As we prepare to welcome the new year, we’d like to thank you for your support of entrepreneurship on campus, reflect on the past year and plan for the future. Since the institute launched through support from the Veale Foundation in January, we developed several programs and series and responded to the virtual changes necessary to keep our students and the entire community engaged with worthwhile experiences. While 2020 has presented its challenges, we are thankful to have the opportunity for a new year to bring you even more.
Here are a few exciting highlights of the past year:
Entrepreneurship Speaker Series
We hosted nearly 90 speaker series events with more than 50 alumni speakers, bringing experts from companies like Twitter, Johnson & Johnson, Tesla, Goodyear, Microsoft, Slack, Apple, Twitch and Etsy. If you missed a session from this semester, watch the recordings.
Veale Skills Lab
Since July, we have hosted about 20 skills lab events, partnering with companies and organizations like JumpStart Inc., MAGNET, CWRU's Kelvin Smith Library and LinkedIn.
Seminar Series
We launched our seminar series in October, with our four-part seminar "Principles of Investing." Topics included angel, venture capital and impact investing, with a final COVID-19 panel discussion.
Cleveland Neighborhood Series
We collaborated with the CWRU Social Justice Institute, KeyBank Business Boost & Build and Venture for America for our three-part series on the history of Hough, a neighborhood located on Cleveland’s East Side, and entrepreneurship and community development there.
Remote Entrepreneurship Project (REP) Program
With Post-Graduate Planning & Experiential Education, we developed REP last summer, pairing 120 students with various start-ups, about 70% of which were located in the Greater Cleveland area. We matched 18 pairings this fall and applications for our spring REP program just closed. Consider reading about the experiences of Farah Almhana (CWR '21), an intern at Reflexion and Kishor Kumar Veerashekar (CWR '19, WSOM '21) an intern at Signal Cortex.
Veale Fellows Program
Since July, we have supported 10 Veale Fellows to pursue new initiatives or accelerate current efforts. One such initiative is Mandy Varley’s Entrepreneur Well-being Circle, a two-month facilitated, individual and group coaching program for entrepreneurs, which began in October.
Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIR) Program
Since the EIR program launched in July, we have continuously introduced additional experts to the program. With expertise in fields like digital media, healthcare, social impact, biotechnology and more, EIRs mentor, support entrepreneurial learning and assist with venture development.
Entrepreneurship Club (ENTP+)
ENTP+, a CWRU student organization, hosted the REP 2020 Conference in July, offering four seminars and a networking session and hosted Mentorpalooza in October, offering speed-mentoring sessions. Please reach out to Harrison Grubman if you'd like to learn more about ENTP+.
Website Update and Stories/News
We are in the process of updating our website and are also hoping to spotlight more success stories and CWRU entrepreneurial news. If you have something that you’d like to share, please send it to us. We are happy to help promote via social media, newsletter and our website.
Have a great winter break and best wishes for the holiday season. In light of holiday season, we will pause emails from the weeks of Dec. 21 to Jan. 4, 2021. We look forward to seeing you in the new year.
Best regards,
Michael Goldberg
