When you visit the public university that created the highest number of venture-funded startups in the world, you expect it will not happen by chance. And yet, uncovering scientifically the hows and whys is as frustrating as ambitious; it’s elusive and somehow feels like magic, despite the tangible evidence. But these aren’t just academic questions – they cut to the heart of how Berkeley consistently turns ideas into action, and how entrepreneurial universities worldwide could “make it happen” as well.

On the flyer, the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology (SCET) appears rather confident in their portfolio of entrepreneurship education programs: “We will make sure you will learn the mindset and behaviors that drive success”. And of course, that’s a catchphrase, but I can’t help but academically appreciate how specific is the expectation they set. Indeed, the reality is that we can nurture entrepreneurial capabilities, but the creation of solid startups is just a different and imperfect game. 

During the semester I spent at SCET, I was privileged to witness how they orchestrated their entrepreneurship education programs to impact the students. But throughout the entire period, I always felt like lingering around the White Rabbit hole, sniffing at the outline and occasionally sticking my head in to look deeper. Many students described their separate entrepreneurial journeys as “being thrown into the rapids of a whitewater and emerging with concrete opportunities”. Where does this success take shape? It is evident that the Berkeley brand and Silicon Valley play an important role, but in my narration and partial opinion I can already spoil that the most shared and culturally appropriate idea I gathered was that Berkeley makes it happen by “allowing for serendipity” – I will now take three different perspectives to unravel such magic.

Entrepreneurship Educators as Modern Heroes

The main focus of my research at SCET converged on the role of their educators in delivering effective entrepreneurship programs. Academically, the pedagogical landscape is divided into a more traditional education “about and for” entrepreneurship and a more recent education “through” entrepreneurship. The empirical observation is that entrepreneurship programs worldwide are increasingly blurring these boundaries, emphasizing the more general idea of deploying experiential and transformative learning journeys. As such, entrepreneurship education programs range from innovating on existing products through design thinking processes (challenge-based learning, CBL) to gamifying the creation of actual ventures (venture creation programs, VCPs); but the most prominent feature is the engagement of external actors like users, mentors, industry fellows, venture capitals etc. that challenge students to validate their learnings.  

SCET embodies such experiential entrepreneurship education in each course and summarizes it as the “Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship” (BMoE), highlighting the focus on the entrepreneurial mindset. The most straightforward example is the (BMoE) bootcamp that happens right before the beginning of the semester, where students and professionals work together for 5 days in learning-by-doing the fundamentals of venture creation. Then, the portfolio of programs varies, ranging from the horizontal Collider Labs, which offer different tracks for solving innovation challenges, to the more vertical courses like Technology Entrepreneurship or Startup Catalyst, which concretely support venture development, and other formats in the between like the Newton’s Lecture Series, which allow students to interact with distinguished innovators.

Modern entrepreneurship education appears difficult and it requires structures and frameworks of reference, but providing an experiential learning journey that includes all those external actors completely breaks the classroom’s fourth wall. Here, educators cannot be just teachers but must encompass many roles, such as facilitators, coordinators, project managers, or boundary spanners. Guess which other job has the same requirements? Well, one of SCET’s secrets is that most of its entrepreneurship educators are current entrepreneurs, and this works brilliantly, also because students appear to learn better from those who have already faced the hurdles of developing a startup. These people are passionate, competent, empathetic, independent, and able to manage the daily tensions of engaging multiple actors. “It is overwhelming unless you have already been a CEO for five startup companies… you learn to become very efficient, otherwise you can’t run a company.”  However, this comes with a price: you’re dealing with uniquely self-driven entrepreneurs, and sometimes they reverberate their personalities and beliefs into the entrepreneurship program. “I didn’t want to run or coordinate a course: I wanted to teach it my way. And my superior knows me well enough that he knows the best way to help me perform is to get out of the way and just let me do it.”.

Overall, when looking at the big picture of success as the number of student startups, we lack acknowledgement of how effective the entrepreneurship education programs are; in delivering experiential journeys, courses become projects or entrepreneurial ventures even, and success is a much more nuanced concept that is reinterpreted locally by each educator.

“What I really enjoy out of the classes is to take the ones that have potential but are hesitant, or don’t have the confidence, culturally or whatever, and get them to cross that line.”

“I believe a good class is where you’re a different person after taking it, and the best way to see if this is actually useful is if you have been able to apply some of these skills if you are actually activating some change for yourself and also outside.”

Bubbles of Microcosms

Throughout my interviews at SCET, entrepreneurship educators have shared how they developed their programs both as singular entities and as part of a collective entrepreneurship offering. This was central to understanding the idea of success: does the “make it happen” actualize in specific programs or is it a compounded effect along a longer journey? As far as I could tell, programs had very different origins and development journeys, but semester after semester SCET reassessed and increasingly glued them in an overall offering or portfolio. This usually happens in most universities, only with different dynamics and conditions; on the surface, one could not simply say that Berkeley’s current entrepreneurship offering is better than others.

Such an act of bricolage is a difficult endeavor as we need to ensure that programs work by themselves while designing how and if they connect to serve specific purposes. We need a strong sensibility to what happens within the single programs and how external initiatives can serve them best. Although the research I focus on states that we need to properly design entrepreneurship education programs, SCET purposely stayed out of the specific programs and only focused on serving them by building a platform. 

One example is represented by the challenge-based learning courses offered as “Collider Labs”, which are not developed by SCET itself. These courses belong to independent research entities working on separate topics like alternative meat or environmental disasters, and that thrive on a delicate internal balance between research and teaching. SCET offered to structure and gather some of their teaching activities under the umbrella of Collider Labs, and this resulted in a win-win situation where the research entities and SCET reciprocally enlarged their networks and entrepreneurship offerings. Another example is the Startup Semester, an international cohort of students who have the opportunity to navigate SCET’s offering of entrepreneurship courses and programs to develop their startup, catering additional network to the ecosystem.

