Stanford was honored to be the site of the National Kickoff of EntrepreneurshipWeek USA, February 24 - March 3. Thousands of students, faculty and members of the community participated. Nearly 600 people attended the launch event on February 23 to hear Stanford president John Hennessy, venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, and Kauffman Foundation president Carl Schramm give rousing speeches that charged up the crowd. Throughout the rest of the week, it was standing room only at every event. To get a feel for what the week was like, visit the photo gallery: http://www.stanford.edu/group/eweek/photos.shtml.

One highlight of the week was the global Innovation Challenge, a weeklong, Apprentice-style competition. The task was to create as much value as possible from a single pack of Post-It® Notes in less than five days. Student teams hit the ball out of the park! The winning team, Gumball Capital, created an alliance with an established microlending organization; built a website and created marketing materials; executed a fundraising campaign, and solicited pledges of over $3,000. In addition to executing the task, several teams produced videos to showcase their results. You can view the winners’ short videos and presentations at http://www.stanford.edu/group/eweek/awards.shtml.

A Hollywood film crew captured student teams at Stanford and around the globe throughout the week. They are producing a feature-length documentary about the Innovation Challenge that will premiere this fall. View the trailier>>

The entire week was generously sponsored by Deloitte and various entrepreneurship groups on campus, including STVP.

Congratulations to Our Graduating PhD Students

We are pleased to announce that three of our PhD students have accepted faculty positions at leading universities, where they will continue to advance the field of entrepreneurship education.

• Ben Hallen, who is studying the effective strategies of fundraising by entrepreneurs using social network theory, will be joining the faculty at the University of Maryland.
• Jason Davis, who is studying how large corporations effectively (or not) collaborate to create next-generation technologies in the information industries, will be joining the faculty at MIT.
• Stine Grodal, who is studying the emergence of the nanotechnology industry as an organizational field, will be joining the faculty at Boston University.

Learn more about these projects and other compelling STVP research findings at http://stvp.stanford.edu/research/research.html.

We are pleased to announce several recent honors for our researchers:

• PhD student, Rory McDonald, won the National Defense Science and Engineering (NDSEG) Fellowship, 2008-2010.
• Riitta Katila became a prestigious Sloan Industry Studies Fellow for her ongoing work in the robotics industry.
• In August, STVP Faculty Co-Director, Kathleen Eisenhardt, will be given the Richard D. Irwin Outstanding Educator Award from the Business Policy and Strategy Division of the Academy of Management. It is the highest award given in the division.

In future issues, we will share updates on new research that STVP faculty and PhD students are initiating on entrepreneurship in the solar power and medical device industries.

Call for Papers

FIFTH WEST COAST RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM ON TECHNOLOGY ENTREPRENEURSHIP, SEPTEMBER 7TH AND 8TH, 2007

The Stanford Technology Ventures Program, along with several other universities, is sponsoring the 5th West Coast Research Symposium on Technology Entrepreneurship at the University of Washington, Seattle campus. We invite authors to submit papers. The DEADLINE for submission is Monday, June 25th, 2007. Learn more at http://stvp.stanford.edu/research/conferences.html.

Upcoming Educators’ Conferences

Entrepreneurship educators and thought leaders: Mark your calendars for STVP's 2007 Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education (REE) conferences:

• REE Asia, June 20-22, at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology in Seoul, South Korea (register before May 1 to get the early bird discount)
• REE Europe, Sept 19-21, at the Technical University of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain
• REE USA, Oct 24-26, at Stanford University in Stanford, California, USA
• REE Latin America, Oct 30-Nov 1, at the Ibmec Business School in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Entrepreneurship Education in Action

STVP has also been very actively supporting entrepreneurship programs in other parts of the U.S. and the world. Tom Byers taught a weeklong workshop in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Tina Seelig is teaching workshops in India for the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) and in Miami at the Endeavor Entrepreneurs’ Summit.

DFJ Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Spring Lineup

The Stanford Technology Ventures Program and the Business Association of Stanford Engineering Students (BASES) proudly present the spring Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (ETL) Seminars. This series is generously sponsored by the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ).

Podcasts and video clips are available at: http://edcorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html.

• April 11, William Perry, Former U.S. Secretary of Defense (1994-1997)
• April 18, Mark Jung, Founder, IGN
• April 25, Shai Agassi, Former President, Product and Technology Group, SAP AG
• May 2, Carly Fiorina, Former CEO, Hewlett-Packard (1999-2005) & Author, “Tough Choices”
• May 9, Jackie Speier, Former California State Senator (1998-2006) and Co-Author, “This is Not the Life I Ordered,” and Deborah Collins Stephens, Co-Founder, The Center for Innovative Leadership, and Co-Author, “This is Not the Life I Ordered”
• May 16, Andrew Frame, CEO, Ooma, and Warren Packard, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
• May 23, Mitchell Baker, CEO, Mozilla Corporation
• May 30, Bob Sutton, Professor, Stanford University, and Author, “The No-A**hole Rule”

We are very pleased to announce that Deloitte has become a new sponsor of STVP and the very first sponsor of the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network (SEN), a federation of entrepreneurship centers on campus. Deloitte’s generous support is a breakthrough for us, in that it is going to enable us to formalize SEN and gain incredible new synergies among the various organizations on campus that are involved in entrepreneurship.

• The Educators Corner website has surpassed 1 million podcast downloads! Visit http://edcorner.stanford.edu for the latest podcasts and video clips.
• Christina Harvett has just joined us as our new program coordinator.
• Congratulations to our twelve new Mayfield Fellows! View their impressive resumes online.
• Save the Date! The Stanford Technology Ventures Program and AlwaysOn will proudly present the 2007 Stanford Summit, July 31-August 2, at Stanford University. Learn more>>

The Stanford Technology Ventures Program is dedicated to accelerating high-technology entrepreneurship education and creating scholarly research on technology-based firms. STVP believes that engineers and scientists need entrepreneurial skills to be successful at all levels within an organization. The program prepares students for leadership positions in industry, academics, and society. In addition, STVP disseminates research and teaching knowledge throughout the world. STVP is located within the Stanford University School of Engineering and is hosted by the Department of Management Science and Engineering.