Startup Semester students among winning teams in Google Developer Student Club Solution Challenge 2020
Three students from the Spring 2020 cohort of SCET’s Startup Semester program were among the winning teams of the Google’s Developer Student Club’s Solution Challenge 2020. The goal of the challenge was to “use technology to solve a local problem together with community.” Submissions were accepted from more than 60 countries and 800 universities around…
SCET Launches New Global Online Courses in Leadership and Data for Professionals
The Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology at the University of California, Berkeley now has two new offerings for professionals and researchers around the world – Data-X Live, Online & Engineering Leadership Global. Data-X Live, Online: Develop new skills in this applied data science course Data-X has been a highly popular course at UC Berkeley…
Reduce, Reuse, ‘Upcycle’!
Ideas that have the potential to make an enormous positive impact come by once in a lifetime…unless you’re a part of the ‘Deplastify the Planet’ Challenge Lab at UC Berkeley! Read about Team Upcycle’s journey of working with Method and Whole Foods, and learn how they stumbled upon a solution to develop affordable, fully compostable…
SCET celebrates the outgoing Spring 2020 Startup Semester cohort
We were proud to honor our outgoing cohort of Startup Semester students at their graduation ceremony, held on Friday, May 8, 2020. Our Spring 2020 cohort features 18 students, hailing from 5 different countries. The event highlighted short speeches by three participants — Anushka Purohit, Anupam Tiwari and Anant Mishra — who reflected on their classes, Startup…
Student Perspective: A Semester of Euphoria
When climbing the hill like roads to the Goldman School of Policy, the location of my Technology Entrepreneurship class, I couldn’t help but focus on my excitement, so much that the irregularity in my breath didn’t even bother me. For the first class, I arrived 15 minutes early. I was so excited, and contrary to…
SCET takes Collider Cup VI online, with team Crop Up snagging the top prize
The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t stop SCET’s top entrepreneurial talent from showcasing their startups at the flagship Collider Cup VI on May 7. 200 UC Berkeley community members, including teams, judges, mentors and guests participated in the Collider Cup via Zoom. Crop Up from Ricardo San Martin’s Alternative Meat Challenge Lab course snagged the top prize.…
Pivoting from Adversity to Opportunity — In the Spring 2020 Emerging Tech and Social Impact Challenge Lab
The Spring 2020 semester started innocently enough. There was an epidemic at the other end of the world, but it seemed like it would not really affect us in the Bay Area. The students came up with some early ideas for their startups after going through their problem/solution exercises. The teams of 4-6 students were…
Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel on “the under reported virus among founders today”
“Solve a real problem,” Michael Seibel, CEO and partner at Y Combinator, told SCET student entrepreneurs in the final A. Richard Newton Lecture Series of the semester. Seibel’s candid advice didn’t stop there. Throughout his talk, he shared forthright tips for success in the startup world. He discussed the biggest mistakes he sees in young…
Apply to be a Fall 2020 Course Coordinator
The Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET) is a global innovation hub headquartered at UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering where aspiring entrepreneurs and innovators take deep dives into the world of technology entrepreneurship and embark on the path to develop exciting new ventures. The Center is currently seeking Course Coordinators for Fall 2020 classes.…
BMOE Bootcamp Team wins Haas Impact Venture Showcase
Sea Warden has just won the Haas Impact Venture Showcase! The seafood certification startup managed to come out on top in a competition against 7 other teams, all of which demonstrated a unique combination of passion, creativity, leadership, subject matter expertise, and business savvy. Startups of the showcase, funded by the AMP impact accelerator, targeted…
Changes to Fall 2020 Global Programs in response to COVID-19
Every year, we look forward to welcoming international students to UC Berkeley for our spring and fall programs at the Sutardja Center. Empowering innovators to positively change the world is what drives us forward. However, given the growing concerns around COVID-19, we’ve made the difficult decision to postpone the in-person component of the Startup Semester and…
BOOST: How 5 UC Berkeley Students Created a Test to Improve Your Well-being
Can a test be used to assess one’s well-being? Five master of engineering students have used modern machine learning tools and psychological practices to create a new tool called BOOST to assess one’s well-being, and make personalized suggestions for improving it. The journey began when the students met in the program and found that they…
Take our GRIT survey: Data-X students create Berkeley Index for Tenacity (BIT)
“Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.” Samuel Johnson A famous quote by Samuel Johnson explains how perseverance is a better indicator of success than any other strength. A team of students in SCET’s Data-X course developed an index to quantify grit and recently launched a preliminary survey to the public. Over…
Crisis as Catalyst: The COVID-19 Impact on Innovation
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash Quarantine Angst What does the jet engine have in common with penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic? Both, as it turns out, were born in 1928, but it took the crisis of the Second World War for either to be brought into the mainstream and deployed. The war’s stresses also…
Finnish Students Reallocate Millions of COVID-19 Health Supplies
Most everyone has likely been told some variation of the same thing during this pandemic: “the only thing you can do is stay inside, stay sanitary, and take care of yourself.” While this is true for the majority of people, there is a certain type of entrepreneur that thrives under conditions of uncertainty. After studying…
Berkeley Startups Use Blockchain to Accelerate COVID-19 Response
Pressure on the private sector is increasing day by day as the demand for technology-based solutions to reduce the spread of the virus rises. A multitude of challenges remain for society in regards to testing and tracking the disease as well as getting people back to work. Time is of the essence. Fortunately, a variety…
Wisconsin Primary Elections Illuminate Need for Innovative Voting Practices
Lines of people stood outside polling stations in Wisconsin last Tuesday. There seemed to be a heaviness in the air, as the crowd of people in masks and gloves contemplated whether exercising their civil liberties was worth risking their health as well. This past week, the state of Wisconsin decided to go ahead with in-person…
Cal Students Launch Resource 19 to Connect Creators with Hospitals in Need
Healthcare workers across the globe are facing dire shortages of critical equipment needed to treat the coronavirus. Each day, news outlets show images of doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals struggling with inadequate or non-existent PPE (personal protective equipment). The public is left at home wondering what can be done to help. With 49 states…
SCET’s Collider Cup is one month away! Watch teams compete for $100,000 in seed funding from the Intuitive Foundation
On your mark, get set, go! We’re a month away from our flagship Collider Cup VI — one of the biggest student entrepreneurship events at UC Berkeley. This semester, we’re excited to introduce a brand new virtual format in which teams, judges, mentors and guests will be able to participate online. The event will be…
SCET launches COVID-RX program to help companies adapt
The University of California, Berkeley, one of the world’s premier public universities and worldwide center for innovation, is taking a leading role in response to the COVID-19 health crisis and is convening industry and its vast internal expertise to launch real time initiatives to help firms accelerate and adapt to the new environment. With its…
SCET global community sends thousands of masks to Bay Area
NC Wong, Hong Kong Baptist University alumnus and member of the SCET global community, sent 3000 surgical masks to Bay Area hospitals when he learned they were in need. NC originally reached out SCET Industry Fellow Gigi Wang asking if the Bay Area was in need. He then sent the 3,000 masks by overnight FedEx.…