Friday, March 9th, 2012
By Sarah Moore

Marx House in Suites will become the new entrepreneurship-themed “eDorm” starting in the 2012-13 academic year, as a result of collaboration between E2.0–a student group focused on providing help and services for entrepreneurial students–and Residential Education (ResEd), along with other administrators.

 

According to ResEd’s website, students living in the eDorm will form start-up teams, as well as attend seminars, guest lectures and dinners with mentors.

 

(SERENITY NGUYEN/The Stanford Daily)

According to Dean of Residential Education Deborah Golder, ResEd typically receives proposals for multiple prospective dorm themes each year, but decided to pursue the eDorm because of its potential to reach all types of students.

 

“From any academic discipline, a student could say they have an idea, and they want to explore it in the context of eDorm,” Golder said. “You don’t have to identify with a certain group. Literally any upperclass student could express interest in this community of thinking and learning together. The notion of entrepreneurialism is truly universal in the Stanford context.”

 

 

Logistics

Half of the 40 students in eDorm next year will pre-assign into the house through ResEd, and half will draw into Marx individually or with a group.

 

“The pre-assigned students will be selected based on their entrepreneurial nature, their love for innovating and their diverse skill sets and backgrounds that they can bring to the community,” said Viraj Bindra ‘15, director of marketing for E2.0. “Peter Thiel B.A. ‘89, J.D. ‘92 will be the faculty sponsor, and he’ll oversee selection.”

 

According to Golder, Suites was chosen for the location of the new dorm theme because students manage those spaces, and the new themed dorm has a goal of emphasizing student-initiated action.

 

“E2.0 is an organization on campus with some incredible resources, and we were trying to find one of the best ways to channel these resources to create maximum output at Stanford,” Bindra said. “What we identified as a chief mode for us to give those resources to students at Stanford was through a collaborative effort like eDorm.”

 

E2.0 and the eDorm

E2.0 was a branch of ASSU until it separated in October, and had been working on establishing an entrepreneurship dorm prior to the split.

 

ResEd and E2.0 held meetings with staff and University administrators, including heads of Student Housing and President John Hennessy, to shape and approve the project.

 

In the past few months, E2.0 executive members Chase Harmon ‘13, Stewart Macgregor-Dennis ‘13 and Dan Thompson ‘13 met with advisers to revise plans.

 

eDorm is one of a number of projects that E2.0 is currently working on. Other undertakings include an eResource Map to direct students to entrepreneurial resources on- and off-campus and Startup Bus, an effort to connect with entrepreneurial students across the nation.

 

The organization has received some criticism about the level of success and effectiveness that the new themed dorm will have.

 

“This is a prototype of the concept of E2.0, and we’re trying to see how well it will work,” Bindra said. “We have eTracking in place, which is our initiative to monitor the success of all our initiatives, including eDorm. We’ll be tracking it throughout the year and making sure that it’s successful and we’re getting the maximum amount of utility out of our resources.”

 

ResEd agreed with this experimentation-based philosophy.

 

“If we find out that this works, we could create a model where we start piloting different programs, seeing if there’s enough student interest and creating a process that allows some houses to evolve,” Golder said. “We want to get some data and make decisions based on that.”

 

 

Response from Suites

 

Current Marx residents were not notified of the change apart from an update on the ResEd website.

 

“The entrepreneurship theme seems stimulating for people that choose to follow that life path,” said Michael Zoldos ‘12, club manager of Beefeater’s Eating Club, where all Marx residents eat. “Overall, I think it will be something that positively benefits those individuals that live there and participate in the dorm activities.”

 

Morgan Priestley ‘12, CFO of GovCo Dining, which manages the four eating clubs in Suites, does not expect any major changes to eating club operations but is

slightly concerned about the clash of cultures that eDorm might have with the rest of Suites.

 

“As long as the program stays within its bounds and doesn’t completely change the Suites environment, doesn’t completely take things over, then I think it’s going to be great,” Priestley said. “We’re a little apprehensive of having them be at Suites mostly because the culture doesn’t seem to fit, but I don’t think it will be a big issue. Suites is a very independent place as it is.”

