According to Merriam-Webster, an entrepreneur is “a person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money.” When people think of entrepreneur, and as I saw in my Sociology of Entrepreneurship class, they often think of buzzwords like “innovation” and “startups” and in today’s day and age, normally “Silicon Valley”, “tech”, and “new apps” tend to come to mind when you think of an entrepreneur. However, to me, being an entrepreneur is not just someone who starts a business or someone who is takes monetary risks, but rather someone who thinks in an innovative way and changes the way other people think.
Being an entrepreneur can certainly be someone who starts a business, and Duke’s campus has been, is, and always will be a place where students with creative minds put themselves to the test and create new ventures. From a neuromarketing firm in NeuroSpire, to a credit card-sized, on-the-go packet for contact lenses in Refresh Innovations to Nanoly, which enabling cheap, convenient, and safe delivery of vaccines to anywhere in the world, Duke students continuously think of ideas, hit the ground running, and are successful. The Duke Start-Up Challenge provides a great platform for students to develop their business ideas, pitch to judges and investors, market their idea, and turn their idea into a true business venture.
However, this is not the end of the line for students that want to make a change or a difference. We see organizations and leaders across campus that help to foster this mindset. Not only are they making changes, from Duke Student Government to the committees of Duke University Union, changes are being made at the student and administrative levels often. Seeing the improvements to everything, no matter how much it may seem like the status quo, makes me realize that the Duke Start-Up Challenge really helps provide a place where students can externalize their innovative thoughts and get them out to improve the public space.
In addition to starting businesses, the Start-Up Challenge allows participants to get in contact with over 500 alumni judges who have gone to Duke, understand the difficulties just studies are, and admire what our students are doing now. The students look to alumni for connections and advice and the alumni are able to look back with pride and admiration at how much the student body has grown since they have been on campus. They constantly comment about how even 5 or 10 years ago, some of the innovations we have on campus today, that arise form the innovative, entrepreneurial mindset, were not there when they were students.
So in the end, what does it mean to be an entrepreneur? It means not being afraid to disrupt the status quo. It means working together with others to foster cooperation and positive competition to arrive at the best possible result. At the Start-Up Challenge, we hope to provide a platform where the best minds at this renowned university can express their “crazy” ideas that will some day make huge changes in the world. For more information about how to get involved, about how to submit an idea for next year, or just about the resources we have on campus, check us out at www.dukestartupchallenge.org .Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
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