essentially microcosms of the tech industry," said Raeva Kumar, a sophomore majoring in philosophy and one of the co-directors of HackPrinceton. "This means that we can create a small-scale space to address apparent problems in that culture."

She pointed to an emphasis on learning and inspiration rather than competition, and encouraging women and minorities to participate in HackPrinceton. This semester, nearly 40 percent of registered participants were female.

Professor Edward Felten, the Robert Kahn Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs and director of Princeton's Center of Information Technology, closed the event with a talk on technology policy in China.

During the awards ceremony on Sunday, the top three projects in hardware and software were honored, and company sponsors also awarded special prizes.

First prize in the hardware category was awarded to undergraduates Joseph Bolling and Ankush Gola and graduate student Ted Brundage from Princeton, who designed IneFISHency, a robot mounted outside a fish tank that follows the movements of a real fish swimming inside. Second prize was awarded to Leo Shimonaka, Alan Liu and Taishi Nojima from Yale University, who built iDuino, a child-friendly iPhone interface for programming the prototyping tool Arduino. Quentin Caudron and Romain Garnier, postdoctoral researchers in ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton, won third place for a mousetrap that is selectively activated by radio signals.

Kumar noted the increased focus on hardware projects in recent years. The Princeton event has become well known among students as the hackathon with the best hardware track in the nation, she said.

First place in software was awarded to Andrew Simpson from Western University, who designed Mars Explorer, which allows the user to explore Mars using the virtual reality platform Occulus Rift with satellite data from the European Space Agency. A four-student team composed of Aaron Gokaslan and Laura Shea from Brown University, Anthony Lobko from SUNY College of Nanoscale Science, and Ergeta Muca from Boston University won second place with Osiris Ninja Back Up, a program that uses YouTube as a storage space by uploading videos encoded with data. Nikhil Mutalik from the University of Oklahoma won third place with SnapSifter, a communal sharing space for the popular social media app Snapchat.

"We want to inspire students with the art of creation," said Jerry Liu, co-director of HackPrinceton and a sophomore in computer science. "This is a chance for them to develop real skills by building actual projects."

Indeed, this culture of free and unrestrained innovation is the key to creating products that can tackle new and big problems, suggested Schmidt.

"I'm absolutely convinced that a society that enables permission-less innovation — the kind of stuff that's before us here, where we just try stuff — will be the most successful," Schmidt said. "If you want to solve the problems of America — and there's a long list — the best way to start is to let people be entrepreneurs, create businesses and solve some of the great opportunities before us."

He added that government support for research and entrepreneurship goes a long way to promote new technologies.

"It's been 40 years since I graduated," said Schmidt. "I assure you that when you come back 40 years from now, you will be in awe of what has happened."

 news:14140 Startup school: Examining success and failure in new ventures John Sullivan 2014-12-16T00:00:00-05:00 2014-12-16T00:00:00-05:00 Sophomore-level course, open to students from all disciplines, allows undergraduates to work with a team of successful entrepreneurs to "develop their thinking and sophistication about how entrepreneurship plays out."
John Danner moved across the auditorium at Princeton University, tossing questions at students about a possible business startup. Like an insistent collaborator, he probed for unknown hazards. What else, he prompted, what next? What was the thing they were not thinking of? What was lurking to trip them up?

"It has to scale," said junior Rachel Leizman.

"Does it have to scale?" Danner asked, raising his hand to punctuate his question. "What about a small flower shop, what about a bodega?"

"Well, that's a scale," Leizman shot back, drawing a laugh from her classmates.

Danner, a veteran entrepreneur with a booming voice and an easy presence, used fast-paced dialogue and friendly banter throughout a recent session of "Introduction to Entrepreneurship" — a class taught for the first time this semester — to jolt his students into thinking in new ways about what it takes to start a venture. Proposals became epic stories; business plans were charts to guide an enterprise through hidden shoals waiting to sink an unwary new company.

"We want the students to develop their thinking and sophistication about how entrepreneurship plays out," Danner, an entrepreneurship specialist at the Keller Center, said after class. "We want them to see this as an option, whether their motivation is to launch a new technology or a new industry or to change the world."

The subject of the class is "entrepreneurship writ large," said Derek Lidow, another instructor.

The course is open to students from all disciplines and allows undergraduates to work with a team of successful entrepreneurs: Danner, a business executive and senior fellow at the University of California-Berkeley; Lidow, the founder of iSuppli; Christopher Kuenne, the founder of Rosetta; and Ed Zschau, a founder and executive of numerous startups including System Industries in the 1970s and Polyera Corporation in the last decade.

