Photo: Techstars
Columbia University students are getting a chance to participate in Techstars NYC.
The accelerator has announced the launch of the Lang Scholars Program, which embeds Columbia students with the startups in the Techstars 2015 Fall class.
One second year MBA student from Columbia Business School is matched with each of the 14 businesses entering the Techstars 2015 Fall program. The new partnership is managed by the Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center at Columbia Business School with oversight provided by the center’s director, Vince Ponzo.
The Lang Scholars Program is designed to encourage Columbia’s MBA students to consider entrepreneurship as a career preference upon graduation. Techstars organizers also see the startups in the accelerator program benefitting from an extra pair of hands. The 14 successful candidates were chosen through an application process and should bring a skill set and experience that would be valuable to any young company.
The MBA students are spending 10 hours a week working with their paired startup on business functions including marketing, financial modeling, strategy formulation and anything else the participating entrepreneurs need help with. The students will get academic credits for their participation, but the real value is the exposure to an intensive working environment and a connection to the global network of mentors and entrepreneurs in the Techstars community.
“For us, this initiative allows Techstars to further its vision of making entrepreneurship more accessible by encouraging students to consider entrepreneurship as a viable career path,” KJ Singh, Techstars NYC director, said in a statement.
The Techstars NYC 2015 Fall program started on September 21 and will culminate in a demo day on December 17.
Details on the startups enrolled in the Techstars Fall 2015 class can be found here.
