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.
Focused on the entrepreneurial world As the designated video channel for entrepreneurship, the e360TV Channel features content focused on important topics that are impacting the world of entrepreneurship as we know it.
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.
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.
Stanford Engineering lecturer and FLOODGATE partner Ann Miura-Ko offers insight into the democratization of innovation in the Internet age, and its affect on investment cycles. Additionally, Miura-Ko speaks candidly about the need to test business models, her firm's desire to be an advocate for "thunder lizard" entrepreneurs, and the challenges of achieving true work/life balance.
While Plan A may begin the backbone on which an entrepreneurial idea is hinged, succinct data gathering and constant market evaluation more often lead to profit with the next idea in line. The tech sector breeds innovation, says KPCB partner and frequent speaker Randy Komisar, and to do so it is required to accept the numerous fits and starts of the start-up.
Teresa Briggs currently serves as a Managing Partner at Deloitte's Silicon Valley office. Over the past two years, Briggs has worked to double the firm's staff to at least 1,300. She joined the firm when only seven percent of the partners were women. She arrived at Deloitte & Touche as one of the youngest partners in the company. Rising quickly, she moved to Deloitte's New York office working to redesign the company's corporate strategy at a national level, which then led to her current position. On top of all her accomplishments at Deloitte, Briggs has served on the Management Board of Advisors at her alma mater, the University of Arizona, and she spent eight years serving on the board of the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco. Teresa also recently participated in the Leadership Group's Annual CEO/Elected Official Cycle‐To‐Work Day Challenge to help curb climate change, riding from Redwood Shores to downtown San Jose and back. She was also recently named a "Woman of Distinction" in the San Jose / Silicon Valley Business Journal, and she has been added to the Business Journal's "Who's Who in Silicon Valley" list. Briggs holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Arizona.
Entrepreneurship is an emotional and economic roller coaster, says venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur Mark Suster. In this candid and informative lecture, Suster defies some of Silicon Valley's conventional wisdom. Based on his extensive experience with multiple companies, Suster shares his thoughts on the real day-to-day life of startups, smart ways to raise the right kind of funds, and offers honest advice in making your way as an entrepreneur.
Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Jennifer Aaker shares the power behind creating ideas that can build momentum. Through her research on the perception of happiness and meaning, Aaker describes how these concepts relate to a successful and powerful social media campaign. A well-planned effort catches audience attention and offers them an engaging story. Aaker, co-author of The Dragonfly Effect, also offers several personal and corporate examples of effective viral campaigns that garnered real world, and even life-saving, results.
Thomas J. Fogarty is a specialist whose creative talents have impacted many diverse professional and entrepreneurial arenas. In addition to his teaching responsibilities as Professor of Surgery at Stanford University, Dr. Fogarty performs numerous cardiac and peripheral vascular surgeries, manages several medical device companies founded upon his product designs, is founder and active Senior Partner in the venture capital firm of Three Arch Partners, and also finds time to pursue his interest in oenology at the family owned and operated Thomas Fogarty Winery and Vineyards. During the past 40 years he has acquired over 70 surgical patents, including the "industry standard" Fogarty balloon embolectomy catheter. Patented in 1969, this first balloon catheter for the vascular system was a sophisticated version of the original crude instrument that young Tom Fogarty, then an OR scrub technician, designed in the late 1950's using a surgical glove finger tied to a ureteral catheter. Other commercially successful medical products designed by the Fogarty engineering group include a minimally invasive device for breast cancer diagnosis and therapy, and also a self-expanding stent-graft used to treat critical aortic aneurysms via a minimally invasive technique. Dr. Fogarty is a past recipient of the Inventor of the Year award given by the San Francisco Patent and Trademark Association, a four-time recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Presentation award presented by the American College of Surgeons, and was the first recipient to receive the award for "Achievement in Medicine" bestowed by the Santa Clara County Medical Association. Selected recent awards include the 2000 Lemelson-MIT $500,000 Prize for Invention and Innovation as well as the Association for Advancement of Medical Instrumentation Foundation's Annual Laufman-Greatbatch Prize for inventing breakthrough medical devices. Later in 200
Want to get connected? Sign up to receive regular news, polls and updates from The Kauffman Foundation.