Therefore, at SCET allowing for local development of the entrepreneurship education programs is extremely intentional and encouraged. Then, the Center is mainly focused on building two other things: a cultural North Star (the BMoE) and complimentary services. It is immediate to mention how its entrepreneurship offering serves and is served by other activities such as professional programs and global partnerships with other universities. Again, each of these activities developed as microcosms out of opportunity recognition (e.g. “we have a bunch of international friends”), but SCET has more control over them compared to the entrepreneurship education programs, which have to stay flexible by definition.

I will now enter the White Rabbit hole to start drafting my partial conclusion. I mentioned earlier that the local population, when faced with the straightforward question, just highlighted the idea of Berkeley allowing for serendipity. Which recursively clashes with the initial “make it happen” idea that I described; are we implying intentionality? The answer may lie somewhere in the middle: perhaps Berkeley doesn’t merely allow for serendipity, it designs for it.

SCET is explicit about this model that it calls the “Innovation Collider”, which translates to how the infrastructure and culture crafted at SCET and beyond lay down a fertile ground where unplanned collaborations between a multitude of actors are more likely to happen. Entrepreneurship educators, supported by SCET, play a pivotal role in nurturing and curating their local experiential educational journey, which converges towards the collider as a whole.

A Concrete Tool to Finally Stimulate Serendipity

Intentionally or not, micro-managing or not, the structure holds and SCET is centrally positioned to host hundreds of brilliant students in an intricate network of alumni, mentors, industry partners and investors, and other activities offered by other Berkeley departments. And still, is this the best configuration for university’s entrepreneurship centers worldwide? How did Berkeley as a whole manage to create all those venture-funded startups? We can see the beehive, but not the dance.

At one point it goes down to the people. Indeed, beyond the deliberate choice of hiring entrepreneurs, many have also recognized that SCET is just always able to choose competent and responsible people. Then, these people gather confidence and ownership of their programs, and to improve them semester after semester they put into practice feedback loops. Boldly enough, systemic serendipity originates from locally developed feedback loops.

“I have an expert team of teaching assistants that have taken this class and now have been through so many bootcamps that they can identify issues. They know what was magical for them, and now that they get to be the ones that deliver it, they just take the initiative – it’s really cool how they are raising the bar.” 

“We have a team of volunteer ambassadors, who are students with great energy who felt activated by our program and wanted to engage more. For me, they’re like my focus group of highly activated students, a listening group. So they table with me, participate in panels, interact with prospective students, produce graphics, and so on, but it’s on their volunteering time.”

Existing frameworks fall short of capturing the essence of such a multifaceted reality. There’s no business model, Berkeley brand, or Silicon Valley; serendipity is a happy accident delicately crafted as an outcome of myriad feedback mechanisms operating within Berkeley and SCET’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Feedback loops are just one bottom-up mechanism – listening, adapting, evolving -, but both practice and research must look at this level of granularity to be able to uncover how we can orchestrate the emergence of innovation and entrepreneurship in universities — how we make it happen.

“If I hear another framework, I’m gonna puke, because it’s not about frameworks; people write on all these papers about frameworks and stuff, but at the foundation, it’s empathy about everybody. It’s really about being there and being aware of the whole time.”

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Minjoo Sur (B.S. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science ‘18), co-founder and CEO of Huddle, joined the UC Berkeley SCET community after transferring to UC Berkeley in the fall of 2016. Since then, she has worked as a software engineer at Salesforce. Over the past year, she has furthered her mission to help people stay motivated to achieve their goals by developing her startup, Huddle, a platform designed to promote accountability and community in individuals’s journeys of self-improvement and discovery. We followed up with Minjoo Sur to learn more about her entrepreneurial journey, the origins of Huddle, and where she is headed next. 

First Steps in Entrepreneurship

Minjoo Sur always knew she wanted to develop her software startup eventually. When she transferred to UC Berkeley in 2016, she pursued a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science to establish a strong technical foundation. After deciding to expand her business acumen, she enrolled in ENGIN 183E 001 – Technology Entrepreneurship taught by Professor Naeem Zafar. Minjoo noted that this particular class stood out to her as having the greatest impact on her personal and professional development. At the time, Minjoo described herself as a student with deep passion but no pertinent knowledge. She felt energized and inspired by the high-intensity but rewarding demands of the class, and she grew more confident in her pitching and communication skills. Minjoo notes that the highlight of the course was her first of many pitches – it was the first time she envisioned herself as an entrepreneur, beyond the classroom. She said, “I could really see myself being an entrepreneur. It was not only educational but practical.”

From Industry to Startup

Following her graduation from UC Berkeley in 2018, Minjoo spent the next five years working in a software engineering role at Salesforce. Though she deeply enjoyed her work, she revealed that this role also allowed her the flexibility to dedicate more time to her side hustles. 

After experiencing a difficult loss in the family, Minjoo questioned her purpose – what she wanted to do during her lifetime, and what impact she wanted to have on the world. 

To Minjoo, entrepreneurship isn’t just about turning a profit – it’s about solving societal problems, catalyzing positive cultural shifts, and embarking on a fulfilling journey of self-discovery. During this difficult time, she read several books to find a reason and purpose in her life pursuits. One book, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness, imparted a profound message: to build a successful company, one must dedicate oneself wholly to an issue they are uniquely positioned to address, where their contributions become indispensable and irreplaceable. This alignment is essential not only to building a successful business but also to finding fulfillment and happiness along the way. 

Minjoo reflected on finding the intersection between something she loved to do and a societal problem. She deeply enjoyed motivating others to embrace opportunities for personal growth and observed that her peers struggled to hold themselves accountable for their goals. Minjoo then focused on finding co-founders and got to work building her startup, Huddle. 

“Huddle came to my mind naturally after I found the common ground of my purpose, passion, and my talent: self-improvement, motivating others, helping others understand themselves, connecting people, positivity, creativity, and empathy.”

Even in the earliest days of developing Huddle, Minjoo felt confident entering a new world of uncertainty. Equipped with the entrepreneurial acumen gained from SCET classes, industry experience, and strong technical background, she felt prepared and driven to build a platform aiming to transform the way people go about achieving their goals. More specifically, Huddle currently helps members with ADHD find connections with accountability partners with similar goals. Users can connect with partners to help them stay on track, measure their progress, and foster a sense of camaraderie along the way. 

