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This year's Festival was truly like none other. Even though this was our 9th Festival, it was our very first virtual day-long event. And we sure learned a lot! If you couldn't attend the NYU Entrepreneurs Festival, read this blog to see what you missed. We hope you can join us for next year's event.
In the 6 months of planning the 9th Annual NYU Entrepreneurs Festival, which took place on Oct 23rd, the Festival team focused heavily on the goal of bringing in-person energy & enthusiasm to the Zoom virtual experience.
This year's Co-Chairs were Ellie Gershenwald (Steinhardt '22) & Major Carr (Steinhardt '21). They previously served on the Core Team for the 2019 Festival, but this year they took on the role as the student leaders behind all of the fabulous marketing efforts.
Our team also worked to ensure a diverse festival, in terms of attendees, speakers, and startups that presented. Aspiring and experienced founders alike found value in speaker topics ranging from “Starting a Startup While in School,” to “Promoting Social Justice through Entrepreneurship,” from startup legal issues to AI for good. Attendees joined from all over the world including representation from 20 different NYU schools and NYU’s campuses in Shanghai and Abu Dhabi.
The Festival hosted 2 keynote speakers; Hadiyah Mujhid, founder of HBCUvc and Evan Moore, founder of DoorDash (Tisch-Clive Davis '07), 4 panels, 13 startup roundtables, 3 workshops, 15 startups at the Startup Exhibition, and 1 Demo Day over the course of just 1 day. It was incredibly fulfilling to see people so engaged and so excited to learn about entrepreneurship.
Top 10 favorite parts of the Festival were:
- Announcement of the Female Founders & First Generation to College Founders Fellowships
- The Keynotes: Hadiyah Mujhid & Evan Moore. Liked hearing their founders' stories. Felt very personalized.
- She Matters & Upfront tied for "best pitch" for the Demo Day. Selected by the audience.
- Website & Festival slack! Easy to use. No one got lost. Easy to connect with other attendees.
- The panels on Social Justice, Health & Wellness, Starting a Startup While in School, and VC.
- The awesome questions during Q&A. Zoom allows for upvoting - so moderators knew which questions attendees wanted answered the most.
- 1067 RSVPs! Even though students were in the midst of midterms, so many attendees came to celebrate entrepreneurship at NYU
- Collaborating with the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship. Make sure to check out the Entrepreneurs Challenge. Attendees learned about their resources as well as the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute's J-Term Startup Sprint.
- Workshops & roundtables - so much support for legal, accounting, storytelling, and more!
- Music! The playlist included NYU artists like Childish Gambino, Lady Gaga, Neil Diamond, Maggie Rogers, etc
See you next year!
The NYU Entrepreneurs Festival planning team
