to page content
to site navigation
The Foundation's primary site.
Global news, events, and resources.
The national learning program for entrepreneurs.
A new approach to developing the next generation of high-growth firms.
Access to university research and innovation.
The Kauffman Foundation's charter school serving Kansas City.
Encouraging the aspirations of young people.
The platform for business plan competitions.
College preparation and access for urban youth in Kansas City.
A guide to Kauffman Foundation and partner resources, for aspiring entrepreneurs.
News and announcements from the Foundation.
From our vice president of Entrepreneurship.
From our vice president of Advancing Innovation.
News from Global Entrepreneurship Week
News about this education program for entrepreneurs.
Tweets for the eMed Community at Entrepreneurship.org
News from the Kauffman Labs program.
From our business plan competition service.
Contribute to the community seeking to improve entrepreneurship and innovation measurement.
A look at entrepreneurship from the Kauffman Foundation's Thom Ruhe.
Tracks research and policies that are accelerating economic growth and changing the world.
Brings to light various policies and initiatives to advance innovation and drive economic growth.
A selection of our videos
Take our video and audio with you.
Explore many of our publications.
Join the discussion on our LinkedIn site.
Join us on Google's social service.
The Resource Center has all the info you'll need From content to user feedback, the resource center has the information you need for every level of the entrepreneurial process.
Danish-born David Heinemeier Hansson is the programmer and creator of the popular Ruby on Rails web development framework and the Instiki wiki. He is also a partner at the Web-based software development firm 37signals, based in Chicago. Ruby on Rails provides a "basic development environment" for programmers, according to Wikipedia.org. Based on the programming language Ruby (developed by Japanese programmer Yukihiro Matsumoto in 1995), Ruby on Rails focuses on user interface and "convention over configuration"; meaning, developers can focus on the unique qualities of their Web site or program rather than the building blocks that every application may require. Released in 2004, Ruby on Rails has been incorporated into many applications used by some of the biggest companies, from Twitter to Apple's 2007 release of Mac OS X v.10.5 "Leopard." Aside from his development of Ruby on Rails, Heinemeier Hansson also works as a partner for Web-based software development firm 37signals. Joining the company in 2003, he has helped develop Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack and other Web-based applications. Working in similar ways like Web-based e-mail services like Yahoo! e-mail and Google's Gmail, 37signals hosts a broad range of IT services for companies, including project management to information-sharing. The firm's software has been used by Kellogg's, Sun Microsystems and even Obama '08. Hansson received his bachelor's degree from the Copenhagen Business School in 2005. In that same year, he moved to Chicago and received Hacker of the Year honors for his work on Ruby on Rails from Google and O'Reilly Media. He runs a blog called LoudThinking.com.
Robin Li is the Co-founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Baidu, Inc., and oversees the company's overall strategy and business operations. Since founding Baidu in January 2000, Li has turned the company into the largest Chinese search engine, with over 70% market share, and the third largest independent search engine in the world. In 2005, Baidu completed its successful IPO on NASDAQ, and in 2007 it became the first Chinese company to be included in the NASDAQ-100 Index. Prior to Baidu, Li was already regarded as one of the world's top search engine experts. His hyperlink analysis, patented in 1996, is among the inventions that shaped today's search engine technology. Li worked as a staff engineer for Infoseek, a pioneer Internet search engine company, from July 1997 to December 1999, and as a senior consultant for IDD Information Services from May 1994 to June 1997. Robin Li received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Information Management from Peking University in 1991, and a Master of Science Degree in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1994.
Ann Winblad is the co-founding Partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. She is a well-known and respected software industry entrepreneur and technology leader. Her background and experience have been chronicled in many national business and trade publications. Ann has over 25 years of experience in the software industry. She began her career as a systems programmer at the Federal Reserve Bank. In 1976 Ann co-founded Open Systems, Inc., a top selling accounting software company, with a $500 investment. She operated Open Systems profitably for six years and then sold it for over $15 million. Prior to co-founding Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Ann served as a strategy consultant for prestigious clients such as IBM, Microsoft, Price Waterhouse, and numerous start-ups. In addition, Ann has co-authored the book Object-Oriented Software and has written articles for numerous publications. Ann received a BA in mathematics and in business administration, as well as an MA in education and international economics from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota. Ann also has an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of St. Thomas. Ann has served as a Director of start-up and public companies and currently serves as a director of Intacct, The Knot, Voltage Security, Krillion and Mulesource. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of St. Thomas and is an advisor to numerous entrepreneur groups.
How do entrepreneurs change society? Is it through the potential of their ideas? Is it the passion that drives them? Or their ability to see opportunities where others cannot? Is it the impact and innovation of the events that come from their work? Or is it the belief that an idea can change the world?
Tina Seelig is the Executive Director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program where she is responsible for the management, operations, and dissemination efforts of STVP. In addition, Tina is the Director of the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network and the co-Director of the Mayfield Fellows Program. Tina also teaches a course in the Department of Management Science & Engineering on Creativity and Innovation. Prior to joining STVP, Tina worked as an entrepreneur, management consultant, author, and scientist. Tina received her Ph.D. from Stanford University Medical School in 1985 where she studied Neuroscience. Tina has worked as management consultant for Booz, Allen, and Hamilton, has written several popular science books and has designed a series of educational games. Her books include The Epicurean Laboratory, Incredible Edible Science, and a series called Games for Your Brain. After Tina's first book was published in 1991, she became interested in how books are marketed. This led her to start a company designed to help match books with buyers. The product was a multimedia system for bookstore customers, called BookBrowser. BookBrowser was a kiosk-based system that allowed customers to identify books of interest. With the help of a team of engineers and graphic designers, Tina built the business and sold the company in 1993. After selling her business, Tina worked as a Multimedia Producer for Compaq Computer Corporation. In this position Tina led a team of engineers, artists, scriptwriters, and education specialists through the design and implementation of a series of multimedia titles. Tina's current position as Executive Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program takes advantage of her technical background, in addition to her experiences as a manager, entrepreneur, and educator.
Anna Patterson is President and Founder of search engine Cuil. Her focus is on scaling architecture, tackling one of the major problems in search-the exponential growth of the Internet. Anna was the architect of Google?s large search index, TeraGoogle, that launched in early 2006. While at Google, Anna was the technical lead of one of the two Web ranking groups at Google, in charge of GoogleBase, and the manager for the core piece of Google's ad-matching technology. She joined Google in 2004 after designing, writing and selling Recall-the largest search engine in existence at the time at 12 billion pages. Anna has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and was a Research Scientist at Stanford University.
Kauffman Foundation’s Thom Ruhe provides a quick overview and introduction to FastTrac and eMindset, part of the Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative.
Kauffman FastTrac presents FastTrac Entrepreneurship WordCloud.
John Osher, serial entrepreneur and inventor of the SpinBrush, describes the three words that are what he calls "the essence of entrepreneurial success".
Want to get connected? Sign up to receive regular news, polls and updates from The Kauffman Foundation.