 

Not the first “eHouse”

 

eDorm will not be the first housing option in Stanford’s history to have an entrepreneurship focus. Naranja dorm in Lagunita had a social-entrepreneurship theme when it was a four-class dorm, starting in the 2001-02 academic year. Social entrepreneurship is a type of entrepreneurship based on starting a business or organization for the benefit of others.

 

Andrew Deagon ‘09 was the theme focus assistant during Naranja’s last year with the social entrepreneurship theme, in charge of organizing guest speakers and informing students about entrepreneurial events on campus. Deagon described the theme’s success as “difficult” because few students knew the dorm was themed until they lived there and only a handful of students were really dedicated to the theme.

 

Resident Fellow Thomas Massey was the driving force behind the dorm’s entrepreneurial focus, and after his passing in Jan. 2009, no one else took on his role.

 

Regarding eDorm, Deagon said, “I think it has the potential to be extremely successful if it’s marketed to the right students because there are a lot of great minds that could gravitate toward that, but I think that if the people that end up in Marx are there by accident, then it will be difficult to maintain.”

 

Looking forward

E2.0 is currently working on a marketing campaign to inform students about the new housing option.

 

“We are hoping by encouraging this collaborative, creative atmosphere, we will give a lot of people the opportunity to create great ideas and help others with theirs in order to start something really remarkable,” Bindra said.

Article source: http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/03/09/new-edorm-to-launch-on-west-campus/

By Thomas Kostigen

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) — A new type of investment model that is banking on demand for education is sweeping the developing world and has even made its way to America.

Approximately 88% of the world’s youth does not attain a university education, according to a Credit Suisse research report, “Investing for Impact.” The report says of those who do enroll in university, dropout rates among the poor are very high, with 60% of dropouts citing inability to pay as the primary cause for abandoning their studies.

Enter the Lumni organization, based in Key Biscayne, Fla., and with offices in Mexico, Chile, and Colombia. It devised a “human capital contract” fund to help students pay for education, and offer career advice, internships and job placement services.

Click to Play

The give-and-take of donating to charity

There are many reasons the rich give to charity. WSJ Wealth Report editor Robert Frank stops by Mean Street to outline a few of them with host Evan Newmark. Photo: Reuters.

Instead of offering traditional student loans, which require payback of principal plus interest, human capital contracts only require graduates to pay back a percentage of their income after graduation for a fixed period of time.

The financing model works, and investors are reaping major returns.

A Chile Fund has earned investors as much as an 11.4% average annual return, whereas other funds in Chile, Mexico, and Colombia vary between 7% and 10% in local currency on an annual basis, Lumni says, noting that returns have been historically above target. Its funds have attracted more than $25 million from 100 investors in Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

Credit Suisse isn’t the only financial institution to recognize Lumni; the Schwab Foundation named Lumni’s co-founder and chief executive Felipe Vergara Social Entrepreneur of the Year in 2011.

With Lumni, the financing model is simple: Repayment options are 8% of income over 48 months of employment (after the student graduates and begins a new job), or 6.75% of income over 60 months of employment.

In most cases, the income differential for attending university more than offsets these payments, representing a win-win solution for both the investor and the student, Lumni says. Here’s why: incomes rise with education. For instance, in Chile, on average, students’ income increases 50% to 300% if they hold a college degree.

This isn’t the only benefit to arise out of the program, though. The indirect beneficiaries of the fund are myriad. Assuming low-income families depend on the highest-educated member for household income, the financial gains are obvious along with the ensuing benefits: better nutrition and health care. These strides, in turn, helps the economy as a whole.

Lumni operates programs in the U.S., as well. And other funds are mimicking the Lumni model. Nonprofits, such as NetHope, are even spinning off their own highly successful versions of education assistance. At least one major financial association in the U.S. is working in conjunction with the United Negro College Fund to offer its own version of the Lumni model to African-Americans.

Education holds the keys to a better world and promises of better lives. No group needs these prospects more than the youth the world over. It can make the difference between dreams and despair.

To be sure, not all education assistance works such wonders of social impact and financial return. Lumni, for example, focuses on careers and majors with high-income potential. (It largely concentrates on engineering degrees.)

