Calling All 'Ecopreneurs': Stanford Gsb'S Big Move In Ventures That Combat Climate Change


credit: VIRGINIA LISC

Last year, Stanford University launched a new school focused on sustainabilityand this year it's teaming up with one of its own business schools to create a new ecopreneurship program, the San Jose Mercury News reports.

"Through innovative entrepreneurship, we cease to merely dream of a sustainable future; we create it, delivered by the hands of these new-age ecopreneurs," says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who created the Benioff Ecopreneur Fund along with his wife, Lynne.

The program, a collaboration with the new Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, will offer one year of funding and advising support to graduating students starting environmental ventures.

"I see many technologies developed in faculty labs, but only a small percentage of those technologies are translated into the real world," Yi Cui, co-director of the program, says in a press release.

"It's very exciting to be linking these technologies with the students who are interested in ecopreneurship."

Among other things, the program will offer a Summer Ecopreneurial Immersion program to support students in developing their own ventures or matching them with faculty who have received sustainability Accelerator grants, as well as a Summer Internship Program to supplement grad student salaries at an early-stage, sustainability-focused company.

The program is just the Read the Entire Article


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Ganesh Natarajan is the Founder and Chairman of 5FWorld, a new platform for funding and developing start-ups, social enterprises and the skills eco-system in India. In the past two decades, he has built two of India’s high-growth software services companies – Aptech and Zensar – almost from scratch to global success.