Looking Ahead

Today, Minjoo and her two co-founders are working full-time to grow Huddle. They have launched their MVP on Slack and are currently focusing on crafting their go-to-market strategy. They have sixteen paying users in the San Francisco area, and they have received hundreds of requests to open more spots outside of the Bay Area. In the future, they are looking to scale their company, and they hope to deepen relationships among users through hosting in-person community events. 

“Our vision is to create a world where every person has a support system to become the best version of themselves. We want to make a self-growth journey less lonely and more inspiring by connecting people who have similar life goals to grow together.”

The post Meet Minjoo Sur, the Entrepreneur Helping People Stay Motivated appeared first on UC Berkeley Sutardja Center.

This summer, I participated in the Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program in Europe, a month-long study abroad experience held in Segovia, Spain, and Porto, Portugal. The program was divided into two parts. The first week, known as Berkeley Leadership Week (ENGIN 183B: Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship), was an experiential, gamified experience held at IE University in Segovia, Spain designed to instill in us invaluable leadership lessons and hone our entrepreneurial mindsets. In the latter three weeks, our Berkeley cohort joined the European Innovation Academy in Porto (ENGIN 183C: Challenge Lab), a world-class program centered around tech entrepreneurship. This fast-paced, intensive program was an enlightening experience and allowed me to forge lifelong connections with peers around the world. In just 15 days, we learned to take a startup idea from inception to a refined final pitch, which we delivered to a panel of seasoned entrepreneurs and investors.

Here are my top 8 takeaways from my study abroad experience!

1. Team, Team, Team!

As SCET Managing Director & Chief Learning Officer Ken Singer put it, “Entrepreneurship is the ultimate team sport.” A strong and resilient team is the backbone of any successful venture. At the end of the day, it’s the team that can be either a startup’s competitive edge or its Achilles’ heel. Your team might have the most disruptive technology or most innovative business model, but if the team doesn’t work, the idea can’t succeed. Successful teams are characterized by diversity and balance across skills and personalities, all united in a shared vision, values, and commitment. Ideas are only secondary to the makeup of the team, and founders must be able to demonstrate to investors that they are the right people to bring an idea to life. 

Remember to surround yourself with teammates who fill your weaknesses, and choose your teammates wisely!

2. Leverage the Power of Mentorship

Throughout our time at the European Innovation Academy, we had the opportunity to seek mentorship from seasoned professionals across a diverse array of industry expertise, including business development, marketing, and design. Effective mentorship can be a cornerstone to the success of a budding startup, serving as a guide for new founders to navigate uncharted waters. Mentors can play a variety of roles within a startup – whether it be helping to identify problems, exploring different options, providing deep industry expertise, facilitating access to others, or serving as a sounding board for founders. However, it is imperative to remember that the goal is to seek guidance from mentors, not answers. While mentors might not have the “right answers”, they can provide valuable insights that can steer founders in a promising direction.

3. Fail Early and Fast (and Cheap!)

In the startup world, failure and rejection are inextricable parts of the journey. These experiences, though frustrating, can be great learning experiences that every entrepreneur should embrace. This is not easy, as we’ve been conditioned to associate failure with negative emotions. It’s often in the difficult moments that clarity can be achieved – it’s better to recognize early on that a particular idea or approach is a dead end, rather than investing significant time and capital into it. 

Another thing I learned is that perfectionism is the enemy of progress. When building a startup, effective and speedy execution must take precedence over delivering a “perfect” product. The truth is, endless iteration and feedback are required to achieve success. 

4. Focus on the Problem, not the Solution

One of the most recurring pieces of feedback received from our professors, mentors, and lecturers was the importance of developing a solution only after gaining a comprehensive understanding of the problem. Only after a thorough customer discovery and validation process should we begin developing a solution. Early-stage founders must avoid two common pitfalls: creating a solution without a well-defined problem and falling in love with the idea. In the first week of the European Innovation Academy, our teams were instructed to spend significant time with our potential customers to learn as much as possible about their current behaviors, priorities, pain points, attitudes, and lifestyles to find product-market fit. After each iteration, it’s crucial to maintain close contact with the customer to keep on improving the business.

5. Every Person You Meet is an Opportunity to Learn

During this program, we were able to meet hundreds of new people. Not only did I develop friendships with my sixty fellow students from Berkeley but I was able to meet numerous students from all over the globe at the European Innovation Academy. One of the most meaningful aspects of studying abroad was engaging with different cultures, traditions, and lifestyles. My five-person team was composed of members from three different continents. Collaborating with a diverse group of people enhanced the flow of ideas, increased our creativity, and improved our communication skills. While I learned much from daily lectures and workshops, I found that I learned the most from my peers.

6. Conflict can be Healthy and Necessary

Contrary to what we’re often conditioned to think, conflict is a good thing. During our time at the European Innovation Academy, my team experienced a fair share of conflicts. However, because we established a culture of open-mindedness early on, each team member felt empowered with honesty and compassion without worry. We were required to develop a co-founder agreement, outlining our strategies for conflict resolution. Embracing conflict fosters healthy discussion and discovery, enabling teams to establish a culture that values diverse viewpoints. Team conflict can facilitate better problem-solving, provide clarity, and spur creativity and innovation. It’s important to remember that healthy tension and communication are important to making progress.

7. Listen and Learn Continuously

Active listening is one of the most important skills for entrepreneurs, especially at the earliest stages of a venture. It’s a founder’s job to listen and learn from the people around them whose voices matter most – whether it be your customers, mentors, or teammates. In the customer discovery process, I learned that the most effective approach is to simply focus on learning about the customer. Pitching or selling from the get-go, talking more than listening, or prompting the customer with leading questions can hinder a founder’s ability to unlock the most promising solutions. Equally important is listening attentively to each team member, especially the members who tend to be more introverted – it’s often these individuals who have insights or information that can propel a team forward.