That said nearly 80% of Lumni students are from low-income or very low-income families, and often they are the first generation to attend college, according to the Credit Suisse report, which addressed “how social entrepreneurship is redefining the meaning of return.”

Today’s youth population outnumbers the baby-boom generation, remember. Indeed, it’s this next generation that will be saddled with supporting us economically, and cleaning up after us environmentally. (We are most polluted generation in history.)

The world is going to need a lot of smart people to fix our ills. Offering a better education alternative than saddling students with loans is a solid step to a brighter future. More of us should invest in it.

The returns both financially and from a social impact perspective are tough to beat.

Article source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/education-pays-off-for-investors-and-students-2012-03-09

The program for the 13th International Symposium on Online Journalism (ISOJ) has been announced, and the stellar line-up includes journalists from publications like The New York Times, the Dallas Morning News, the Washington Post, Spain’s El País, and Argentina’s La Nación, and panels on such topics as smart phones, social media, entrepreneurship, and database reporting. Register here for the symposium, to be held April 20-21 at the Blanton Museum of Art on The University of Texas at Austin campus.

ISOJ, the annual global conference that brings more than 200 media executives, journalists and scholars from around the world, offers a unique blend of academic research and perspectives from leading practitioners in the online journalism industry. The annual event has been organized since 1999 by Professor Rosental C. Alves, the Knight Chair in Journalism UNESCO Chair in Communication, and director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at UT Austin.

The full conference program is available here.

This year’s symposium will feature keynote speeches from Richard Gingras, head of news products for Google; Jim Moroney, president and CEO of the Dallas Morning News; Bob Metcalfe, professor of innovation and Murchison Fellow of Free Enterprise at the University of Texas at Austin Cockrell School of Engineering; and Raju Narisetti, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network.

Following a keynote address from Gingras to kick off the conference, Friday’s schedule includes industry-related panels “From desk(lap)top computers to tablets and smartphones: How are journalists responding to the mobile revolution?” and “Innovation and entrepreneurialism: Are journalists and news organizations learning from tech startups?,” and academic research panels “Examining the journalist’s toolbox: Practices, routines and more” and “Cases of news innovation and entrepreneurship.”

The conference continues Saturday with industry-related panels “The new narrative: How data is changing the way we tell stories online,” and “From SEO to SMO: The increasing impact of social media on journalism,” and research panels “New approaches in engaging with the news community” and “Measuring today’s news consumption.”

Industry experts participating in ISOJ this year include representatives from the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, CNN Mobile, the Chicago Tribune Media Group, the Los Angeles Times, the Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University, LinkedIn, Guardian News Media in the UK, the Winnipeg Free Press in Canada, and the O Globo newspaper in Brazil.

Scholars presenting at ISOJ in April are coming from such universities as the University of Missouri, Loyola University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Oxford in the U.K., the University of British Columbia in Canada, La Trobe University in Australia, the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland, Amsterdam University College in the Netherlands, Centro Universitário Estácio Radial de São Paulo in Brazil, University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and, of course, the host institution of the University of Texas at Austin.

See here for a complete list of scholars participating and the titles of the papers they will be presenting. Abstracts of the research papers are available here. Learn more about the professionals’ panels and keynote speakers here.

The International Symposium on Online Journalism is possible thanks to generous support from the Knight Foundation, the Scripps Howard Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, and The Dallas Morning News.

The International Symposium on Online Journalism is a program of the Knight Chair in Journalism, the UNESCO Chair in Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the College of Communication and School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin.

Article source: http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/00-9262-program-announced-13th-international-symposium-online-journalism

AUSTIN, Texas, March 8, 2012 — /PRNewswire/ — BLACK ENTERPRISE, the premier business, investing, and wealth-building resource for African Americans, will kick off unprecedented coverage of African American entrepreneurs, technology experts and innovative start-up ventures at the 2012 South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference Festival, recognized as the ultimate event for the convergence of technology, music, film, interactive media and culture. Video content, daily summaries of panels and presentations, exclusive interviews with leading tech experts and innovators, and ongoing coverage of the unprecedented presence and influence of African Americans at this year’s SXSW will be featured daily at BlackEnterprise.com‘s newly launched Technology channel, www.blackenterprise.com/technology, and shared across Black Enterprise’s social media outlets.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110627/NY26810LOGO )

