Entrepreneur Weekend featured a discussion with (from left) John Donahoe, eBay president; Tony Bates, former executive VP of Microsoft; Ashton Kutcher, actor and entrepreneur; Daniel Rosensweig P鈥15鈥17, president and CEO of Chegg; Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb; and moderator David Faber of CNBC.
Panelists sport new 含羞草传媒 gear. They are (from left) John Donahoe, Tony Bates, Ashton Kutcher, Daniel Rosensweig P鈥15鈥17, Brian Chesky, and David Faber. (Photo by Andy Daddio)
含羞草传媒 student entrepreneurs, showing the grit that Ashton Kutcher said was vital to success, pitched their ideas Friday night to an A-list of innovators who were on campus for the university鈥檚 third annual.
Thanks to the generosity of P鈥15鈥17, the students were rewarded with $5,000 to further develop their projects that were cultivated through the university鈥檚 .
The announcement by the CEO of Chegg followed the student presentations and a panel discussion in a filled-to-the-rafters Cotterell Court about founding, funding, building, and scaling the most innovative companies in the world.
In addition to Kutcher and Rosensweig, the lively discussion featured , former executive vice president of development and strategy for Microsoft, CEO of Skype, and head of enterprise for Cisco Systems; , co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, one of the most innovative companies to come out of Silicon Valley in the past 10 years; and eBay president and CEO.
President Jeffrey Herbst introduces the panelists at Cotterell Court on Friday night. (Photo by Andy Daddio)
Kutcher, the actor, director, and co-founder of A-Grade Investments venture capital fund, was asked by the panel moderator of CNBC about how he assesses which projects to support. 鈥淚t鈥檚 all about the person, or the people,鈥 Kutcher said. 鈥淭here is one thing that I think is common, and it鈥檚 a person鈥檚 grit, or ability and willingness to work and overcome problems. And that鈥檚 really hard to find, and only special people have that.鈥 The 含羞草传媒 student entrepreneurs who showed some true grit will now have additional capital support to work out any problems with their projects, which received thoughtful critiques from the panelists. The recipients were:
- Katie Rydell 鈥14 and Amara Wilson 鈥15, for their
- Ariel Sherry 鈥15, for her consulting service
- Daniel Swiecki 鈥14 and Joshua Lasker for their project that matches financial advisors with clients.
Many more student entrepreneurs will present their projects as Entrepreneur Week continues with a full slate of . Check back throughout the next few days as we update this story. See a Syracuse Post-Standard article .
and the boys
鈥 Jake Kulevich (@JKulevich11)
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鈥 含羞草传媒 University (@colgateuniv)