8. Let’s Redefine Leadership

Finally, I learned that leadership is not a one-size-fits-all concept, especially in entrepreneurial environments where innovation often requires a shift away from more traditional methods. There is a difference between being a good leader and being a good manager: a leader inspires action beyond what people believe themselves to be capable of, not simply delegating tasks. It’s also about learning to optimize yourself for the moment – being adaptable and serving wherever your team needs you most. Setting the right tone and creating a positive culture is fundamental to success. By modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, and encouraging the heart, a leader can lead their startup to success. After all, investors are not only betting on your idea – they’re betting on YOU to be a stellar leader.

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Berkeley, CA, Aug 27, 2024 — On November 11-12, 2024, Berkeley Engineering’s Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET) will launch the AI for the C-Suite program, a premier executive education course designed to equip senior leaders with strategic insights into leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) within their organizations. This in-person AI strategy workshop, held on the UC Berkeley campus, will be led by an exceptional faculty of AI pioneers and industry innovators who have shaped the future of AI.

Revolutionizing Executive Leadership with AI

Berkeley Engineering, consistently ranked among the top engineering schools globally, including the #3 U.S. undergraduate and graduate engineering program, is proud to offer this advanced AI strategy training tailored for C-suite executives. The AI for the C-Suite program is a unique opportunity for senior leaders to engage directly with world-renowned AI experts and gain actionable insights to drive AI transformations in their businesses.

World-Class Faculty Leading the Program

Participants will have the chance to learn from Berkeley’s distinguished faculty, including:

• Pieter Abbeel – AI Pioneer
  • Director of Berkeley Robot Learning Lab
  • Co-Director of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence (BAIR) Lab
  • Professor, Berkeley Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS)
• David Gallacher – Business Strategy Expert
  • Industry Fellow, UC Berkeley College of Engineering, SCET
• Stuart Russell – AI Thought Leader
  • Distinguished Professor, UC Berkeley Computer Science
  • Smith-Zadeh Professor in Engineering
• Anca Dragan – Robotics & AI Researcher
  • Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS)
  • Director of AI Safety and Alignment, Google DeepMind
• Ali Ghodsi – AI Entrepreneur
  • CEO & Co-Founder, Databricks
  • Adjunct Professor, UC Berkeley Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS)
• Brandie Nonnecke – AI Ethics Specialist
  • Director, CITRIS Policy Lab
  • Associate Research Professor, Goldman School of Public Policy
• Ion Stoica – Cloud Computing Innovator
  • Executive Chairman, Databricks
  • Director, Sky Computing Lab
  • Professor, UC Berkeley Computer Science
• Dominique Shelton Leipzig – AI, Privacy & Cybersecurity Expert
  • Partner, Cybersecurity & Data Privacy Practice, Mayer Brown
  • Founder, Co-Chief Executive Officer, NxtWork

Empowering the Next Generation of AI Leaders

UC Berkeley is ranked #1 globally by Pitchbook for producing venture-backed startups, a testament to its deep commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship. At the heart of this success is Berkeley’s Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET), which has been instrumental in nurturing groundbreaking startups and fostering an entrepreneurial mindset. The AI for the C-Suite program reflects this mission by empowering executives to lead their organizations through AI-driven transformations, equipping them with the tools and frameworks needed to develop and implement strategic AI initiatives.

What Makes This Program Unique?

This executive AI course is not just about learning AI concepts; it’s about applying them to business strategy. With hands-on workshops and direct access to industry-leading AI practitioners, participants will gain practical insights that can be immediately applied to their organizations. The program covers everything from AI strategy development to the ethical implications of AI in business.

Quotes

“AI is transforming every industry, and leaders need to be equipped with the knowledge to navigate these changes. The AI for the C-Suite program provides an unparalleled opportunity to learn from the best in the field and apply those insights to real-world business challenges,” said Pieter Abbeel, AI Pioneer and Co-Director of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence (BAIR) Lab.

“Berkeley Engineering’s commitment to advancing technology and entrepreneurship is embodied in this program. We are excited to bring together such an esteemed group of faculty to help executives lead with AI,” said David Gallacher, Business Strategy Expert and Industry Fellow at SCET.

About Berkeley SCET

The Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET) at UC Berkeley is a global leader in technology innovation and entrepreneurship education. SCET offers a range of programs that empower professionals and executives to turn innovative ideas into successful ventures. With a focus on hands-on learning and real-world application, SCET is at the forefront of producing the next generation of tech leaders.

Contact

Kristina Susac
Head of Professional Programs
susac@berkeley.edu
https://scet.berkeley.edu/professional-programs/

The post Berkeley Engineering Launches AI Program for Execs appeared first on UC Berkeley Sutardja Center.

Collider Cup XIV finalist Peyton McQueen first got the idea for her groundbreaking product, Aqua AI, from a podcast.

“Someone described Cal [as] having perfected the ‘formula’, referring to the way in which training is given to swimmers,” McQueen explained. “This immediately opened my eyes to how almost every aspect of swimming is dictated by math — amount of yardage, intervals, stroke count, the physics of an efficient stroke.” 

Once McQueen discovered that swimming follows a mathematical formula, she realized there must be a perfect ‘solution’ that swimmers can train towards. Eager to explore this idea, she began recruiting data science interns to research the potential of AI in swimming, backed with her own lifetime experience as a swimmer and team manager.

“Swimming is a sport where your head’s in the water. It’s all about feel,” McQueen said. “What I provide for the swimmers almost every single day [as a manager] is film. Me and a handful of interns will film them above water and underwater, and then it is uploaded to a Google drive and meticulously organized so that it’s very easy for them to see their progress.”

It was through this footage that McQueen began to test video analysis technology for the Cal swim team. Within a year, she decided to take the product’s success even further with SCET.

“When I started the Sports Tech class this past spring, it enlightened me to see a real marketable business that would combine what I’ve already done for the [Cal] team and also progress the sport of swimming as a whole,” McQueen reflected. “Going to the Collider Cup, I got to see how this concept resonated with investors, including outside the swimming community. With the development of the model after that, we can produce unimaginable changes in the sport as a whole.”

McQueen stated that marketing her product to a wider audience is a key hurdle to clear before Aqua AI can grow further. 

