NYU Shanghai is holding an Entrepreneurship Speaker Series during the fall semester in 2015. At each event, young startup founders and investors will describe their products, visions, and entrepreneurship journeys. A discussion with students will follow each presentation. The series seeks to enhance students’ understanding of entrepreneurship, providing first-hand examples of exciting startup endeavors as well as a forum for networking and career development.
Pizza and beverages will be provided.
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Hank Horkoff
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Founder Of Magnet Technologies
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Hank is the co-founder of Chinese Pod and OpenLanguage. He is also the founder and CEO of Magnet Technologies, a proximity social network that uses beacons as a key to that location's community conversations and other digital artifacts.
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Hank has invested in and is mentoring several startups.
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Alexandru Grigoras
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NYU Shanghai Student
Alexandru is a sophomore at NYU Shanghai and is pursuing a degree in Computer Science. He is a "full-stack" software developer and really enjoys working with new technologies. He has worked on a variety of projects ranging from an AI lyrics-writing software to an interactive educational tool for class readings and a comprehensive shuttle bus platform. Along with NYUSH student Musa Malik and NYUSH professor Keith Ross, he recently started working on the "humans project" which is inspired by Humans of New York, and allows anyone from any country to share and browse photo stories.
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Andrea Giunti lombardo
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NYU Shanghai Student
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Andrea is a freshman at NYU Shanghai and he is the founder of Appoint SRL. Andrea started organizing events in Florence, Italy for teenagers at the early age of 13. He has organized events with more than 2000 participants and with renowned guests. In 2014, Andrea formed a team which began working on a social networking application for smartphones based on location services.
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Bunny was born in Shanghai and raised in the United States. She graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC and has been in fashion and marketing for over 15 years. In 2013 she founded ‘the Squirrelz’ with her partner Nico. ‘the Squirrelz’ is a reusable material platform that sources reusable rejects from factories for designers to use as base materials to make new products with, as well as a platform to retail all the creative products that are made with these materials. The concept of ‘the Squirrelz’ is industry versatile with global potential; brands and designers gain high quality but low cost materials to create new products with, factories recoup their losses from rejected production, consumers get unique products with a story, and they lessen the negative impact overproduction and waste have on the environment. theSquirrelz.com.
Dong grew up in China and went to college in Germany. He majored in computer science at Max Planck Institute and focused on computer vision. Upon graduation, he was offered Marie Curie Fellowship by EU and started working on human action recognition at the Mathematics Faculty of Bonn University. After having published a paper on ICCV and failed commercializing the research findings, Dong decided to acquire business knowledge at banks. He worked as risk analyst at Citi and TMT equity analyst at Deutsche Bank. After getting the MBA at INSEAD and the entrepreneurial experience at Rocket Internet, he decided to become an entrepreneur last fall. He is the Founder and CEO of Meet Boutique, which offers handpicked hotels with extraordinary experience and great price.
Paul’s career intersects between industry and academia. He obtained his PhD from Cambridge University in Management and a Masters from Oxford. He has held various positions including an Associate at Goldman Sachs in New York, the Asia Pacific Business Manager for Symantec Inc., a high-technology company based out of Cupertino, California and a Vice-President at D.E. Shaw & Co in London, a New York based global investment management firm. Now He is the Head of Quantitative Research and Venture Capital at Oxbridge Capital. Based in Shanghai and New York he also serves on the board of Oxbridge Capital’s Portfolio Committee, Investment Committee and Senior Management Committee.
Miranda has a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University and a Juris Doctor from St. John’s University School of Law. Miranda Tan is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. Miranda Tan has more than 15 years’ experience in public relations, marketing, and tech. She is the Founder and CEO of Robin8 (www.Robin8.com), a content and social marketing platform, powered by big data and machine learning.
Elyse is a fully bilingual American who has resided in China for more than 13 years, host of the highest rated national syndicated Mandarin news radio program Laowai Kandian, former US Embassy Virtual Outreach Officer, founder of the popular Cheeky Monkey Theater Company and former COO of China’s largest private construction company China Pacific Construction, as well as an actress in several major Chinese films and TV shows. Currently, she is the founder and CEO of Geili Giving, a mobile social platform connecting pre-vetted charities to Chinese consumers through fun and engaging challenges designed to encourage giving.
Richie is a born and raised South African who has spent much of the past 20 years working as a business analyst, using technology to create simple solutions to complex problems across a multitude of industries - from telecoms giants like Vodafone to grass roots NGO’s such as the Nelson Mandela Institute. Most recently, he founded iCE Angel – ID, an easy to use mobile app and web service that immediately notifies your family and shares your location, medical and insurance details in case of emergency anywhere in the world. It’s about peace of mind and connecting you with your family in your greatest moment of need.
William is based in Shanghai, and he began his technology investment career 18 years ago as a technology analyst in Taiwan. William joined SOSventures from SingTel Innov8 where he was the Managing Director supporting China investment activities. While at Innov8 he led investments in Yodo1 (mobile games), Gmobi (Android platform), Lekan (childrens video platform), and Massive Impact (mobile advertising) among others. Now William is a Partner at SOS Ventures, a US$235m accelerator focused venture capital fund, and the Managing Director of Chinaccelerator, China's first Software startup accelerator.
In her 10-year tenure ChinesePod, Jenny established herself as the world's most famous Chinese teacher as well as a cultural icon in helping foreigners understand China. She also grew into a formidable entrepreneur and helped build ChinesePod into the world's largest and most recognizable online Chinese learning brand. After a successful exit from ChinesePod in 2014, Jenny decided to apply her experience and skills to help Chinese learn English with her new venture OpenLanguage. Blending her charismatic studio presence with innovative pedagogical approach, Jenny has established OpenLanguage as one of the fastest growing learning brands in China with a passionate following. She's also a veteran in the local startup community and a frequent commentator on China related topics in the English media.
Mark’s passions are helping pharma companies reach specific physician target markets more effectively, and helping Chinese health professionals to utilize disease and industry-specific English more proficiently. For three years, Mark was an Editor for the China Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Review, and he has provided in-house consulting at Novartis, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Takeda. The specifiko.com (WeChat: specifiko) is an English/Chinese/Japanese web and WeChat-based marketing and language-learning platform for the pharmaceutical/healthcare industry.