The four instructors trade off lectures focusing on various topics. Danner, for example, taught one session about business models; Lidow lectured on critical points for developing a startup enterprise into an ongoing business.

"We are trying to get at the core issues that inform students about success or failure," Lidow said. "If they only have time to take one course about entrepreneurship, then they can take this course and get a good understanding."

The idea for the course grew from a dinner among the instructors last year. Most entrepreneurship classes taught at Princeton target seniors, and they wondered whether it would be possible to involve students earlier. "Its objective as a survey course is to expose Princeton students, particularly sophomores, to the range of flavors and concepts of entrepreneurship early in their college careers," said Zschau, who has taught entrepreneurship at Princeton for more than 15 years.

"We all had the experience of seniors saying 'Gosh, I wish I had taken this earlier,'" Danner said. "We wanted to see if we could reach people earlier in their undergraduate careers; if they liked it, they would be able to pursue it."

Eighty-six students signed up for the course this fall. The course number has an engineering prefix, EGR, but 66 of the students are pursuing Bachelor-of-Arts degrees. Because of its large enrollment, the course is taught in an auditorium in Jadwin Hall. In addition to standard classwork, the students keep an entrepreneurship journal to track their growing understanding of the material and possible applications to the world. Toward the end of class, the students split into groups to complete a project in which they flesh out an idea for a new venture.

"We don't require a formal business plan at this level; it's not about judging the idea the way an investor would," Danner said. "We want to see evidence that the students have developed their thinking and sophistication about how entrepreneurship plays out."

Students come to the class with a wide variety of backgrounds and interests. Some have a long interest in business and have already started ventures of their own. Others never thought of starting their own enterprise, but selected the course to see what it involved.

"I am considering entrepreneurship at some point in the future," said Allie Burton, a sophomore majoring in computer science. "I have learned a lot more about the challenges that an entrepreneur faces; dealing with the lack of money, the stress, the challenge of organizing everything."

Jessica Kariisa, a junior, said she never thought starting a business was "for me."

"I thought I might be interesting to try it out and see if it changed the way I looked at things," said Kariisa, a politics major. "It has."

Kariisa, who is president of the University's Black Arts Company: Dance, said taking the class has given her ideas about how she might pursue her interests in performance art and education after graduation.

"I have gained a lot of self-confidence," she said. "I will definitely be more interested in the possibilities offered by entrepreneurship."

Leizman, an economics major, said she enrolled because the class will allow her to gain a broad understanding of the subject before choosing one of the more specialized, high-level entrepreneurship classes such as "High-Tech Entrepreneurship." She said she intends to start her own business in the future and she "thought taking a survey course taught by the four professors would allow me to explore the different areas of entrepreneurship to see what I liked best."

"One of the main things I've learned is that a great idea doesn't automatically turn into a successful enterprise," she said. "There are so many different factors — from funding to operations to the leadership — that make or break a good idea."

Entrepreneurship, innovation and design courses

The following courses are offered through the Keller Center in 2014-15.

"Introduction to Entrepreneurship"

"High-Tech Entrepreneurship"

"Radical Innovation in Global Markets"

"Leadership Development for Business"

"Special Topics in Entrepreneurship — Building and Financing Technical Ventures"

"Entrepreneurial Leadership"

"Freshman Seminar: Can Entrepreneurial Innovation Cure What Ails America's Health 'System'?"

"Special Topics in Social Entrepreneurship — Ventures to Address Global Challenges"

"Creativity, Innovation and Design"
 news:13899 Bubbling down: Discovery suggests surprising uses for common bubbles John Sullivan 2014-08-26T00:00:00-04:00 2014-08-26T00:00:00-04:00 Princeton researchers have demonstrated that bubbles bursting at the surface of a liquid don't just spray particles upward but also push some down into the liquid -- a finding with potentially broad industrial uses.
Anyone who has ever had a glass of fizzy soda knows that bubbles can throw tiny particles into the air. But in a finding with wide industrial applications, Princeton researchers have demonstrated that the bursting bubbles push some particles down into the liquid as well.

"It is well known that bursting bubbles produce aerosol droplets, so we were surprised, and fascinated, to discover that when we covered the water with oil, the same process injected tiny oil droplets into the water," said Howard Stone, the Donald R. Dixon '69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton and the lead researcher for the project.

The conclusions provide new insight into the mixture of non-soluble liquids — a process at the center of many fields from drug manufacturing to oil spill cleanups.

