Los Angeles Archives - University Innovation Fellows

UCLA – High Technology Market Segmentation with Prof. Bob Foster

January 20, 2012/0 Comments/in Los Angeles, UCLA /by uifellows

The Technical Entrepreneurial Community (TEC) and the Engineering Graduate Student Association (EGSA) present an entrepreneurship seminar on market segmentation featuring Prof. Bob Foster, a distinguished professor in the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Prof. Foster will discuss how to define and segment target markets, gauging the competition, and winning strategies that maximize resources. This seminar will also provide information about niche markets, and what it means to be a be a big fish in a small pond.

Art Center College of Design • $50 Challenge

October 5, 2011/0 Comments/in Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles, NCIIA /by uifellows

The $50 Challenge at the Art Center College of Design was an event created to bring designers together to be entrepreneurs by combining their skills and creativity to build a small business in 24 hours. The challenge began with an inspirational talk about the spirit of entrepreneurship by Errol Gerson and an introduction to creative strategies by Fridolin Beisert . The joint forces of these two motivational instructors paved the way for teams of students to go out and experience fast and spontaneous entrepreneurship.

Teams were given $50 and asked to go out and make as much money as they could in 24 hours. The rules were simple: make as much as you can, return the $50 investment and keep the profit or cover the losses. 24 hours later teams reunited for story telling, pizza and prizes.

Well, but what did the teams do? There was a lucrative bookbinding course, making sandwiches, distributing sodas, making a music video, creating “provocative” water, drawing portraits, selling smiles and even selling wishes. This last group called “Popwish” sold wishes and popsicles for a dollar. This idea turned out to be a great success and they are now in the process of continuing the project beyond the challenge.

The Art Center College of Design is a school full of genuine curiosity, sparking creativity and directed passion, which makes it an incubator for potential young entrepreneurial spirits. The $50 Challenge was an event created to highlight these qualities and inspire the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

This event was organized by Impact • Design for Social Change and sponsored by NCIIA (National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance)

— Mariana Prieto • NCIIA Student Ambassador for Art Center College of Design

Anderson student’s start-up company competes for investors in Fast Pitch Competition

August 30, 2011/0 Comments/in Los Angeles, UCLA, University of California Los Angeles /by uifellows

Anderson graduate student Jonathan Lehmann represented UCLA at the Fast Pitch Competition. He had 90 seconds to present his idea and earn funding for his company, KarmaGoat.

For the sixth year, UCLA hosted the Fast Pitch Competition apart of National Entrepreneurship Week, which is organized by the Los Angeles investment group called the Tech Coast Angels. Since founded in 1999, TCA has invested $100 million and received over $1 billion in returns from these investments, said Robert Jadon, co-chair of Fast Pitch. The competition consists of 8-10 entrepreneurs giving fast pitches to a panel of investors and other members of Southern California’s entrepreneurial community. Pitches are judged on the quality of the CEO’s presentation and the company’s investment potential.

Johnathan Lehmann, a UCLA Anderson Business School graduate student presented his idea to investors for funding. As Jonathan Lehmann prepared to move from Paris to Los Angeles, he compiled a bag of items he no longer wanted, but he felt they should go to people who would appreciate them as much as he did. Lehmann’s dilemma inspired him to create a Facebook-integrated website that would allow users to sell items on an online marketplace and give 85 percent of the proceeds to a charity of the seller’s choice. Lehmann spent the summer developing the business model for his new company, an online commerce site with proceeds going to charity, which he decided to call KarmaGoat. The name of the company represents two concepts. The cycle of rebirth defines karma. Quote: “The goat represents a commodity that, while not useful to the donor, acts as a source of food and clothing to the recipient”.

Technology Entrepreneurship Across the Nation!

August 2, 2011/0 Comments/in Art Center College of Design, Boston University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Los Angeles, NCIIA, New York University, Oregon State University, Student Ambassador Training, University of California Berkeley, University of Southern California, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, University of Texas Austin, Wake Forest University, Washington State University /by uifellows

Welcome!

Congratulations to each of the thirteen new NCIIA Student Ambassadors from across the nation for the 2011 – 2012 school year. These Student Ambassadors will serve as advocates for NCIIA, driving the mission of the organization. For more information on NCIIA, view the website at www.nciia.org.

This blog will serve as an opportunity for Student Ambassadors to highlight entrepreneurial activities on campuses and provide insight to resources that students can leverage. Increased collaboration between campuses will lead to a greater impact in furthering the NCIIA mission.

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