“If the product is going to distract the coach from the work that needs to be done, they’re not going to use it,” she said. “Creating something that would transition smoothly into their own program is what we’re looking for, and what [the Sports Tech class] helped me to formulate.”

But before expanding the company, McQueen wants to focus this summer on improving the product itself with the help of Cal’s swim team.

“I want to solidify the research and choose an investor that is going to be right for us,” she said. “We’re also still building our team. The beauty of the Cal swim team is that not only am I surrounded by the best athletes in the world, but they chose Cal because it is such a prestigious academic institution and they have minds that are just as brilliant. I’m talking to swimmers with backgrounds in engineering and computer science. I’m also working with Coach David Marsh on the swim side of things — he has been my most important mentor throughout my college career and my life.”

Along with Marsh, McQueen mentioned startup expert Mark Searle as a mentor who is currently helping Aqua AI grow. She plans to take Searle’s SCET course “Startup Catalyst: Let’s Speed Up Your Startup” this fall.

Another resource McQueen expressed gratitude for was the Sports Tech class, where she worked to pitch and market Aqua AI with her class team: Tommy Roder (’26), Forrest Frazier (’24), Hank Rivers (’26), Colby Hatton (’26), Isabelle Stadden (’24), Ashlyn Fiorilli (’24), Emily Gantriis (’24) and Stephanie Salesky (’24).

Through SportsTech, McQueen picked up new skills and gained experienced mentors. 

“The Sports Tech class is a unique place that combined so many of my interests,” McQueen said. “There are tons of athletes and tech entrepreneurs in the class, which is a very special combination of people with direct perspectives who can create something that we know people in the sports industry will use. I am extremely grateful for all of the advisors I have been connected to — my professor from the class, Christyna Serrano and advisor, Peter Evans — in learning to organize a business model.”

McQueen believes that the strongest reason behind the class’s success is the ever-growing potential for the revolutionary future of sports technology.

“We’re in a country where sports is heavily celebrated,” she said, referencing the U.S. Olympic team as an example. “Sports itself is really exciting, and with the development of AI, I can’t imagine what’s next. It’s easy for people to get excited about something that’s entertainment as well. In another sense, sports tech is so exciting because athletes and people like me know exactly how to market sports. We translate our passion for sports into a passion for business.”

And it’s this passion that propels both McQueen and her team towards excellence. According to McQueen, the attitude of a swim team is just as essential to their success as their technical skill.

“Aqua AI, while it can provide the meticulous formula needed to train swimmers at the elite level, cannot replace a coach because I’ve learned that team culture is needed alongside a perfect training formula,” she said. “The culture at Cal is what sets us apart. The passion and attitude of the swimmers and coaches, combined with this seamless mathematical formula.”

Looking toward the future of her product, McQueen is grateful to be immersed in Berkeley’s culture of both technological and athletic ambition.

“It’s a blessing being so close to such great resources,” she said. “As I said, swimming is a form of math. When I translate this formula using my platform, my biggest dream is that the sport of swimming can be solved.”

The post Solving swimming: Aqua AI founder Peyton McQueen makes waves appeared first on UC Berkeley Sutardja Center.

SimpleCell, the brainchild of Sehej Bindra and Arvind Vivekanadan, was developed in the Spring 2024 SCET course titled ENGIN 183C 002 – Challenge Lab: Transforming Brain Health with Neurotech | A Berkeley Changemaker Course. By the end of May, the team earned second place at the Collider Cup and was recently accepted into Forum Ventures.

SimpleCell is a platform integrating large language models to streamline bioinformatics research, allowing researchers to approach large clinical datasets efficiently and accurately. We followed up with Sehej and Arvind to learn more about their journeys and the evolution of SimpleCell, from its inception to the present. 

The Founders’ Paths to Innovation

Both Sehej and Arvind recently graduated with the class of 2024. Sehej and Arvind earned degrees in Biochemistry and Electrical Engineering Computer Science, respectively. It wasn’t until their final semester in the Neurotech Collider Lab course that their journeys intersected. 

When Sehej started at UC Berkeley, he originally planned to follow a pre-med path to pursue a career in biological research and academia. However, his freshman year was online, and he was not able to get wet lab experience due to the pandemic. Instead, Sehej developed his passion for teaching science within his local community, establishing his own brand and tutoring business. He enjoyed being able to provide a valuable service to students in his community, and he found the work deeply meaningful. Sehej developed his business acumen, gaining an understanding of how to scale a business, and he knew that he wanted to continue building educational products that could directly impact other people once he was able to return to campus in person. 

Since Arvind began his time at Berkeley, he was determined to build something. He immersed himself in Berkeley’s startup ecosystem, and he joined the Berkeley Venture Capital Club and took on analyst roles to learn more about what makes successful startups. He describes the proximity to Silicon Valley and the unique offerings at UC Berkeley as being instrumental to his development. 

The Origins of SimpleCell

Throughout his time at Berkeley, Sehej participated in biological research at a lab at UCSF. It was here that he noticed a critical pain point: medical doctors lacked the formal training to manipulate large data sets efficiently, a task that has grown increasingly important over the past decade. Without the proper computational skillsets, researchers faced significant barriers to interpreting their data accurately and quickly. 

As an undergraduate student, Sehej was responsible for the more tedious aspects of data analysis in the lab. Feeling frustrated by current methods, Sehej knew that there had to be a better solution to assist medical researchers in streamlining the data analysis process; he observed that nearly all of the researchers he worked with instinctively turned to ChatGPT to get started. However, ChatGPT is not tailored to the unique challenges of bioinformatics. Sehej identified an opportunity to create a specialized tool to help researchers confidently and accurately work with large datasets. 

“What if we just create a better ChatGPT, fine-tuned for bioinformatics?“

Sehej Bindra

When Sehej pitched the idea to the class in January, Arvind strongly identified with the vision and mission, and a partnership was born. Arvind’s computational background and software skillset complemented Sehej’s domain knowledge, and they built a team comprising all undergraduate students.

The Importance of Peer Mentorship and Support

Reflecting on the mentorship they have received throughout the development of their startup, Arvind and Sehej both recognize their peers as being among the most influential forces in their development. They noted that it was witnessing their peers build successful businesses just one year out of graduating that inspired them, and they noted that the encouragement from their peers has been instrumental to their success. 

