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.
Steve Westly is the Founder and a Managing Partner of the Westly Group. He formerly served as the Controller and Chief Fiscal Officer of the state of California - the world's sixth largest economy. As Controller, he chaired the State Lands Commission and served on 63 other boards and commissions, including CalPERS and CalSTRS, the nation's two largest public pension funds, which together invest more than $350 billion. During his four-year term, Westly spearheaded innovative tax programs that helped close the State's budget deficit and also led an effort to commit more than $1 billion to clean technology investments. Before running for office, Westly helped guide the online auction company eBay through its period of most rapid growth, serving as the Senior Vice President of Marketing, Business Development, M&A and International. Westly helped bring eBay to Europe and Asia and developed the marketing and acquisition strategies that paved the path for the firm's exponential growth. He began his career in Washington, D.C., first working on Capitol Hill and later in the Office of Conservation and Solar at the U.S. Department of Energy. Westly returned to California to become special assistant to the President of the California Public Utilities Commission. While there, he published two books on alternative energy and the utilities. He?s also held senior positions at Sprint Communications, Netcom, and WhoWhere?. Westly holds a bachelor's degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business, where he served on the faculty for five years. He and his wife, Anita, run the Westly Foundation, which provides education and health care services for children and underserved communities throughout California.
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.
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.
Eric Ries is the author of the blog Lessons Learned. He was the co-founder and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU, his third startup. He is the co-author of several books including The Black Art of Java Game Programming (Waite Group Press, 1996). In 2007, BusinessWeek named Ries one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech. He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups including pbWiki, Smule, 750i and KaChing.
Steve Jurvetson is a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. He was the founding VC investor in Hotmail, Interwoven, and Kana. He also led the firm's investments in Tradex and Cyras (acquired by Ariba and Ciena for $8 billion), and most recently, in pioneering companies in nanotechnology and molecular electronics. Previously, Jurvetson was an R&D Engineer at Hewlett-Packard, where seven of his communications chip designs were fabricated. His prior technical experience also includes programming, materials science research (TEM atomic imaging of GaAs), and computer design at HP's PC Division, the Center for Materials Research, and Mostek. He has also worked in product marketing at Apple and NeXT Software. As a consultant with Bain & Company, Jurvetson developed executive marketing, sales, engineering and business strategies for a wide range of companies in the software, networking, and semiconductor industries. At Stanford University, he finished his BSEE in 2.5 years and graduated #1 in his class as the Henry Ford Scholar. Jurvetson also holds an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford. He received his MBA from the Stanford Business School, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. Jurvetson also serves on the Merrill Lynch and STVP Advisory Boards and is Co-Chair of the NanoBusiness Alliance. He was honored as "The Valley's Sharpest VC" on the cover of Business 2.0 and chosen by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner as one of, "The ten people expected to have the greatest impact on the Bay Area in the early part of the 21st Century." He was profiled in the New York Times Magazine and also featured on the cover of Worth and Fortune magazines. Jurvetson was chosen by Forbes as one of "Tech's Best Venture Investors"; by the VC Journal as one of the "Ten Most Influential VCs"; and by Fortune as part of their "Brain Tr
As Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development at Sun, Greg Papadopoulos directs the company's approximate $2B in R&D portfolio with an eye toward innovation, simplicity, and eco-responsibility. With more than 20 years experience in the technology industry, Papadopoulos is responsible for managing Sun's technology decisions and architecture. His team leads Sun Labs, the DARPA High Performance Computing Systems program, global engineering architecture, and advanced development programs. Passionate about technology and its possibilities, Papadopoulos supports open development models that stimulate communication, creativity, and innovation, which he promotes through his blog, Greg Matter, as well as numerous speaking engagements. During his tenure with Sun, Papadopoulos has held several positions, including Vice President of Technology and Advanced Development for the company's systems business, Chief Scientist for Server Systems Engineering, and Chief Scientist for Enterprise Servers and Storage. Before joining Sun in 1994, Papadopoulos was a senior architect and director of product strategy for Thinking Machines, where he led the design of the CM6 massively parallel supercomputer. Papadopoulos was an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, where he conducted research in scalable systems, multi threaded/data flow processor architecture, functional and declarative languages, and fault-tolerant computing. Papadopoulos also worked as a development engineer at Hewlett-Packard and Honeywell, where he designed flight-control systems for Boeing jetliners. He co-founded three companies: PictureTel (video conferencing), Ergo (high-end PCs) and Exa Corporation (computational fluid dynamics). Papadopoulos participates in several associations, including serving as Chairman of the Board for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intellig
