Join us to hear from the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology’s top venture projects from the Fall 2021 semester. UC Berkeley’s brightest students will be showcasing their latest innovations for solving some of the world’s most challenging problems.
Get ready for the Collider Cup, UC Berkeley’s premier technology entrepreneurship showcase, hosted by the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET). Collider Cup IX is an all-star showcase of the best student venture teams from the Fall 2021 semester. After a few virtual showcases, SCET looks forward to welcoming the community back for a live, in-person event, taking place in Sibley Auditorium in Bechtel Engineering Center.
The Collider Cup IX will be held on Friday, Dec 10, from 9:00 am – 11:30 am PST. The UC Berkeley community and the public are welcome to RSVP and register here to attend. To keep in accordance with the COVID-19 campus safety guidelines, masks will be required and all attendees must follow campus access requirements to enter the event. In case you cannot make it to the in-person event, the Collider Cup IX will be live-streamed as well!
The Collider Cup is a competitive pitch event between student teams from Fall 2021 courses offered by the SCET. This semester, teams will present their venture projects from ten SCET courses: Technology Entrepreneurship, Innovation-X: Future of Industry Startup Lab, Deplastify the Planet, Data-X: Applied Data Science with Venture Applications, Product Management, AltMeat: Product Design & Customer Needfinding, Amazoogle: Creating Data-Driven Startup Ventures, Education, Tech & Entrepreneurship, BMoE, and Startup Acceleration. In total, more than 850 students from 120 unique majors have enrolled in these courses, representing all six undergraduate colleges and schools on campus.
Collider Cup IX Grand Prizes
This semester, SCET is thrilled to partner with both Erupture and the Berkeley Angel Network (BAN) for the Collider Cup IX! The winning teams of the Collider Cup will be awarded the Erupture Prize consisting of – an invitation to Erupture Pitch Day to pitch to potential investors; potential investment opportunity; incubation and mentorship program at Erupture; $250K-worth of deals, discounts, and perks offered through Erupture; participation in the Angel Network Buildfirst program; $1000 Notion credit from Notion X Erupture; and a one-on-one meeting with Erupture Angels. From Collider Cup IX judge and angel investor Chris Gorog, the winning team will also be awarded a $200 gift certificate to be used at HEADLINE. Moreover, BAN will be awarding the top 3 teams with one-on-one coaching and mentorship opportunities from BAN angel investors along with an invitation to the ‘Silicon Valley in Your Pocket’ accelerator program!
Erupture is a diverse community of passionate entrepreneurs, builders, and angel investors. The mission of Erupture is to match budding entrepreneurs with the people and resources they need to successfully create their start-up. Erupture can help you access angel investors looking to fund start-ups, engineers, developers, or business majors looking to join a founding team and other VC or accelerators in Berkeley or the Bay Area.
Learn more about Erupture at www.erupture.co!
The Berkeley Angel Network (BAN) is a group of angel investors who are alumni, faculty, and former faculty of UC Berkeley, and are an affinity group of the Berkeley Haas Alumni Network. The mission of the Berkeley Angel Network is to build an angel investor community among the alumni and faculty of UC Berkeley, and to improve the collective skills and knowledge of this angel investor community through activities related to angel investing.
As many Berkeley alumni and faculty have experience in growing successful companies, investing in successful companies and/or both of the above, BAN strives to promote entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education within UC Berkeley and the alumni community.
Learn more about BAN at www.berkeleyangelnetwork.com!
Collider Cup IX Judges
Our esteemed judges for the Fall 2021 Collider Cup event include Christie Wang, Executive Director at Valere Venture; Jeff Wallace, Co-Founder of Silicon Valley in Your Pocket; Jay Onda, Head of Strategy at the Extreme Tech Challenge; Chris Gorog, Founder and CEO of HEADLINE; Danielle Jing, Associate at Pear VC; Cathy Schwallie Farmer, Co-founder of Autism Angels Group and Investor in Berkeley Angels Network; and Andrea Chang, General Partner at NGC Ventures. Learn more about our judges below:
Christie Wang, Executive Director at Valere Venture, is a serial entrepreneur and investor in the medical field, particularly innovative MedTech. Among others, Christie co-founded Vista Robotics, launching an orthopedics surgical robot resolving clinical problems for spine/neuro-surgeons. She also co-founded and invested in SpineEX, which developed innovative spinal interbody implants and is currently in full commercialization. Prior, Christie was CEO of Jiangsu International Industrial Research and Investment Group (USA), a cross-border venture firm and industrial platform supported by Jiangsu Province, PRC, empowering IoT, MedTech companies in their Asia entry endeavors. Before that, she worked for Hewlett Packard Legal/Corporate Department in corporate governance, intellectual property, and investments. Christie holds a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Northwestern University School of Law and completed the Northwestern Medical Innovation Program. She served as a mentor for Stanford University Technology Innovation.
Jeff Wallace is a long-time Bay Area resident who works with global startup ecosystems, including governments, corporations, and startup accelerators/entrepreneurs, to help catalyze startup environments and create a bridge to Silicon Valley. He is an Adjunct Instructor at UC Berkeley and is co-founder of Silicon Valley in Your Pocket, a global virtual startup accelerator, serving 100s of companies across 23+ countries. He is co-founder & former President of Batchery, an incubator for seed-stage startups. He is an active angel investor with equity positions in 150+ companies and an active advisor & investor at Berkeley SkyDeck. He is an Executive Board Member for the Rutgers Business School Road to Silicon Valley Program (RSVP). Previously, he worked at Cognizant and Brillio as founder & Global Head for Mobility & UX practices. He holds a BA in Economics/Finance from Rutgers College and an MBA from UC Berkeley.