In reflecting on their proudest moments, Arvind recalled the completion of the first functional prototype as being a particularly remarkable moment for him, as it represented a culmination of all of their research and learnings. For Sehej, the thing that resonates most deeply is that he listened to his instincts despite initial dubious responses. 

He said, “I was able to kind of stick to my gut and see this project through and help lead the team and actually create a prototype and then convince these judges that this vision is compelling.”

Looking Ahead

As Sehej and Arvind continue to develop SimpleCell, they keep their central intent at the heart of their work – to create a solution that helps the average biologist transform drudgery into enjoyable tasks. 

Sehej said, “My personal goal with SimpleCell is to create some beautiful software that takes a frustrating task and not only makes it easy, but enjoyable. That’s genuinely what drives me.” 

Similarly, Arvind noted that he hopes to make an impact that changes the lives of biologists using a product he brought to life. 

He said, “There is a saying that it’s better to have a few people who really love your product than a lot of people that kind of use it. If we can come out of this where we build something that actually changes lives every day by using our product, then I would consider that a win.”

The post Meet the Minds Behind SimpleCell appeared first on UC Berkeley Sutardja Center.

On July 1, Rich Lyons became the 12th chancellor for the University of California, Berkeley. This was especially exciting for the campus’s innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) community, as Lyons’ previous role was the campus chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer. During his tenure in that role, Berkeley I&E experienced incredible growth, and UC Berkeley became the #1 university for creating venture-backed startups. Lyons launched visionary campaigns, such as Berkeley Changemaker, which helped new students get excited about I&E. (Read more about Rich’s story and journey to becoming UC Berkeley’s 12th chancellor in the recent deep-dive, “Kind of a Big Deal” at Haas News.)

So, Chancellor Lyons is especially well-situated to understand and help the I&E ecosystem thrive on campus. This means more students, faculty, and alumni will have the opportunity to work on entrepreneurial projects, create more innovative research, and find resources to support making their ideas a reality.

Now that Lyons is in this new position, we were curious about his vision for the future of I&E at Berkeley, and how his administration will work to make Berkeley the #1 destination for aspiring entrepreneurs and innovators. See what Rich said in our Q&A below!

What is your vision for the future of innovation and entrepreneurship on campus, and how do you plan to support and expand these areas at UC Berkeley?
The picture that’s painted in my mind for the future of I&E is one that is tightly linked to, and a strong driver of, our University’s mission. The core words of our UC mission statement are “providing long-term societal benefit.” I&E is a really important way that this happens, across all three of our mission-statement “hows” — Research, Teaching, and Public Service.

Why do you think it is helpful for everyone, regardless of their field of study, to learn innovation and entrepreneurship skills?
Because everyone, regardless of field of study, has a lot to contribute to I&E. Innovation is putting new ideas into practice. Entrepreneurship is creating an entity or vehicle for putting ideas into practice. So many people early in their lives think “they do that” — i.e., I&E is for other people, not them. When we effect the cognitive shift from they do that to “I do that,” society wins, and wins big.  

You were a student yourself at Berkeley… What do you think makes Berkeley such an innovative place that now ranks #1 on Pitchbook in terms of startup creation? Why is Berkeley the ideal place for startups?
To my mind it comes down to the “Berkeley Way,” by which I mean a set of ways of being that create an incomparable engine for new enterprise creation (including across the civic and public sectors, not just the private sector). One element of that Way is questioning the status quo, i.e., thinking “there has got to be a better way to do this.” Imagine the President of an Ivy League university standing up and saying publicly that “our university is all about questioning the status quo.” Never going to happen. 

How do you see Berkeley leading the way in shaping the future of higher education that maximizes positive impact on society?
This is a huge question. A few elements that come to mind include another example of the Berkeley Way, namely our uncompromising commitment to the greater good. We educate, for example, at a scale-plus-quality-level that the great private research universities cannot touch. We are also pioneering new financial models that, while remaining consistent with our public mission and values, allow UC Berkeley to participate more in the economic and societal value we create, enabling a flywheel for even more outstanding research and teaching. 

What advice would you give to incoming freshmen to help them maximize their potential and make the most of the opportunities available at Berkeley?
Find your “neighborhood” within UC Berkeley as soon as you can. Or neighborhoods. UC Berkeley is akin to city — it’s important to identify the parts that resonate the most for you. It has neighborhoods for us all. For example, tons of our undergraduates are finding a neighborhood in the community and curriculum we call the Berkeley Changemaker. Keep looking. Keep experimenting. 

The post Rich Lyons Q&A: The future of innovation and entrepreneurship @ Berkeley appeared first on UC Berkeley Sutardja Center.

After winning Collider Cup XIV last May, Playvision founders Ender Aguilar, Anish Gupta and Mark Zogby are envisioning the next steps for their company. Their product, which uses computer vision to track and compile data for football sports plays, is gathering interest as the field of sports technology gains momentum.

The team found each other through SCET’s Changemaker course “Sports Tech, Entrepreneurship & the Future of Sports.” As they celebrate their success in the class and Collider Cup, CEO Ender Aguilar, CPO Anish Gupta and CCO Mark Zogby discuss the future of Playvision.

What gave you the idea for Playvision?

Ender: We created Playvision to revolutionize game film analysis. As a former Cal Division 1 football player, during the season, I spent around 20 hours each week just watching film. It was often difficult to get the most out of the raw game footage. One night I was walking home from a midterm, and I walked into my film room. I saw my coach manually entering data for each play, a process that could take two hours per game. Solving this inefficiency is what inspired the Playvision idea, and I pitched it in the Sports Tech course.

Anish: I’m a scout for Cal football, and I joined the class aiming to create something related to football. When Ender pitched this idea, it resonated with the space I work in and addressed a very relevant problem.

How did the Sports Tech course refine your initial idea?

Ender: As a football player, I have firsthand insights on the challenges and pain points that players have, and I’m also witnessing the challenges that coaches have. [Sports Tech] really helped us understand, going forward outside of class, the business side of this problem. Concepts like the Business Model Canvas were very fundamental things that helped us through this process.

