Painting the Blank Canvas
Sidhant Ahluwalia ’18, one of UR’s entrepreneurship club leaders, shares his tips for college entrepreneurs.
Sidhant Ahluwalia ’18, one of UR’s entrepreneurship club leaders, shares his tips for college entrepreneurs.
To begin with, I’m not a nerd, I’m not a valedictorian, I’m just another college student with a dream to make a living after graduation. Over the next 5 to 10 mins, I’m going to take you over my story of what I did in college to make the most of my time. Below are 8 steps I took to get to where I am today and by the end of this, I hope to inspire you to find your steps to make a successful college career.
These steps aren’t a roadmap to having a successful college career. I believe everyone has to find their route, their calling and this is how I found mine.
Sidhant Ahluwalia is a member of University of Rochester’s Class of 2018. He is working toward a Bachelors of Arts degree in Computer Science, track in HCI. A student in the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Ahluwalia is also a campus partner for GroundUP Ventures and co-founder of Meliora LaunchPad, an entrepreneurship club for innovative students.
This upcoming semester is going to be a busy one!
3:30PM – 4:30PM
Lattimore 306A
Interested in a fifth tuition-free year to pursue your dreams? Learn more here.
3:30PM – 5PM
Feldman Ballroom
Come mingle with other innovators and learn more about this event here.
10AM – 3PM
Location TBD
A business bootcamp for the UR and local community. Learn more here.
noon – 5PM
Location TBD
Entrepreneurial educators and professionals gather to talk about e’ship education in upstate NY.
Ready to test the entrepreneurship waters?
Browse a selection of innovation-themed articles and find inspiration.
Read Time: 3 minutes
Class of 2017 members Edgar Alaniz, Carlos “Yuki” Gonzalez, Ibrahim Mohammad, and Omar Soufan are featured in this U of R publication. This team’s goal to aid refugees across the globe inspired their business plan: build homes for displaced peoples, using LEGO-style bricks made from recycled plastic. After tying for the top prize in the 2017 Mark Ain Business Model Competition, they competed for $1M in the Hult Prize Competition – finishing among the top eight out of 50,000 entries worldwide.
From left: Ibrahim Mohammad ’17, Omar Soufan ’17, lecturer Michael Wohl, Carlos (Yuki) Gonzalez ’17, and Edgar Alaniz ’17. (University photo / Steve Dow)
Read Time: 2 minutes (plus a 1.5-minute video!)
Here, a recent alum discusses the ventures he worked on during his time at U of R. Kallel, who won the 2017 Charles and Janet Forbes Entrepreneurial Competition in May, is participating in the current e5 (formerly KEY) year – an extra tuition-free year that allows students to pursue an entrepreneurial project.
Read Time: 4 minutes
Social entrepreneurship is growing, as evidenced by the variety of culture-conscious projects coming out of U of R. This one, Oasis Foods (formed by ’17 MBA grads Kat Cook, Fahria Omar, and Sarah Spoto), provides healthy meals to communities in need. Created during a course at the University, Oasis shows how projects can take on new life outside of the classroom.
Read Time: 3 minutes
Alums Morgan Sinko ’16, Jordan Brooks ’16, and Lucian Copeland ’16 founded NullSpace VR (now Hardlight VR) during their time at the University of Rochester. Their passion for virtual reality recently led them to Seattle – this article explains their journey to the west coast from the U of R and provides an overview of their feature product.
Read Time: 4 minutes
Carl Richards begins this piece by firing you as your own worst critic. Sounds a little funny, right? As he goes on, he argues how important trusting your work is, as well as allowing others the opportunity to decide what works and what doesn’t. Try your best and be a little fearless – in entrepreneurship, this advice is key.
Read Time: 4 minutes
Celebrating and encouraging female entrepreneurs is as important as ever. In this article, Vicki Saunders explains the “Act of Radical Generosity,” created to assist women innovators with financial support. Already taking place on the west coast of the US, the leaders of this initiative plan to expand around the globe.
