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Friday, September 15, 2023
The CMU Swartz Center's Bootcamp Event Hits Big with Special Guest Ray Lane, GreatPoint Ventures
Over seven hundred Carnegie Mellon students registered for the CMU Swartz Center's Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, which was held on Saturday, September 9, 2023. Kicked off by Swartz Center executive director Dave Mawhinney, the event gave the students an overview of programs and activities available, and also provided an opportunity for them to hear from several entrepreneurship club members, alumni and program representatives who shared their experiences.
A highlight this year was a fireside chat featuring Ray Lane, Managing Partner at GreatPoint Ventures.
Friday, September 15, 2023
Locomation's Çetin Meriçli Joins Atlas Robotics as CEO and Brings Firm's Headquarters to Pittsburgh
Çetin Meriçli, Carnegie Mellon 2013 Post Doctoral Fellow and the co-founder and former CEO of local autonomous trucking startup Locomation, Inc., has shifted gears to take the helm of Atlas Robotics, a firm that is developing robotics-based material handling solutions for manufacturing and warehousing facilities.
Thursday, September 14, 2023
Refiberd Co-Founder Tushita Gupta Featured in TIME
Refiberd is using AI to change the amount of textiles that are thrown out and end up in landfill in the U.S. instead of being recycled or donated. Thanks in part to chief technology officer Tushita Gupta’s innovative work, the California-based company founded by herself and Sarika Bajaj, their goal is to provide the most accurate summary of what types of materials are in any given textile item.
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
Duolingo Announces Future Rollout of Music Learning Lessons
Duolingo is looking to hit a high note in mobile-based education as the East Liberty-based company seeks to harmoniously blend language and music learning into its popular flagship app.
Friday, September 8, 2023
TalkMeUp Press Release: Is AI The Missing Piece To Your Communication Skills Training Strategy?
In a recent press release from TalkMeUp, the platform that uses AI to help its users create a culture of super-communicators, the company addresses the issue of how many reserve communication skills training for high-potential employees and executives, indefinitely delaying a broader effort when time and budget allows. It also discusses how AI is the ingredient that allows communication skills development possible across the business.
Friday, September 1, 2023
Refiberd Sews Up $3.4M Seed Round to Use Its AI to Tackle Textile Waste
The fashion industry is sitting on a huge problem. Over 14M tons of clothing is either landfilled or incinerated every year, according to the EPA. It represents almost 6% of all solid waste in the U.S. Refiberd hopes to stitch up the gap. Sarika Bajaj and her co-founder, Tushita Gupta, founded the company three years ago to figure out a technical approach to solve this problem of sorting textiles to enable true textile-to-textile recycling.
Friday, August 18, 2023
Leah Lizarondo Joins the CMU Swartz Center as an Entrepreneur In Residence
Leah Lizarondo, the founder of Food Rescue Hero, a food recovery technology platform used in over 25 cities, has joined the CMU Swartz Center as an Entrepreneur In Residence (EIR).
Food Rescue Hero's platform has redirected over 100M pounds of perfectly good food from going to waste toward feeding people experiencing food insecurity. Prior to founding Food Rescue Hero, Leah has worked in technology, focused on investment, market and brand strategy for early stage companies and in brand management for global FMCG. Leah has won numerous awards for her work including Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Award in 2020 and the Vital Voices' Global Leadership Award. Most recently, she was recognized in the Grist 50, a list of emerging leaders creating impactful solutions to climate change.
Leah is a Rockefeller Foundation/Acumen Fellow and received her graduate degree in Public Policy & Technology from Carnegie Mellon University. She was born and raised in the Philippines and currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA.
Friday, August 18, 2023
Aug X Labs Integrates Voice Cloning by ElevenLabs
Founded by Carnegie Mellon Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences alumnus Jeremy Toeman, 2023 VentureBridge startup Aug X Labs has announced it has integrated Voice Cloning by ElevenLabs. The amazing feature allows users to quickly create professional, quality videos in the sound of their own voice. It is the first AI Video editor with AI Voice Cloning.
Thursday, August 17, 2023
Two CMU Materials Science and Biomedical Engineering Alumni Double Team Innovation in Sport
One of the most common complaints among consumers who purchase and use inflatable balls is that they inevitably go flat. An airless solution to remedy this issue in basketballs is in progress with two Carnegie Mellon University materials science and biomedical engineering alumni, Nadine Lippa and Dave Krzeminski, at the forefront of its development.