Anish: Pretty much the entire second half of April was just us pitching for ten straight days to Dr. C., Peter, and a couple founders they introduced us to in the sports tech world. The connections that we were able to leverage through them were key in how we came together as a cohesive unit and ended up winning that pitch competition.

Three minutes to talk about your idea is hard. The practice we got in that class got us there, and helped us formulate this idea and decide we want to take it to a company. Thinking about aspects like the pricing model and target market really came about not only in the Collider Cup pitch, but also the pitch to investors that we’ve been doing after this.

Mark: It was exciting to see the experiential and entrepreneurial focus of the SCET course. It was cool to see how business, technology, sports, AI — all these things I’m interested in come together in the Challenge Lab classes. It’s been a very transformative experience.

Why is sports tech relevant today?

Anish: The market is booming, and we’re riding that wave. We had 12 teams total in our Sports Tech class, and each of them presented such a unique idea. The beauty of sports tech is that there’s a lot of aspects that you can build on, and a lot of sports that you can touch, all that can be beneficial.

How did integrating AI technology change your product?

Anish: One of the biggest facets of the Sports Tech class was using AI to build stuff, and it’s something prevalent that we benefit from in our product. Our company primarily operates on computer vision (CV), and AI operates with it.

Mark: Technology keeps advancing and there’s more and more data out there than can be captured, and I definitely foresee that AI will be more integrated into this type of analysis. Our AI models have already done the first round of analysis for American football. It can really bring next-level insights to the game, and transform the way sports is played and thought about. 

Where do you see Playvision going in the future?

Anish: To expand within football, we’ve gotten Cal as a design partner to help with building out the product beyond the model that we’ve already shown — making sure it has a nice design and fulfills teams’ criteria. It’s an ideation that we’re trying to turn to reality. But one of our biggest selling points is, why stop at football? All sports can be optimized. 

Ender: Basketball would be a huge one to get — there are more basketball teams across America than football teams — and then soccer and hockey.

Anish: The expansion is underway, so we’ve been looking for people who are interested in the data analysis part of the project. It’s mostly been us three formulating different topics, but that’s the fun of it, seeing something that you’ve created turn into a real-life thing. It’s one of the greatest feelings. 

Mark: For us, it’s very cool to be part of that movement, taking the big picture and breaking it down into smaller parts that anyone can consume. It’s exciting to be improving sports competitiveness as a whole.

The post Q&A: Team Playvision builds a bright future for sports tech appeared first on UC Berkeley Sutardja Center.

For over a decade, the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET) at UC Berkeley has hosted the Engineering Leadership Professional Program (ELPP), which has helped more than 1,000 technical professionals hone their leadership skills and bring an innovative spirit to their firms. 

On February 28, Marc Tarpenning (B.A. Computer Science ‘85), co-founder of Tesla Inc. was a guest lecturer at this year’s ELPP. He is also a member of the advisory board at SCET, and he spends his time investing and advising entrepreneurs and innovators who will make a positive impact with their ventures.

From Inception to Industry Leader

Today, it is clear that electric vehicles are the future. In 2024, there is fierce competition among the likes of Tesla, established players like Ford and General Motors, and newcomers like China’s BYD.

However, in 2003, when Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard co-founded Tesla Inc., many were skeptical of electric vehicles’ potential to be the future of the auto industry. According to Tarpenning, existing electric cars were “designed by people who hated the idea of driving.” 

“We went looking for a problem,” said Tarpenning at the beginning of his talk. “And that’s a real sign of an entrepreneur when you go looking for a problem. Because most people don’t actually do that.”

Tarpenning and Eberhard wanted to work on the problem of oil. Not only is oil one of the primary factors contributing to global warming, but the conflict for this increasingly scarce resource has distorted the global economy and spurred various geopolitical issues across the world. 

At the time, nearly zero electric cars had been sold in the US. Companies argued that its nonexistence was attributed to the inadequate capabilities of batteries, which had not evolved enough in the past century. However, Tarpenning and Eberhard, who both have backgrounds in consumer electronics, immediately identified faults in this reasoning. After researching various power sources, including hydrogen and ethanol alternatives, they settled on batteries, which were getting cheaper and more powerful by the year. Battery electric vehicles were more efficient than an internal combustion engine. People didn’t need fossil fuels to drive their cars. They just needed a way to recharge cells like this and they could do this from home.

“Every year [batteries] got better and cheaper,” said Tarpenning. “So, we knew that if we could make a compelling car, with this existing technology, every year it would just get better and cheaper.”

Tarpenning and Eberhard realized the incredible opportunity to revolutionize the automobile industry and got to work. For the initial car, they did not want to develop a specialty battery but rather use off-the-shelf 18650 lithium-ion batteries for each car. Each car required approximately 7,000 rechargeable batteries. While this decision increased the complexity of the assembly procedure, it gave them major advantages with supply chain efficiency and allowed them to purchase batteries at lower prices. They didn’t use fancy mathematics but just “spreadsheets and high school math” to calculate the amount of power and energy they could generate with their setup.

Amazingly, the latest Tesla concept car will go 0 to 60 in 1.78 seconds which is exactly what the spreadsheet predicted more than 20 years ago. “Mathematics and physics work. $70M later it was just like the spreadsheet said,” said Tarpenning. “Physics is crazy.”

Around the same time, General Motors debuted its popular all-electric car called the EV1. Additionally, the Prius was launched and began selling quite well. One interesting finding was that Toyota built the original Prius on their Echo platform, their lowest quality platform, and were losing money on each one they produced. Some consumers who would have bought a Lexus were instead buying the Prius (e.g. Larry David anyone?). Perhaps wealthier individuals also wanted to tackle the problem of oil, which was a positive sign for selling an all-electric sports car.

Initially, Tarpenning and Eberhard intended to enter the sports car market, which was a $3B market in the US at the time. However, since close to zero electric cars had been sold in the US, they instead deferred to creating passenger cars, an industry in which their innovations had more potential to take flight. 