A peek inside the Student Incubator at High Tech Rochester, a space where students gain resources and training to run a successful venture.
Read Time: 3 minutes
Not focused on “entrepreneurship,” exactly, but these tips can help anyone become a better conversationalist. Entrepreneurs have to be able to share their ideas with a variety of audiences – this article is sort of a cheat sheet for engaging with others, even in usually-awkward situations.
Read Time: 5 minutes
2017 was certainly a year of change. Looking to the year ahead, author Billee Howard lays out a few things that entrepreneurs should keep in mind as we move forward. Given top priority on the list? Embracing self-reflection and harnessing the ability to ask the tough questions, even when you may just want to plow ahead. Innovative ideas are wonderful, but they need serious thought to make an impact.
Read Time: 6 minutes
The article above stresses thoughtfulness. In this piece, Jessica Stillman offers a list of ten heavy, but insightful questions for anyone looking to make a change in 2018. Though these may seem a bit far-off if you are still a student, long-term thinking can guide you down the right path.
Read Time: 8 minutes
For many years, critics have wondered if entrepreneurship can be taught. The author uses this list of traits to point out that, while some of these characteristics are innate, most are teachable and can become habits over time.
Ready to get to work? Find our information below!
Now that your interest is piqued, come visit us in the Ain Center for Entrepreneurship (1-211 Carol Simon Hall), send us an email (AinCFE@rochester.edu), or give us a call (585-276-3500). We offer a variety of services that help with each stage of interest: envisioning your project, exploring options, building solid framework, and launching your venture. We can’t wait to help you move forward.
Within the Ain Center, we see entrepreneurship as a mindset – both an approach to critical thinking and a teachable trait of character.
The University of Rochester’s Center for Entrepreneurship was launched in 2006, following a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. In 2015, we became the Ain Center for Entrepreneurship, recognizing the generous support of Mark S. Ain ‘67S (MBA) and his wife Carolyn. In addition to their investment in entrepreneurship, the Ain family is known for their visionary leadership and support of innovation at the University.
We also house the Technical Entrepreneurship and Management, or TEAM, graduate program. TEAM is designed for those with a technical background (such as engineering, science, or mathematics) who want to combine their expertise with a business and entrepreneurial skills set. The interdisciplinary nature of TEAM mirrors our understanding of working across traditional boundaries to create something revolutionary.
Here, we recognize entrepreneurship as a true combination of the idealistic and the pragmatic. Though an idea can start within one individual, the creation of meaningful projects takes a village. By emphasizing core traits – initiative, intuition, awareness, and determination – the Ain Center knows what is possible when everyone rallies around an imaginative concept. A science and an art, entrepreneurship is a primary way in which a society grows, improves, and changes: not only in its economy, but also in its culture and values.
Far more than just a specific set of business skills, entrepreneurship is a practice that is applicable to many realms of experience and interest. As a main function, the Ain Center identifies potential partnerships with students, alumni, local businesses and non-profit organizations. These collaborations provide each participant with resources, materials, and a network of support. Additionally, we coordinate entrepreneurship courses and signature programming (such as an array of business competitions, the Ain CFE Lecture Series, and our popular Entrepreneurs-in-Residence program). Though many of our students pursue technical or economic ventures, we also provide information on social entrepreneurship, a growing field that does good for both business and community.
Recently, the Ain Center won a variety of grants to help encourage entrepreneurship throughout the U of R. As a result, we host visiting faculty from Romania, cultivate fruitful relationships with other universities in upstate New York, and attain research funding for young startups. Overall, the Ain Center for Entrepreneurship facilitates creativity and gives entrepreneurs a chance to make their vision a reality.
Beginning in Fall 2017, the Ain Center stepped up its presence on social media, establishing new ways to connect to our vast community, both on-campus and online. Find us on Facebook (@UR.AinCenter), Twitter (@UR_AinCenter), and Instagram (@ur_aincenter). Keep an eye out for our blog updates and feel free to send suggestions for future posts to AinCFE@rochester.edu.
We look forward to helping you build the future.