Coverage kicks off on Thursday, March 8, at the Welcome to ATX Reception presented by the Capital City African American Chamber of Commerce (CCAACC), from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the III Forks Steak Seafood House in Austin, sponsored by Dell. BLACK ENTERPRISE joins CCAACC, Blacks In Technology (BiT) and The Black Founders as collaborative partners for the reception, which will host leading African American entrepreneurs and innovators attending SXSW. The reception will also showcase video of Dell’s small business technology makeover of The Clean Dog Inc., an Atlanta-based pet grooming salon, as featured in the March 2012 Small Business Tech Special Issue of BLACK ENTERPRISE magazine.

Driving home the BLACK ENTERPRISE editorial mission to showcase African American innovators, Tech Editor Marcia Wade Talbert will be providing up-to-the-minute news and stories from the South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference Festival on www.blackenterprise.com/technology. In addition, BLACK ENTERPRISE Digital Audience Development Manager Mary Pryor will coordinate the sharing of content across all of Black Enterprise’s social media outlets including on Twitter (https://twitter.com/blackenterprise), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/BLACKENTERPRISE),  Tumblr (http://blackenterprise.tumblr.com), Google+ (https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/105726325157238293149/) and Pinterest (http://www.pinterest.com/blackenterprise). Coverage of cutting edge events such as SXSW, where the latest ideas are unveiled and creativity is fostered, will be a consistent aspect of the BlackEnterprise.com/Technology channel experience. Another new feature is the Next in Tech campaign, where the public can nominate technology innovators and/or tech companies for the chance to be profiled by BLACK ENTERPRISE. A submission form can be accessed from the BlackEnterprise.com Technology channel or directly at www.blackenterprise.com/technology/favorite-tech-innovator/.

The BlackEnterprise.com Technology channel further establishes BlackEnterprise.com as the all-inclusive, daily destination for African Americans looking to grow their businesses, maximize their career potential, create wealth and optimize their quality of lives. Visitors to the Technology channel at BlackEnterprise.com can also expect to hear from a rotation of leading African American technology experts, entrepreneurs and innovators as featured contributors, including Talbert, Brand Camp University and GoKit CEO Co-founder Hajj Flemings, and renowned technology talk show host, journalist and tech maven Mario Armstrong. Both Wade and Armstrong were awarded among the Top 10 Blacks In Technology by the SXSW Committee of BiT. The Inaugural BiT Top 10 Awards will be presented as a component of the SXSW Interactive Festival on Friday, March 9, 2012 during the BiT Welcome Reception being held from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Carver Museum, 1165 Angelina Street in Austin.

“Our Technology channel aims to demystify daunting software, productivity apps, mobile networking and other innovations that are now essential for taking a business to the next level of profitability,” said BlackEnterprise.com Executive Editor Elayne Fluker.  “At the same time, we’ll highlight influential new leaders in the tech field, offer career professionals the opportunity to engage in continuous learning to keep them competitive, and even have some fun with lively product reviews and the latest apps to enrich your life.” 

Get up-to-speed on blacks in technology by texting the words ‘nextintech’ to 80676 from your mobile device to receive updates and a chance to win tech-inspired giveaways and follow the conversation on Twitter @BlackEnterprise using Hashtag #nextinTECH.   

BlackEnterprise.com is the leading website for Money, Small Business and Career development. Providing executive and entrepreneurial resources, information, and profiles on the topics of money management, employment, career and start-up development, BlackEnterprise.com features expert resource articles, original video packages, and blogs, customized to empower its niche audience while consistently providing universal resource-value.

BLACK ENTERPRISE, your ultimate source to build Wealth for Life, is the premier business, investing, and wealth-building resource for African Americans. Since 1970, BE has provided essential business information and advice to professionals, corporate executives, entrepreneurs, and decision makers. Every month, BLACK ENTERPRISE magazine provides 4 million readers with information on entrepreneurship, careers, and financial management. A multimedia company, BE also produces television programming, business and lifestyle events, Web content, and digital media. Visit www.blackenterprise.com for more information.

