More than 300 students learned about the entrepreneurship ecosystem at Cornell during a kickoff event Sept. 5 at eHub in Collegetown.

The Entrepreneurship Kickoff is hosted each year by Entrepreneurship at Cornell to introduce students to the many entrepreneurial resources, centers, relevant student clubs and organizations on campus. 

“I’m always amazed by the energy and ideas coming from the students who stream into the kickoff from all across campus,” said Zach Shulman ’87 J.D. ’90, director of Entrepreneurship at Cornell. “The event is the best way for students from any field to get connected to Cornell’s ever-expanding entrepreneurial community.”

This year’s event included 20 organizations sharing information, as well as time for networking and a student pitch contest. 

The winning student team, Atarea, founded by Caroline Zhu ’26, won $1,000 and entry into eLab, the student business accelerator powered by Entrepreneurship at Cornell and Student Agencies Foundation. eLab is offered as a course and taught by faculty in the SC Johnson College of Business.

Zhu’s company provides a platform for creators to sell personalized offerings at scale.

“This summer we went through the Life Changing Labs Accelerator, which was totally transformative,” said Zhu, a student in the Dyson school who has a computer science minor. “Now we’re super excited to do eLab. I’ve heard some awesome things about it.”

Zhu said she’s been drawing since she was 4 years old and is passionate about supporting content creators.

“I was one of those aspiring artists who really wanted to spend the rest of my life doing that,” she said, “but I’m really grateful to be at Cornell and involved in entrepreneurship, where I can find a way to combine that with my other business, CS and academic studies.”

Credit: Patrick Shanahan

She said she already has 30 creators ready to sign up for her platform, with 1.5 million followers all together.

One of the organizations with a table at the event was Grub Ventures, a food and agriculture-based venture capital club that started in 2022 on campus.

“We help venture capital firms in the food and ag space with research, doing industry deep dives and sourcing startups,” said Megan Hsieh ’26, the club’s co-president, who’s a food sciences major with a business concentration. “We also work with startups, doing things like competitive analysis for them.”

Hsieh said the event helped them interact with students interested in entrepreneurship and get the word out about their group.

To find out more about entrepreneurial resources at Cornell, visit the Entrepreneurship at Cornell website.