<img alt="" class="figure center" src="http://news.princeton.edu/uploads/243/image/stone6159_500px.jpg" style="width: 502px; height: 366px;" title="Princeton researchers have discovered that bursting bubbles can push tiny droplets of a surface material down into a base liquid as well as sending them into the air above. The finding has important implications for science and industries that are concerned with mixing liquid solutions. From right, Howard Stone, the Donald R. Dixon '69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and graduate student Jie Feng observe bubbles in a tank. (Photos by Frank Wojciechowski)" />

In an article published on July 13 in the scholarly journal Nature Physics, the researchers describe how they reached their conclusions after examining bubbles in containers holding water covered by a layer of oil. Using several experimental approaches, they presented a detailed physical description of how the bubbles burst and how that affected the oil and water mix.

"If you look at this system, which has a thin layer of oil over water, the bursting bubbles were dispersing the oil phase in the form of nano-droplets into the water," said Jie Feng, a graduate student in Stone's lab and the lead author of the paper. "Essentially, it is an unrealized form of mass transport related to bubble bursting."

In one observation, the researchers noted that the water in one container changed from clear to translucent after bubbles ran through the mixture for some time. The change in appearance "suggested that small objects had been dispersed in the lower water phase," the researchers wrote.

To get a better understanding of how this was happening, they used a high-speed camera to break down the steps involved in a bubble's final pop. They found that a bubble's collapse caused a pressure wave just below the bubble; this wave pushed a small amount of liquid out and down, away from the collapsing void.

The researchers also found that the addition of a surfactant, which decreases surface tension, was critical to the formation of the nano-droplets. In fact, they concluded that without a proper amount of surfactant, the droplets would not form.

The nano-droplets are so small they are impossible to see with the naked eye, so the researchers performed further experiments to test their analysis. In one, they spread an extremely thin layer of latex particles over the water and were able to observe the particles moving into the water. They also added a layer of material that is sensitive to ultraviolet light and then used the light to solidify the droplets for observation in the water mixture.

Bubbles' ability to mix liquids offers insights into a number of important systems. During oil spills, for example, it is important to understand how the oil moves from the surface of the water into deeper layers. This has generally been attributed to wave action, but the researchers' findings indicate that even in a flat calm the oil can gradually filter down into the water because of tiny bubbles.

"Bubbles are used to make foams and are part of common gas-liquid processes used in chemical processing," Stone said. "But bubbles also occur in lakes, rivers and oceans because of wave breaking and rain. As a consequence, bubbles can impact many systems."

The researchers said that bubbling also might play a role in a critical system in which organic matter circulates through the ocean. A thin film of material, called the sea surface microlayer, rests at the very top of ocean water. The microlayer contains lipids, proteins and hydrocarbon pollutants.

"Our work suggests that the sea surface microlayer may not only be transported into the atmosphere within aerosol droplets produced by bursting bubbles, but it might also be dispersed into the bulk of the oceans, thus redistributing organic matter into the ecosystem," they wrote.

Feng also said that applying this approach could play an important role in many industrial mixing systems. For one, this manner of bubbling to produce nanoemulsions uses much less energy than traditional mixers, so it is cheaper and more efficient. It also does not require extremely low surface tensions, which some types of industrial processes require. And it provides a good method to mix typically insoluble liquids, such as oil and water.

"This system offers an energy-efficient route to produce nanoparticles, with the potential to increase in scale, for applications in a variety of fields such as drug delivery, food production and materials science," he said.

Besides Stone and Feng, the project researchers included Matthieu Roche and Daniele Vigolo (now research associates in Paris and Zurich, respectively) who worked as postdoctoral researchers in Princeton's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Luben Arnaudov and Simeon Stoyanov, of Unilever Research and Development; and Theodor Gurkov and Gichka Tsutsumanova, of Sofia University, Bulgaria.

Support for the research was provided in part by grant from the Consortium for the Molecular Engineering of Dispersant Systems funded by the BP/Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, and the European Union's Beyond Everest project.

 news:13441 Student startups: Demo Day shows off entrepreneurial ventures John Sullivan 2014-08-22T00:00:00-04:00 2014-08-22T00:00:00-04:00 Seven student teams presented their business ideas at the Keller Center's annual Demo Day Aug. 11 and 12, the culmination of the center's eLab summer accelerator program.
<img alt="" class="figure right" src="https://www.princeton.edu/main/images/news/2014/8/elabdemoday_IndexPage.jpg" style="float: right; width: 162px; height: 368px;" title="Princeton University students and recent graduates presented entrepreneurial projects they developed over the summer in the Keller Center's third annual eLab Demo Day on Aug. 11-12. Above, Mung Chiang, the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor of Electrical Engineering and director of the Keller Center, gives opening remarks at the eLab Demo Day at the Manhattan headquarters of AppNexus on Aug. 12. Activities also were held on the Princeton campus. (Photo by Denise Applewhite)" />Wearing a sharp business suit and a big smile, John Wolfe looked out at the crowd gathered at AppNexus' Manhattan headquarters and asked to borrow someone's credit card.

