Date: Friday, April 2, 2021
Time: 9 a.m. - 4:45 p.m.
Location: Online Symposium
Join us for a full day of discussions, conversations, and networking opportunities with leading entrepreneurs and innovative thinkers across all industries. You will also have a chance to watch the finale of this year’s business pitch competition, where we will award over $10,000 in prize money to the newest entrepreneurial ideas out of San Francisco State University.
Registration for the Entrepreneurship Symposium is now closed.
Applications for the Innovation Pitch Competition are now closed.
With this year’s theme of “just-Innovation,” we want to show how innovation and entrepreneurship can balance some of today’s toughest justice-based issues with the need for enterprises to be financially successful entities. Our aim is to inspire our 2021 attendees with the optimism that we can all make the future just- a bit better through thoughtful innovation and entrepreneurship.
This year’s event is completely online, and open to the extended SFSU community and public.
Sessions
Topic: Big Dreams for Big Change
Jay Godsall & Michel Rugema
Co-Founders, and CEO & COO, Respectively
SolarShip and Peace+Freedom Challenge
Sometimes big problems require big dreams and a lot of creativity and grit. What happens when two high school friends decide to find innovative solutions to provide access to the neediest and most remote regions of the Earth? SolarShip is an ongoing story of creativity, engineering, persistence, and mission.
Topic: Innovation & Scale
Dan Berelowitz
CEO & Founder
Spring Impact
How do you scale social impact to affect a larger community? This session discusses how community-transforming organizations can systematically grow beyond their local footprints.
Topic: Restaurant Entrepreneurship: Making It Work
Moderator:
- Liz Subauste (B.A., '10), Consultant & Founder, SobreMesa
Panelists:
- Evan Kidera (B.S., '04; MBA '13), Co-Founder & Owner, Señor Sisig
- Allam El Qadah, (B.S., '94), Restaurateur & President's Medal Recipient
- Ryan Smith, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Lam Family College of Business, San Francisco State University
- Nite Yun, Chef & Owner, Nyum Bai
Everyone wants to open a restaurant. Yet the food service industry is brutal, with one of the highest failure rates of any sector. Listen in on our panel of successful SFSU restaurant entrepreneurs as they share their journeys from dreams to realities.
Topic: In Conversation: Pathwater
Gulshan Kumar (B.S., '15)
Vice President, Sales
PathWater
The average person consumes 168 plastic bottles of water a year. Hear about an SFSU alumni’s journey to help change how bottles are manufactured and to change consumer behavior.
Topic: 4th Annual Innovation Pitch Competition
Panelist Judges:
- Bruno Ceccarelli, Managing Director, Union Bank/MUFG
- Nancy Hayes, Principal, NKH Group
- Bill Cecil, Scouting Director, State Farm Insurance
- Stephen Vranes (B.A., '08), CEO, Box Lunch, Her Universe, Hot Topic
Each year, we invite aspiring entrepreneurs, innovators, and enterprises across the SFSU student body to pitch their concepts to a panel of industry experts, investors, and rainmakers. Come watch this year’s pitch competition finalists as they vie for $10,000 in startup funds.
Agenda
| 8:45 – 9 a.m. | Lobby Opens |
| 9 – 9:20 a.m. | Welcome Remarks by Eugene Sivadas Ph.D., Dean, Lam Family College of Business and Sybil Yang Ph.D., Associate Professor, Lam Family College of Business |
| 9:20 – 9:30 a.m. | Icebreaker Activity |
| 9:30 – 10:30 a.m. | Big Dreams for Big Change by Jay Godsall, CEO, and Michel Rugema, COO, Co-Founders of SolarShip and the Peace + Freedom Challenge |
| 10:30 – 10:35 a.m. | Break |
| 10:35 – 11:20 a.m. | Innovation & Scale by Dan Berelowitz, CEO & Founder, Spring Impact |
| 11:20 – 11:30 a.m. | Break |
| 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. |
Restaurant Entrepreneurship: Making It Work Panel Moderator: Liz Subauste (B.A., '10), Consultant & Founder, SobreMesa Panelists:
|
| 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. | Lunch |
| 1:30 – 2:15 p.m. | In Conversation: Pathwater by Gulshan Kumar (B.S., '15), Vice President, Sales, Pathwater |
| 2:15 – 2:20 p.m. | Break |
| 2:20 – 4 p.m. |
Innovation Pitch Competition Judges:
|
| 4 – 4:30 p.m. | Alumni Happy Hour (Open to All) with Duggan McDonnell, Mixologist & Author |
| 4:30 – 4:45 p.m. | Closing: Competition Awards and Reflections – Perseverence and Planning for Uncertainty |
This event is sponsored in part by MUFG Union Bank Foundation and the Lam-Larsen Fund for Global Innovation.
MUFG Union Bank Foundation’s mission is to make philanthropic investments that expand access to economic opportunity in low- and moderate-income communities specifically in the areas of affordable housing, community economic development, education, human services and the environment.