The next six months were focused on the company’s go-to-market strategy, and the team needed to raise money. Funding is like a positive feedback loop – each milestone raises more money, helping the company achieve even more ambitious milestones. After thousands of design changes and tests, some of the cars began selling at small events, helping the company increase visibility and gain traction. In 2010, Tesla became a public company. In 2024, Tesla is worth more than General Motors and Ford combined. Tarpenning and Eberhard were right. Their vision of electric cars proved to be the future – electric vehicles are the only growth segment in the car market at a rate of 52%. 

Tarpenning’s Pearls of Wisdom

Today, Marc Tarpenning is a venture capitalist. He emphasized investing in companies that make a positive impact and have a particular interest in creating a more sustainable world.

He said, “If you aren’t doing something sustainable as a company, then it’s going to stop, by definition. Maybe it will be 100 years or maybe it will be soon. The future is really hard to predict.” 

Interested in learning more from speakers like Marc? Check SCET Professional Programs for information on when the next ELPP cohort begins.

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This year, sports technology has taken UC Berkeley by storm. Three out of the five winning teams at SCET’s entrepreneurship showcase, Collider Cup XIV, came from the “Sports Tech and the Entrepreneurship of Sports” course last semester.

Playvision, whose technology analyzes football plays for athlete training, took home the overall first prize, while Aqua AI, which provides analysis and coaching for swimmers, won third place. Team Optigenix won the Collider Cup “Alumni Expo”, for their tailored supplements that improve athlete health and help prevent injuries.

While many factors contribute to the rise of sports tech, one reason for these teams’ success is the enthusiastic involvement of Sports Tech instructor, Christyna Serrano (B.A. Sociology, M.A. Education, PhD Education). As a faculty member with SCET, the School of Education and Haas School of Business, Serrano has a wealth of experience in facilitating innovative courses that combine education, technology and entrepreneurship. 

Although she has taught numerous SCET courses, Sports Tech is particularly important to Serrano, who was an undergraduate track and field athlete at Berkeley.

“As a former student athlete myself, I understand how much [student athletes’] identities are wrapped up in being [an] athlete,” she said. “When I came in, I didn’t understand the kinds of opportunities that Cal provided, and the ways that I might parlay my sport into my future next steps. I want student athletes to see that the skill sets they develop as an athlete – the hard work, the perseverance, the ability to be part of a team – are translatable and can serve them in other contexts.”

Serrano has observed that the intersection between athletics and entrepreneurship is especially fruitful.

“Athletes make some of the greatest entrepreneurs because of the fact that they have these skills, which they demonstrated through Collider Cup – they’re charismatic, they’re persistent, they know how to present,” she said. “[Sports Tech] has been a wonderful opportunity to think about how to create a pipeline for athletes, because it’s expanded conversations about how to support athletes in expanding the majors and opportunities they take.”

Beyond opening doors for student athletes, Serrano sees the broader potential of sports as a topic for technology and entrepreneurship.

“Everybody loves sports,” she said, explaining why this particular field has gained so much traction lately. “It’s a topic that naturally brings together lots of people. Technology is a huge component of society too. And so you intersect these two powerful arenas… The way technology improves fan engagement or athlete performance or coaching, it amplifies what athletes can do and how fans can engage with it. What could athletes accomplish, as we see technology being more and more integrated into sports?”

By bringing together students across disciplines, Sports Tech embraces SCET’s “Collider Model” of education, where innovation is fueled by interactions between the unique skill sets of people from multiple backgrounds.

Serrano’s belief in embracing rapidly-changing technologies is also reflected in the Sports Tech course’s focus on AI.

“Because AI is such a rapidly changing field, I want it to be incorporated in every way possible – assignments, activities in class, products. I want students to have practice using AI because it is significantly shaping education and the future of work,” she said.

Serrano cited Kevin Kelly’s book “The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future”, which is a required reading for Sports Tech, to highlight the importance of involving students with the newest technological advances.

“Technology is so rapidly evolving that you’ll never be an expert because it goes so much faster than we can,” she explained. “As a teacher, I subscribe to the idea that teachers and learners can all learn from each other. My role is to facilitate structures that set students up for meaningful lifelong learning. I’d rather teach AI without fully understanding it than wait and give my students the disservice of not giving them the opportunity and space to critically learn from it and play with it. If they are comfortable stepping into that technology, they have a voice in that future, they can be at these tables where this technology is being decided upon.”

To Serrano, this goes hand in hand with the need to challenge learners to make the most of their opportunities inside and outside of the classroom. She emphasizes that the process of interacting actively with class concepts is more complex than simply earning assignment points.

“One of the things that frustrates me about teaching is the contentious nature of grading,” she said. “More important than the grade in my class is the relationships you’ll develop. You could be working with someone and launching a multi-million dollar company. The grade, ten years from now, will not matter at all. What matters is who you got to know and what skills you got to develop in your process of being present in the learning experience.”

Such skills benefit Sports Tech students far beyond the Collider Cup.

“This is an opportunity for students to take ownership of the learning process, and I think you need that as an entrepreneur,” Serrano added. “Working together and really showing that commitment to one another prepared students for not only the challenge of the Collider Cup, but also – Playvision, for example, is participating in Skydeck Pad 13, and the two founders of Optigenix have been doing legwork to get their product on the market.” 

As someone who deeply cares about the futures of her students, Serrano expressed gratitude for the opportunities that teaching Sports Tech provides.

“I’m in the business of making changemakers,” she said, “and I have been surprised at the role that a course like Sports Tech plays in achieving goals that have nothing to do with sports, but that support young people in seeing how they can make change in the world. Teaching Sports Tech has really opened up my ability to reach students I wouldn’t normally be able to.” 

For universities as a whole, Serrano advocates for the relevance of an educational model like that of SCET Changemaker courses. To her, it emphasizes the ultimate goal of what education should mean.

“Yes, sports tech is such a cool topic in its own right, but I think the bigger story is that it enables us to have a broad reach beyond campus in service to students’ growth and opportunities,” she said. “That, I think, is what a university should be doing in its effort to put changemakers out into the world. It’s so cool that SCET enables this kind of opportunity to cultivate and foster people.”

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