Silence. Followed by nervous laughter. Finally, someone raised a credit card above their head. Wolfe politely took the card and walked back on stage.

"I promise we won't take too much money," said the 2014 Princeton University graduate in psychology, drawing a laugh from the crowd. Wolfe handed the brave volunteer's plastic to his colleague and classmate Eric Rehe, an economics major, who whipped it through a card reader attached to his laptop. In less than a minute, the two men showed it was possible to create a perfect duplicate of the card — and launched into their pitch for a new business aimed at upgrading credit card security.

Wolfe's team, using the CryptoCard security system developed by fellow Princeton students, was one of seven that presented their ideas at the Keller Center's annual Demo Day last week. This year's presentations marked a first for eLab, Princeton's student business accelerator — in addition to demonstrations on campus Aug. 11, the teams traveled to Manhattan the next day to pitch their ideas before an audience and an expert panel. The teams gathered at the headquarters of the online advertising firm AppNexus, which was founded by Brian O'Kelley, a member of the Class of 1999.

"The Princeton Tiger has woken up in the jungle of entrepreneurship," Mung Chiang, director of the Keller Center and the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor of Electrical Engineering, told a capacity audience at AppNexus' headquarters on West 23rd Street. Over 500 people watched the presentations in person and online over the two days; watch a video of some of the event.

This year's teams ranged from a high-tech effort to produce a gesture interface for consumer electronics to an innovative method to teach American Sign Language online. Each team delivered a brief presentation sketching the highlights of the startups. In the New York session, they also faced questions, often quite pointed, from the experts, who sought further details about potential revenues, management challenges and the ability to adapt plans to changing markets. None of the questions stumped the teams, but they definitely made them think on their feet.

"They really don't pull any punches," Evan Corden, a rising junior majoring in economics and a member of the SignSchool team, said after the event. "It definitely makes us motivated to prepare even more for future presentations."

The panel of experts included Nic Poulos, a 2008 alumnus and principal at Bowery Capital; Daniel Ciporin, a 1980 alumnus and partner at Canaan Partners; Charlie O'Donnell, partner and founder of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures; Sheryl WuDunn, a Princeton trustee who earned a master's in public affairs in 1988 and is senior managing director at Mid-Market Securities; and Nadia Gil, finance director at Cognizant and angel investor with 37Angels.

This was the third year that the Keller Center has presented its Demo Day, which is the culmination of the center's eLab program. The 10-week summer accelerator provides housing and funding, without taking equity, to teams of student entrepreneurs, who are selected after a competitive application process. The students work with mentors, who are veteran entrepreneurs, and attend workshops and training sessions with specialists who coach them in different aspects of launching a startup.

The keynote address at this year's Demo Day was delivered by Chris Kuenne, the founder of the Rosetta marketing group. Kuenne, a 1985 alumnus who teaches the course "High-Tech Entrepreneurship" at Princeton, told the audience that he was amazed at the drive and dedication shown by the eLab teams.

"What on earth could I tell such an inspiring group of people that might further inspire them?" Kuenne said.

The eLab summer is a hectic time for the student teams, who work to shape their ideas into working ventures. The participants, who often have relatively little business experience, follow a program based on a syllabus developed specifically for the eLab by Lorraine Marchand, the former James Wei Visiting Professor in Entrepreneurship at the Keller Center. The instruction emphasizes strategy and leadership and continual review of a team's plans. The teams learn to focus on meeting potential customers' needs and develop an ability to quickly pivot their business plan to respond to the market.

"The housing, the support, the office space made it easier to focus on the project because we did not have to worry about anything else," Corden said. "We definitely made a lot of progress."

 Friendsy

Michael Pinsky's and Vaidhy Murti's startup idea was inspired by a chance meeting: the two sat down on adjacent couches to watch a New York Yankees baseball game. They quickly became good friends.

But Murti, a rising senior majoring in computer science, said that too few people have the good luck to make friends through chance meetings around campus.