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
Shelfmark Sees Its Tech Deployed at Select 7-Eleven Locations in Pittsburgh
Shelfmark Inc., founded by Tepper School of Business alumnus and CEO Pat O’Donnell, now has its Scout system of inventory-scanning cameras hanging from the ceilings of select 7-Eleven convenience store locations throughout Pittsburgh. A spinout of Glen Lake Pioneering—a tech venture studio that took over a portion of space previously used by the Avenue coworking facility this past March—Shelfmark.makes tech that can detect and monitor various types of inventory on store shelves in real-time.
Friday, August 11, 2023
Jim Jen Takes Over as Director of Carnegie Mellon University's Corporate Startup Lab
A former executive at startup investment firm Innovation Works Inc. is getting back into the local startup ecosystem by taking over the Corporate Startup Lab (CSL) housed within the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University.
Jim Jen succeeded CSL Director and co-founder Sean Ammirati on August 7, 2023 and now runs the day-to-day operations of an initiative that performs research, develops tools and promotes ways for large companies to best integrate entrepreneurial practices into their own innovation processes. Jen, who simultaneously joins CMU's Tepper School of Business as a distinguished service professor of entrepreneurship, stepped down from his post as the chief operating officer at IW last February.
Read full bio.
Thursday, August 10, 2023
5 Founders Under 25: Isaiah Rodgers, Clutch
Tepper School of Business student and 2022-24 Innovation Scholar Isaiah Rodgers, fueled by an entrepreneurial spirit since childhood, co-founded Clutch alongside his brother, Zamir Rodgers. They are working to create a roadside assistance platform powered by gig drivers who use apps like Uber and DoorDash to offer rapid aid. Through a “Pay When You Need It, Not If You Need It” approach, Clutch aims to deliver prompt and dependable service, eradicating delays commonly associated with traditional providers.
Isaiah and Zamir also took first place in the Swartz Center's 2023 McGinnis Venture Competition.
Wednesday, August 9, 2023
VentureBridge Company Fluid Reality Wins "Best Demo" Award at the IEEE World Haptics Conference
Fluid Reality, a 2023 VentureBridge startup co-founded by Joe Mullenback and Craig Shultz, recently won "Best Demo" award at the IEEE World Haptics Conference in Delft, Netherlands. The two have been recognized by the experts in the field on the largest stage for haptics.
Fluid Reality was developed at Carnegie Mellon University with Chris Harrison.
Tuesday, August 8, 2023
CMU Startup Sweep Launches Open-Source AI-Powered Junior Developer
William Zeng (Carnegie Mellon) and Kevin Lu, are the co-founders of Sweep, an open-sourced, AI-powered junior developer that has just recently launched. Sweep takes your description of a feature or bugfix in a GitHub issue and writes a pull request with code.
Friday, August 4, 2023
Adam Paulisick Named to Technical.ly's 2023 RealLIST Connectors
Adam Paulisick, Tepper School of Business adjunct professor, co-organizer of XchangePGH with Kit Mueller and serial entrepreneur, has been named to Technical.ly's RealLIST Connectors. Adam is currently the co-founder of Skillbuilder.io and an investor and advisor to several startups. He is also a mentor to startups and a regular contributor to programming at the CMU Swartz Center.
Thursday, August 3, 2023
Hardly Launches Outplacement Services
Hardly, a CMU startup founded by CMU Tepper School of Business alumna Allison Braund-Harris focused on bringing career development to more people, has announced the launch of its outplacement services. Outplacement services not only help when downsizing a company's workforce, but can also aid in talent acquisition as an added benefit in case of future layoffs.
If interested in how to better support employees with transitioning to another career, contact allison@hardly-work.com.
Wednesday, August 2, 2023
Fellowship Launches to Train Underrepresented Individuals for Leadership Posts at Pittsburgh Tech Companies
A fellowship program looking to source underrepresented individuals in the region's tech scene has launched to help equip these people for leadership posts at local automation and robotics companies. The Promoting Emerging Entrepreneurs in Robotics (PEER) Fellowship is an effort created by Oakland-based nonprofit InnovatePGH and in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, Women In Tech PGH and the Equity Impact Center.
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