Photo: Blackstone Launchpad
The on campus entrepreneurship program, Blackstone Launchpad, is coming to five universities across New York State including Cornell and NYU. The program will provide professional mentoring from network of venture coaches to any student from all five universities across all faculties to encourage the students to create their own startups.
The New York expansion means the program will be offered to more than 180,000 students from New York University, Cornell University, Syracuse University, University at Albany (SUNY), and University at Buffalo (SUNY). The students will also gain immediate access to the network of existing Blackstone Launchpad.
The program was first implemented in at the University of Miami and expanded to bases in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Montana, California, Ireland and now New York State. The launchpad works a little like a commercial incubator. Students flesh out their business ideas with program staff members initially. Then, when a business plan is formed they meet with program mentors and local businesses in their industry.
The Blackstone Charitable Foundation is committing $4.5 million to the new program over four years. Blackstone Launchpad has been recognized by President Obama’s Startup America Initiative as a way of encouraging students to stay on after graduation, strengthening the economies of their local communities.
Blackstone president and COO announced the plan at NYU’s Skirball theatre last week in front of an audience that included senator Chuck Schumer. “From its earliest days, New York has been a cauldron of innovation,” Schumer said in a statement. “The LaunchPad program will help tap into that entrepreneurial spirit; it will be a tremendous resource for our students, the participating universities, and for our economy.”
The charitable foundation was founded when Blackstone capital, which is the largest private equity firm in the world, went public in 2007 and has been investing money in various organizations around the globe to promote entrepreneurship ever since.