SOURCE BLACK ENTERPRISE

Article source: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/08/4322155/blackenterprisecom-covers-black.html

Facebook’s recent filing has many commentators likening the social networking site, started in a Harvard dorm, to the search giant Google, founded by two Stanford PhDs less than a decade earlier. But for all their similarities – visionary student founders, explosive marketshare, tremendous valuations – there is at least one difference that their respective alma matters are likely to take note of as the Facebook IPO grows near. While Stanford netted a $336 Million dollar pay-day from Google’s 2004 IPO, Facebook’s looming IPO will leave the trustees of Harvard with little more than a cameo in last year’s Oscar-nominated film.

As an outgrowth of Stanford’s Digital Library Project, where founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were researchers, Google’s underlying “PageRank” algorithm was property of the university. When Brin and Page left Stanford to spin-off off what would become Google, they had to license the technology from the university in a deal for 1.8 Million shares of their new company which today would be worth $1.1 Billion.

While Stanford’s gain from Google is unusual, technology-transfer agreements have long been the primary means by which universities support and profit from startups. However, as Facebook illustrates, more student-founded companies are bootstrapping without university technology, leaving schools without any profit — though that may be changing.

“The university has always been a supplier of both technology and talent,” says Frank Rimalovski Managing Director of the NYU Innovation Venture Fund “and its our job to foster and support that.” Rimalovski’s fund, which was created by the university in 2010, makes seed and series A investments in startups with ties to NYU. To date the $20 Million fund has made three investments two of which — Fondu and numberFire — were started by current students with no ties to university technology. “There’s definitely been a groundswell of entrepreneurial interest from students,” says Rimalovski “and if there’s another Zuckerberg walking around our hallways, we want to be as supportive as we would of a faculty member working on a new cancer therapy.”

“Young people have always wanted to change the world,” says Hugo Van Vuuren, a founding partner at the Experiment Fund (xFund), a new seed-stage investor housed at Harvard’s Graduate School of Engineering. What’s new, says Van Vuuren, is that their turning to startups as vehicles to do so. Van Vuuren’s fund, which was announced in January, has already made a number of small investments in high-profile startups like RockHealth, led by Hall Tecco (MBA 11′) and Omada, co-founded by Sean Duffy, currently on leave from Harvard’s MD/ MBA program.

“The culture on campus is definitely changing,” says David J. Miller, a researcher at George Mason University’s School of Public Policy who studies student entrepreneurship, “universities are under tremendous budgetary pressure in terms of outside funding and also from students paying tuition.” Rimalovski agrees saying “to be a real player as a university today, you have to engage students and faculty who are increasingly interested in starting companies.”

While university investment in startups outside of technology-transfer is fairly new, college campuses have long been a breeding ground for new businesses. Years before Brin and Page, Michael Dell was selling PC kits out of his dorm at University of Texas-Austin and Bill Gates was writing computer applications in his Harvard dorm. “The emphasis on tech-transfer is definitely misguided,” says Miller “when you look at the most successful entrepreneurs, technology is rarely a decisive factor — Bill Gates was definitely not the best coder around.”

But if equity and exits are not enough to entice administrators into supporting their student’s startups, there may be another incentive for school’s to take note. Alumni are a major source of income for universities, notes Rimalovski, and historically its been entrepreneurs who have been the biggest contributors to higher education. From Ezra Cornell to Leland Stanford, many of the countries foremost universities bear the names of famous entrepreneurs. “It’s a virtuous circle,” says Miller, and it pays for universities to engage their most entrepreneurial students, even after they leave. “Michael Dell dropped out of UT after less than a year and has since given them over $65 Million.”

Though it’s not just about money,” says Miller “successful entrepreneurs offer a kind of cultural return.” At University of Maryland, College Park, where Miller is compiling a case study, the story of Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank 96′, who played football for UM before founding the $4.6 Billion apparel company, has had noticeable effects on the students. “Once a school has a success story like that, there’s no going back,” says Miller.

While initiatives like those underway at Harvard and NYU are still few and far between, there are likely to be a lot of people watching. “If they turn out to be successful,” says Miller “it won’t be long until the rest of the school’s catch on.”

Follow Dylan Reid on Twitter:

www.twitter.com/startupchile

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-reid/facebook-ipo-universities-startups_b_1329370.html