Princeton Entrepreneurship Club

Introducing the newly appointed Presidents of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club, Yiying Zhang ‘26 and Andy Zhang ‘26! Yiying and Andy have demonstrated extraordinary leadership and passion for entrepreneurship during their previous years in E-Club. The upcoming 2024-2025 academic year will see them at the helm. Their vision, creativity, and commitment promise to bring fresh energy and innovative ideas to the E-Club community in the coming year!

Last month, the Princeton Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination (LISD) and E-Club were honored to host an insightful book talk with author Kara Swisher and BBC journalist Razia Iqbal about Swisher’s latest “Burn Book: A Tech Love Story” at the Arthur Lewis Auditorium. Event attendees tuned in as Razia interviewed Kara about her new book, which uncovers the truth about the largest players in the tech industry. The fireside chat was then followed by an exclusive book signing event!

E-Club recently hosted Luke Armour (‘13), Founding Partner at Chaac Ventures, and Daniel P. Ahn (‘04), Co-Founder of Delfi, an ai-driven risk management platform for a fireside chat! Luke and Daniel provided an illuminating look into how venture capitalists and startups propel each other to success. Attendees gained insight into Luke's leveraging of the global Princeton tech/innovation ecosystem and Daniel's journey from Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of State to founding his first successful startup.

Here are some more photos captured at Princeton Pitch 2024! Huge shoutout to Ideation track finalists (Paragon, Diagonal, DigniKit, Luna) and MVP track finalists (CAi, Akashix.ai, Today @ Princeton, Curbon)! These exceptional teams exemplify entrepreneurial spirit and are driving Princeton towards new levels of innovation.

And the winner of the MVP track of Princeton Pitch 2024 is… Rescript! Rescript is co-founded by Nikhil Ajjarapu (COS ‘24) and Alexander Pesendorfer (PHI ‘24). Rescript is addressing the inefficiency in tracking and summarizing congressional meetings for Government Relations professionals. Their AI tool delivers professional memo-style summaries from video streams 25x faster and enhances research with search and a chat interface.

Didn't have the opportunity to attend Princeton Pitch? Let's give a round of applause to Watt-Our, the standout winner of the Ideation track! Watt-Our is co-founded by Alex Tseng (ECE ‘26 ), Luke Miller (SPIA ‘26), and Christina Li (ORFE ‘26). Watt-Our contracts Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) to utilities and grid operators in order to help create automated, intelligent, flexible, and robust electric grids. Through funding and implementing these VPPs, Watt-Our solves previously inhibiting issues in consumer participation and aggregation – serving as a critical connection between technology, consumers, and utilities which will allow for more effective and widespread use of VPP systems.

This year over Winter Break, Silicon Valley TigerTrek (SVTT) took 20 members back to the Bay Area to meet with 35 speakers in a wide variety of entrepreneurial expertise and experiences such as AI/ML, SaaS, social entrepreneurship, sports, fashion, community impact, healthcare, climate, transportation (self driving cars and aircraft), academia, venture capital, and various intersections of these areas. These speakers composed a diverse background, appealing to the experiences of women, POC, and queer persons in entrepreneurship. To name a few, SVTT trekkers met Todd Stavish (SRI International), David Snydacker (founder of Lilac Solutions, Inc.), Nikhil Basu Trivedi (Footwork VC), Sara Spangelo (co-founder of Swarm Technologies (acq. by SpaceX)), and more!

Last week, we hosted Naheel Jawaid, a business student turned product designer at Google NYC. He spent 5 years working on AR Glasses and the last 2 on a new video creation tool. Outside work, he’s been a part of building creative ventures like Kids Take Over, a hip hop media brand. During this eye-opening event, Naheel encouraged students to take the riskier path to the career of their dreams. He shared his firsthand experience of going all in on a creative path, including both successes and setbacks. His insights highlighted the realities of pursuing a creative profession and emphasized the importance of resilience, dedication, and self-belief.

Throwback to our speaker event in December with Julia Boorstin ‘00! Julia is CNBC’s Senior Media & Technology reporter, creator of #Disruptor50, and the author of “When Women Lead,” which tells a series of stories spotlighting women who have founded and led successful ventures. We hosted an engaging fireside chat, where Julia spoke about the gendered VC funding gap, pattern matching, and her identified business “superpowers.”