David Skorton Discusses Importance And Success Of Entrepreneurship At Cornell

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Skorton07_entrtepreneurshipAtCornell

Entrepreneurship at Cornell, in my experience, is absolutely unique. Now, perhaps there are other models somewhere I'm not aware of but let's say in the models that I have run into for a few different reasons, a few different attributes - one is that it's so broad across the university. I sometimes lose track but I think there is eight or nine colleges involved in entrepreneurship at Cornell. And the leaders in those colleges and the researchers in those colleges and the professors in those colleges, therefore, have a terrific opportunity to interact broadly. It's not just putting one administrative officer in one college because all of us have to think entrepreneurially in the broader sense that we've been talking about. That's one thing. Secondly, the many ways that the entrepreneurship at Cornell crew celebrate entrepreneurship and bring successful alumni and successful entrepreneurs back into the family to share their stories, share their failure, share their successes and get the juices going in the next generation of entrepreneurs whether that generation are sophomores, juniors, seniors, freshmen in college, whether it's graduate students, whether it's professional students, whether it's post-docs or whether it's faculty, new or seasoned. And I love the Entrepreneurship - Annual Entrepreneur of the Year celebration. I love being able to call up the person and tell him or her that they've been selected. It's a terrific honor. I love listening to their words of wisdom but I have to admit, what I like the best is the banquet, the celebration, not just because of the good cheer and because of the very, very positive feelings but because people come out of the woodwork to go to that banquet. We seem to never be able to fit it in whatever room we choose to put it in, and the talk around those tables - I wander around restlessly during the dinner and I just try to catch a glimpse, a sound of what's going on. And they're not only catching up on each other, they're talking about entrepreneurship. They're not talking about it as some an abstract concept. They're talking about how they live it. I love that aspect of it. And then finally, as I travel around the country and even around the world keeping Cornell alumni connected to the Alma Mater, I'm able to go to some of the Cornell Entrepreneur Network, CEN events around the country and those are terrific, terrific microcosms of this huge annual banquet and celebration, several day-long celebration.