Jay Onda is the Head of Strategic Initiatives at the Extreme Tech Challenge. He brings over 11 years of corporate innovation and venture experience combined with 15 years of startup experience focusing on UI/UX and products in Silicon Valley. He is a co-founder of the Sundial Foundation, a venture philanthropy group that invests in change-makers tackling the challenges of Equity, Education, Employment, and Environmental Stewardship. He is also an active mentor and supporter of various startup programs and is an Advisory Board Member of the National Venture Capital Associations’ CVC learning resource committee.
Chris Gorog is the CEO of HEADLINE, a print-on-demand/inventory hybrid platform serving B2B and B2C customers in the t-shirt and merchandise world. Additionally, Chris is an operating partner at Salt Creek Capital, a micro-cap private equity firm. With his remaining time, Chris is managing partner at Ocean 47, his family office where he focuses on fintech, crypto, and real estate investing. Chris is a Berkeley EECS ‘00 graduate. During his time at Cal Chris worked for fintech startup LiveCapital as a software engineer. After graduating he joined LiveCapital in sales and product management, leading the UI and bank customization processes before LiveCapital was acquired by Dun & Bradstreet. In addition to his Cal degree, Chris holds an MBA from Stanford GSB, a private pilot’s license, and a 500-hour yoga alliance teacher certification.
Danielle Jing joined Pear VC as an Associate in 2021. Prior to Pear, she was an investment banking associate at Bank of America in the Equity Capital Markets group, working on initial public offerings and equity raises for companies in the technology, media, and telecom space including Medallia, Uber, C3.ai, and Astra. She graduated from Columbia University with a BS in Operations Research and a minor in CS.
Cathy Schwallie Farmer has been in Healthcare & Science technology for over 20 years. Cathy is the co-founder of the Autism Angels Group, an investment group (focusing on neurodiverse solutions and founders) and a member of the Berkeley Angels Network, Cathy is an active Venture Advisor at the University of California, Berkeley: Cal’s SkyDeck and Haas’s LAUNCH accelerators. Additionally, Cathy is a mentor at the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (NSF i-Corps) and a Startup Healthcare Advisor and advisory board member of several for-profits and nonprofits. She has had 2 startups of her own, one in the legal space and another in robotics. Cathy has been an angel investor for over 12 years mostly focusing on systems that will help people and the environment. Finally, Cathy is a Consumer Research Reviewer for the CDMRP (US congressional directive medical research programs), a nominated position. Cathy has served as a judge for the UCSF Digital Health Awards (since 2021), Cal’s BIG IDEAS, and the upcoming 2022 HIMSS Northern California Innovation Awards.
Andrea Chang is the General Partner at NGC Ventures, one of the most active crypto venture funds based in Singapore and Shanghai since 2018. Before joining NGC, she held investment research analyst positions at Goldman Sachs in Singapore and Trans-Pacific Technology Fund. She has actively participated in investment in Defi, gamefi, and metaverse projects in crypto as the founding team member at NGC Ventures. Andrea graduated from National Taiwan University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and is now a candidate at Berkeley Haas MBA.
Collider Cup IX Schedule
For our Fall 2021 event, we will kick off the day with a welcome and introductions from Ken Singer, SCET’s Managing Director; our Collider Cup IX partners: Erupture and Berkeley Angel Network; and our panel of judges for the day, Christie Wang, Erupture; Andrea Chang, Erupture; Chris Gorog, BAN; Cathy Farmer, BAN; Jeff Wallace, BAN; Danielle Jing, Pear VC; and Jay Onda, Angel Investor. We will then move on to the most exciting part of the event – learning from our student teams about what they have built over the semester. After hearing from the student pitches and judges’ feedback, we welcome Ken Singer back to the stage to announce the Teaching Award winners for “Best Instructor” and “Best Student Worker” for the Fall 2021 semester.
Audience members will get the chance to vote for their favorite competing teams via live voting for the People’s Choice Award. Students will also have the opportunity to learn about the renowned Certificate in Entrepreneurship & Technology along with our upcoming Spring 2022 course offerings.
Don’t miss out on hearing our trailblazing students pitch their innovative ideas and compete for the coveted Collider Cup IX. The teams look forward to seeing you on Dec 10, 2021, at SCET’s Collider Cup IX – make sure to register here! If you can’t make it in person, check out our virtual livestream here!
About SCET
The Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology is the premier institution on the UC Berkeley campus for the study and practice of “technology-centric” entrepreneurship and innovation. Since 2005, SCET has created the foundation of Berkeley’s entrepreneurship ecosystem including SkyDeck, the Fung Institute, the Engineering Leadership Professional Program, Global Venture Lab, and an extensive ecosystem of Silicon Valley and Global partners (see our history).
About Erupture
Erupture is a diverse community of passionate entrepreneurs, builders, and angel investors. The mission of Erupture is to match budding entrepreneurs with the people and resources they need to successfully create their start-up. Erupture can help you access angel investors looking to fund start-ups, engineers, developers, or business majors looking to join a founding team and other VC or accelerators in Berkeley or the Bay Area. Learn more at www.erupture.co!
About Berkeley Angel Network
The Berkeley Angel Network (BAN) is a group of angel investors who are alumni, faculty, and former faculty of UC Berkeley, and are an affinity group of the Berkeley Haas Alumni Network. The mission of the Berkeley Angel Network is to build an angel investor community among the alumni and faculty of UC Berkeley, and to improve the collective skills and knowledge of this angel investor community through activities related to angel investing. As many Berkeley alumni and faculty have experience in growing successful companies, investing in successful companies and/or both of the above, BAN strives to promote entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education within UC Berkeley and the alumni community. Learn more at www.berkeleyangelnetwork.com!