"We realized it usually doesn't happen that way," Pinsky, a rising senior majoring in psychology, told the audience during his presentation.

Friendsy offers a chance for similar meetings in college settings. The college-based social media system limits membership to undergraduates of a given school, providing a greater level of security than other systems. Their system allows users to send compliments and make new connections with their fellow students. The sender can remain anonymous and reveal only certain details about themselves. The recipient learns the person's identity if they independently indicate they that would like to become acquainted.

The system is also monitored to prevent harassing or negative messages and to allow members to begin friendships and romances in a safe environment.

Friendsy has already enrolled 10,000 users at seven colleges, and the team plans to expand to 50 more schools this fall.

"It's a win-win way of putting yourself out there," Pinsky said.

 Music is medicine

Music can often inspire people in ways that nothing else can, and the Music is Medicine team hopes to harness that power to help seriously ill children.

In her Demo Day presentation, team member Leora Friedman told the audience about Brooke, a 13-year-old girl with bone cancer. Music is Medicine linked Brooke with Drew Seeley, a recording artist, and Seeley wrote a song especially for the girl. Her mother later said Brooke's time speaking on Skype with Seeley was a bright moment in a terribly difficult time.

"Children battling life-threatening illnesses don't always have access to programs to cater to their emotional needs," said Friedman, who graduated this spring with a degree in politics.

Before coming to Princeton, Friedman started Music is Medicine with her sister as a community service project in Baltimore. The siblings recorded music for pediatric cancer patients. Friedman later told an interviewer for MTV that the project "showed me the incredible impact music can have on a hospitalized child."

Music is Medicine, a nonprofit organization, arranges contact between children and artists, and uses donations and grants to pay for the production of songs and videos. Currently, the program is available in Los Angeles and Nashville, because of their proximity to the recording industry, but the team plans to expand to other cities. The team members expect to produce 24 videos in the next year and expand to 36 the following year.

 SignSchool

The idea for SignSchool was born when Corden and Jack Hudson met fellow student Colin Lualdi in their dorm. Lualdi is deaf, and Corden and Hudson, now rising juniors majoring in economics and computer science, respectively, found communication to be difficult.

"We had to write our messages on a piece of paper or a laptop," Corden said.

The students had trouble finding a method to learn American Sign Language that was easy and effective.

"Our solution is SignSchool," Corden told the audience. "We intend to be the first e-textbook for American Sign Language."

The team, which includes Lualdi, a rising sophomore, has designed a modular lesson plan involving online videos and interactive instruction for online use. The system uses short lectures and self-quizzes to allow users to progress at their own pace. Its curriculum is split into sections tailored to a specific use: speaking with friends, business colleagues or relatives. The SignSchool team plans to launch the initial version in September.

"We set out to create an online resource that would be just as effective as an in-person class," Corden said.

 CryptoCard

After his demonstration with the audience member's credit card, Wolfe threw out a few other numbers: it takes six seconds to duplicate a card; credit card fraud costs the nation $8 billion per year; 69 percent of consumers in the United States have had their card replaced because of fraud.

"If you are feeling some uneasiness after hearing all of this and seeing all of this then you are not alone," Wolfe said. In 2014, "more Americans reported feeling serious concerns about credit card fraud than war and terrorism."

CryptoCard protects against fraud by generating a unique number on each card that changes every minute. The number, which is linked to a CryptoCard server, is checked against the server number for every transaction; so even if a card is duplicated, it can't be used. The protection also works for online and telephone transactions.

"Not only can we prevent fraud, but we can tell you exactly when and where fraud is attempted," Wolfe said.

Another advantage of the system is that it does not require merchants or banks to install new equipment: CryptoCard servers would handle the verification and charge banks based on the amount of fraud the system prevents. The company is working to secure funding to begin a 10,000-card pilot program in January 2015, and is in discussions with card issuers about future plans.

"You will not be able to operate in the 21st century without this type of technology," Wolfe said.

 Deià

Deià is a new clothing line that makes connections between women of different social and economic backgrounds by linking high fashion with social consciousness. The company has enlisted groups of local artisans to create clothing that reflects the craftsmanship of handmade elements from cultures around the world.

"Everything we wear tells a story," Meg Partridge told the audience. "But what is the story that we want our clothes to tell?"

Partridge said that production work in developing countries is too often dehumanizing and dangerous for workers, with terrible working conditions and frequent industrial accidents. But it does not have to be this way. A company can use its product to improve the lives of its workers — and use this commitment as a selling point for its product.

