———- Forwarded message ———
From: Kurtis Heimerl <kheimerl@cs.washington.edu>
Date: Mon, May 21, 2018 at 2:49 PM
Subject:Invitation to UWCSE Entrepreneurship Town Hall Discussion: May 30th @ 5PM
To: cs-grads – Mailing List <cs-grads@cs.washington.edu>, <cs-ugrads@cs.washington.edu>, <cs-pmp@cs.washington.edu>, <vgrads@cs.washington.edu>, CSE CSE Faculty <faculty@cs.washington.edu>
In the last decade, The Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering has become one of the world’s premiere places of computer science research. We have access to amazing resources: a strong local tech culture including some of the largest, most successful companies in the world, a robust local startup environment, (soon-to-be) two cutting-edge buildings, and some of the best faculty in data science, AI, wireless, NLP, computer systems, programming languages… basically all of computing. These faculty have gone on to start numerous successful companies and often hold positions at some of Seattle’s best VCs.
However, UWCSE still lags behind comparative institutions in one key area: student-led entrepreneurship. Despite numerous campus resources, including classes at the Foster School of Business and our own entrepreneurship seminar, most students (though there are counterexamples!) instead decide to graduate and immediately take a position at one of our local tech juggernauts. While that’s a good result (and you all should be excited) we want to make sure our students feel comfortable pursuing all options available to them, including entrepreneurship.
To better understand this phenomenon and solicit ideas for changes we can make to better encourage people striking out on their own, we will be holding a “UWCSE Entrepreneurship Town Hall” in the Gates Commons at 5PM on May 30th. This will be an open-ended discussion (and light dinner) between local entrepreneurship actors (both faculty and outsiders) and the student body (both grads and undergrads) where we, as a group, learn more about the needs and tradeoffs being made. We want to know how students view entrepreneurship and how to make it easier, safer and more attractive for students here in UW CSE. Current attendees include myself, Luis Ceze (CSE), Chris DeVore (TechStars), Elizabeth M Scallon (CoMotion), and Amit Mital (Krnl Labs).
If interested, please RSVP here. RSVP isn’t necessary but will let us better judge the interest and buy the appropriate amount of food.
Thanks!