A series of new entrepreneurship speaker events was launched at NYU Shanghai on September 18th, by welcoming Elyse Ribbons and William Bao Bean, the first two guests of the series. The 2 hour-long presentation turned out to be a great success, followed by the audience engaging with innumerable questions.
Elyse Ribbons is the founder and CEO of a phone app,Geili Giving, that intends to establish a transparent and reliable way of encouraging Chinese customers to get involved in charity. Ribbons’ various work experience includes modeling and television show hosting. Her years of living and dealing with the Chinese business world helped solidify her entrepreneurial foundation in China.
William Bao Bean is an investor and the managing director of Chinaccelerator - China’s first software startup accelerator. Different from others, Chinaccelerator provides young entrepreneurs support with experienced volunteer “mentors” from different areas, who provide them with guidance. Bao Bean mentioned the usefulness of personality tests and elaborated on the types of personalities considered suitable for entrepreneurship.
NYU Shanghai sophomore Kejie Wang described what she gained from the speech, “From their real life experience, I now understand that the idea that ‘Life is full of possibilities’ is not just words, it can be real.” Quinn McHale, sophomore, took an entrepreneurship class back in high school and remarked that “in America, [entrepreneurship is] being pushed more and more, especially in high school.”
The entrepreneurship series is organized by Professor Keith Ross, Dean of Engineering and Computer Science, and co-sponsored by the Program for Creativity and Innovation. “They are small companies, typically with 10 employees,” said Ross. “The basic purpose is to expose the students here at NYU Shanghai to what startup life is like, what goes into creating a company. Is it a fun thing to do? Is it an exciting thing to do? So here directly from these young founders, they can learn what startups are like.”
This speaker series of six talks, featuring each time two guest speakers, will bring to campus young entrepreneurs and inventors, including young founders and CEOs from various startups, mostly in early stages of development. The series is designed to encourage students to embrace their own ideas and move forward in actualizing them.
On October 9th, NYU Shanghai will host the second speech of the series, featuring two CEOs with over 10 years experience in public relations and technology respectively, Miranda Tan, CEO of Robin 8, and Richard Law, founder and CEO of iCE Angel-ID.
Written by: Ewa Oberska & Liu Lingyi
Photo by: Liu Lingyi