"Fashion can be an incredible medium for empowerment," said Partridge, who graduated this year with a degree in civil and environmental engineering.

Deià has brought together a team of designers who work with artisans around the world to create textiles and materials for the clothing line. The products are shipped to the United States, where they are assembled into garments. The first collection, based on a Mediterranean theme, is scheduled for release next summer.

"We are pioneering a vision of modern luxury that helps people to connect to their humanity," Partridge said.

 SpaceTouch

Imagine controlling electronics by waving a hand over a coffee table or gesturing to a wall screen television. It is a staple of science fiction but true gesture control is difficult to achieve with current technology.

SpaceTouch, created by three Princeton electrical engineering graduate students, is a way to link scifi screens with today's technology. Unlike most attempts at gesture interfaces, which rely on cameras, the SpaceTouch system uses a special microchip and a sensor that detects and interprets minute electrical variations in air caused by a person's gesture. The system allows user to interact directly with the display.

"SpaceTouch is the only solution that allows you to directly gesture to displays," said Yingzhe (Dylan) Hu, a member of the team.

SpaceTouch also allows users to gesture at a wide range of distances, from far way to right up to the screen. "There is no gap between gesture and touch," Hu said.

The technology can be integrated into a variety of applications from education to gaming to medical systems. The team members, who are in discussion with large electronics manufacturers, said that SpaceTouch has proven highly popular with testing groups.

"Eighty percent of the consumers love this so much that they would recommend it to their friends," Hu said.

 Solstice Initiative

One of the puzzles of solar power in the United States is that most of the people who could really benefit from a reduction of their monthly power bill are locked out of the solar market because they don't own their home or can't afford to install a solar array.

Solstice Initiative plans to solve that problem by encouraging corporations to build solar arrays and offer clean electric power as a benefit to their employees.

"What if solar power for your home could be bought where you work?" said Steve Moilanen, a team member. "Take, for example, an IKEA store. IKEA can now build an array on the roof at its store ... IKEA can take a portion of that array and dedicate it to its workforce."

"Solar power can be transformed into a benefit," Moilanen said.

Solstice Initiative works as a benefits manager for solar power, creating a solar program and enrolling employees. Not only does the company offer a new benefit that would help retain employees, it also would advertise is commitment to the environment at the same time.

"This is more clean energy going to more people, helping people save more dollars," said Moilanen, who received his master's degree in public policy this year from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. "That is a win."

Solistice Initiative is a nonprofit that plans to support its operations through benefits administration fees and by generating leads for solar installation companies.

"We believe that over the next five years we can positively impact hundreds of thousands of workers who are presently shut out of the marketplace," Moilanen said.


text:
- ParaguayFoodFunding via Fundación Paraguaya
Un Nuevo Am...ParaguayRetailFunding via Fundación Paraguaya
AidaParaguayFoodFunding via Fundación Paraguaya
Santa Barbara Group
Patrocinia is employed and says that her work is very difficult. She wants to be able to help her family in another way. She is requesting this loan in order to open a grocery store so that she will have extra income and be able to help her family more.
La Sra. Patrocinia es empleada y comenta que su trabajo es muy sacrificado y quiere poder ayudar a su familia de otra forma. Comenta que solicita de este préstamo para abrir una despensa y de esa forma tener un ingresos extra y poder ayudar más a su familia.
Additional Information
About Fundación ParaguayaFundación Paraguaya is a financially self-sustaining social enterprise that promotes entrepreneurship in urban and rural areas through microfinance, education programs, and more. Its focus on agriculture has helped many farmers boost their crop yields. And a number of other borrowers have taken out loans to start and grow social businesses that have helped deliver eyeglasses, medicines and other helpful services in their local communities.
This is a Group Loan
In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a larger group of individuals. The group is there to provide support to the members and to provide a system of peer pressure, but groups may or may not be formally bound by a group guarantee. In cases where there is a group guarantee, members of the group are responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members in the case of delinquency or default.
Kiva's Field Partners typically feature one borrower from a group. The loan description, sector, and other attributes for a group loan profile are determined by the featured borrower's loan. The other members of the group are not required to use their loans for the same purpose.
About Paraguay
49View loans »
Success!! The loan was 100% repaid
- Repayment Term
- 11 months (Additional Information)
- Repayment Schedule
- Monthly
- Pre-Disbursed:
- Dec 27, 2012
- Listed
- Feb 1, 2013
- Currency Exchange Loss:
- Covered
- Ended:
- Sep 22, 2013

subset: commoncrawl