Dr. Craig Barrett recently stepped down as Chairman of the Board of Intel Corporation, a post he held from May 2005 to May 2009. He is a leading advocate for improving education in the U.S. and around the world. He is also a vocal spokesman for the value technology can provide in raising social and economic standards globally. Dr. Barrett joined Intel Corporation in 1974 as a technology development manager. He was named a vice president of the corporation in 1984, promoted to Senior Vice President in 1987, and Executive Vice President in 1990. Dr. Barrett was elected to Intel Corporation's Board of Directors in 1992 and he was named the company's Chief Operating Officer in 1993. He became Intel's fourth President in May 1997, Chief Executive Officer in 1998, and Chairman of the Board on May 18, 2005. Craig Barrett was born August 29, 1939 in San Francisco, California. He attended Stanford University in Palo Alto, California from 1957 to 1964, and received his Bachelor of Science, Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Materials Science. After graduation, he joined the faculty of Stanford University in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and remained through 1974, rising to the rank of Associate Professor. Dr. Barrett was a Fulbright Fellow at Danish Technical University in Denmark in 1972 and a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Physical Laboratory in England from 1964 to 1965. Dr. Barrett is the author of over 40 technical papers dealing with the influence of microstructure on the properties of materials, and a textbook on materials science, Principles of Engineering Materials. Dr. Barrett served until June, 2009 as Chairman of the United Nations Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development, which works to bring computers and other technology to developing parts of the world. He co-chairs Achieve, Inc., is Vice Chairman of
Weighing in at 150 lbs, is Mark Pincus, frenetic visionary of Zynga. His DNA is one strand entrepreneur and one strand competitive gamer. Mark founded Tribe.net (www.tribe.net), one of the first social networks in 2003. Prior to Tribe, he was the founder and CEO of SupportSoft (Nasdaq: SPRT), the world's leading provider of support automation software. Prior to SupportSoft, Mark co-founded Freeloader, the first consumer push information service.
For more than 20 years, filmmaker, music producer, and creative visionary QD3 has been producing hits and influencing culture. QD3 was born in London and raised in Stockholm, Sweden where he got his start in Hip Hop by touring as a break-dancer. With many gold, platinum and multi-platinum albums and singles to his name, QD3's success spreads to Rap, R&B and Pop. In addition to his many hits with artists such as Tupac, Ice Cube, and L.L. Cool J, he has composed award-winning musical scores for film and TV projects such as Menace II Society, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Training Day. In 1999, QD3 started a documentary production company, QD3 Entertainment, focused on chronicling the many dimensions of urban culture, garnering both commercial success and critical acclaim for titles such as the multi-platinum selling Tupac Shakur biopic, Thug Angel; the BEEF series; and most recently, the Lil' Wayne (Sundance) biopic, The Carter. In June 2006, QD3 went on to form QD3 Digital to take advantage of the technology explosion of broadband video, user generated content, video on demand, and mobile platforms. In 2009, QD3 Digital will be launching two web-based entertainment properties, qd3.com and ehustle.com. Early 2010 will follow with the launch of its first XBox and PS3 video game, Scratch: The Ultimate DJ, in partnership with Genius Products, Numark, and Akai.
Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur with over 30 years of experience in high technology companies and management. He is a Consulting Professor at Stanford in the Graduate School of Engineering STVP Program. Steve has been a founder or participant in eight Silicon Valley startups since 1978. His last company, E.piphany, started in his living room. His other startups include two semiconductor companies (Zilog and MIPS Computers), a workstation company (Convergent Technologies), a supercomputer firm (Ardent), a computer peripheral supplier (SuperMac), a military intelligence systems supplier (ESL) and a video game company (Rocket Science Games). Steve is on the board of CafePress.com, an on-line marketplace, and IMVU, a 3D IM social network. Steve was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the California Coastal Commission and is the Chairman of Audubon California and on the board of the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST.) His Google Tech talk, "The Secret History of Silicon Valley" (available on YouTube) is one of the definitive views on the early history of innovation in Silicon Valley. Steve teaches entrepreneurship and a methodology of managing marketing, sales and business development in high technology startups. His course text "Four Steps to the Epiphany" is the definitive work on Customer Development and is one of the foundations of Lean Startups.
Want to get connected? Sign up to receive regular news, polls and updates from The Kauffman Foundation.
