Founded by Dr. Song Li, PhD ’92, CTech gives technical Columbia MBA and graduate Engineering students the tools to become world-class entrepreneurs by providing them with curriculum, mentorship, and networking opportunities, guiding the launch and growth of Columbia-founded and venture-scale technology startups.

CTech is a selective, cross-disciplinary program open to Engineering graduate students and rising second-year MBA students with technical backgrounds who are dedicated to launching and growing a venture-scale technology startup while at Columbia.

CTech represents a university-wide collaboration between the Business School’s Lang Entrepreneurship Center, the Engineering School’s IEOR Department, and Columbia Entrepreneurship.

Prerequisites for Application

• MBA student candidates: 
  • Rising second-year CBS students
  • Currently enrolled in or have completed Foundations of Entrepreneurship (CTech 101) prior to applying, or have received an exemption from this course
  • STEM undergraduate degree or relevant work experience in a technology role
• Engineering graduate student candidates: 
  • Rolling admissions
  • Preferably in first semester of Masters program and have taken Entrepreneurship Bootcamp (IEOR 4570), however:
    • Students in their second or third term are nonetheless encouraged to apply. Requirements for entrepreneurship coursework and/or independent study will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

CTech Program Components

For MBA Students: 

• Enrollment in (CTech 201) Launch Your Startup (3 credits).
• Must be accepted to and subsequently complete the (CTech 301) Greenhouse Accelerator program.
  • NOTE: CTech students are not guaranteed acceptance into Greenhouse and must go through the application and pitch process with all other candidates.
• Attendance of the Dr. Li Distinguished Technology Entrepreneurship Speaker Series.
• VC coursework or VC-related experience. This requirement could be satisfied by one or more of the following: 
  • Enrollment in Foundations of VC and/or VC Seminar 
  • A qualifying VC Workshop
  • Acceptance and participation in the Columbia Venture Fellows program (administered by the Lang Center)

For Engineering Graduate Students (details decided on a case by case basis, but generally):

• Enrollment in CTech 201: either “IEOR E4578 Startup Fundamentals – Build and Launch” with Prof. Owen Davis, 3 credits; B8519-002 “Launch Your Startup”, 3 credits; or an independent study arranged by CTech leadership during the upcoming fall semester.
• Must be accepted to and subsequently complete of the (CTech 301) Greenhouse Accelerator program.
  • NOTE: CTech students are not guaranteed acceptance into Greenhouse and must go through the application and pitch process with all other candidates.
• Attendance of the Dr. Song Li Distinguished Technology Entrepreneurship Speaker Series.
• VC coursework or VC-related experience. This requirement could be satisfied by one or more of the following: 
  • Enrollment in Foundations of VC and/or VC Seminar 
  • A qualifying VC Workshop

Apply to CTech

Applications are open until September 26, 2022.

Apply!

Note: If there is more than one student in the same startup who qualifies for CTech and wants to apply (e.g. each team member is either a rising second-year MBA with a technical background or an Engineering Masters student), team members should apply separately.

Questions? Please reach out to Lara Hejtmanek at [email protected] and Dave Lerner at [email protected].

CTech Team Leaders

Angela Lee
Faculty Director, Lang Entrepreneurship Center

Angela's Bio

Angela Lee is a Professor of Practice and the Chief Innovation Officer at Columbia Business School. She teaches Venture Capital (Foundations of VC, VC Seminar) and Leadership (The Leader’s Voice) courses. She brings 20 years of innovation, strategy and entrepreneurship experience to the classroom. She started her career in product management and then moved into strategy consulting at McKinsey. Angela is passionate about entrepreneurship and has started several companies in the education sector. She is a startup investor and the founder of 37 Angels, an investing network that has evaluated 15000 startups, invested in 60, and activates new investors through a startup investment bootcamp.

Angela has spoken at the White House and NASA and is a sought-after expert on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, MSNBC, and Fox Business. She was recognized by Inc. as one of 17 Inspiring Women to Watch in 2017, by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of 6 Innovative Women to Watch in 2015, and by Craine’s as a Notable Women in Tech in 2019. Angela received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley and her MBA from Columbia Business School. ”

Dave Lerner
Director of Entrepreneurship at Columbia University

Dave's Bio

Dave was appointed Director of Entrepreneurship at Columbia University in 2013. In his years with Columbia Entrepreneurship he’s helped launch the Columbia Startup Lab, the Columbia Design Studio, Startup Law Studio, CTech and a host of new tech programs and curricula throughout the university’s many schools. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Columbia Business School where he teaches the Greenhouse Accelerator Program, the Launch Your Startup class and at Columbia Engineering where he teaches the Entrepreneurship Bootcamps to incoming Masters students.

By background he’s an entrepreneur (2 exits) and angel investor in 100+ companies. His personal blog, www.davelerner.com/blog, explores the worlds of university entrepreneurship, angel/venture investing, and startups and he’s a frequent contributor to many other publications, including Business Insider, whose SAI group recently named him both one of the “top 100 most influential New Yorkers in the digital business community” and “one of NYC’s top 100 early stage investors.”

Lara Hejtmanek
Director, Lang Entrepreneurship Center 

Lara's Bio

Lara is Senior Associate Director in charge of on-campus events, programming, and curriculum for the Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center. Lara has experience as an angel investor, focusing on early stage social enterprise companies.

Prior to joining the Lang Center, she worked at several early stage companies in strategy and planning roles, and has over 20 years of experience in digital marketing. Most recently she founded and led the Insights & Planning practice for 360i – named the #1 digital agency in the country by AdAge for four years in a row – serving major brands for clients in CPG, travel and retail. There she led her team in bringing together consumer insights with emerging technologies to identify high impact opportunities for clients, spanning social media, mobile, search, paid media, and overall brand strategy. Lara holds a BA in Art History from Vassar College and an MBA from Columbia University.

Yvette Miller
Director of Marketing and Communications at Columbia Entrepreneurship

Yvette's Bio

In her role as CE’s Director of Marketing and Communications, Yvette gets the word out about Columbia’s culture of innovation, dynamic entrepreneurship initiatives, and its world-class entrepreneurs.

Yvette has 13+ years of experience in the public, private, and education sectors. She started her career leading communications at an early-stage startup, and has built outreach strategies from the ground up a few times since. She has prepared senior staff at startups and major companies for media interviews, congressional testimony, and events, and garnered coverage in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, USA Today, Reuters, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, CNET, and more.

CTech Mentors 

Greg Marsh
Founder & CEO at KeyMe

Keith Gonzales
Director of Product of Artificial Intelligence at Dataminr

Agapitos Diakogiannis
Founder & CEO at Seafair 

Saron Yitbarek
Founder & CEO at Disco

Sameer Maskey
Founder & CEO of Fusemachines Inc

Apoorv Agarwal
Founder & CEO of Text IQ

Meet the 2021-2022 Cohort 

Benjamin Markham ’22SEAS
Founder of ASBPN LLC

Benjamin's Bio

Benjamin is the founder of ASBPN LLC and is a current SEAS student. ASBPN LLC aims to produce commodity chemicals and fuels necessary for human life. Benjamin has a BS in Physics from the University of Minnesota and served in the US Navy as an Officer.

Alec Glassman ’22BUS
Founder of CrowdConnect

Alec's Bio

Alec is the founder of CrowdConnect, a platform that measures audience engagement and comprehension in real-time, providing presenters with timely and unbiased feedback. Alec received his BA from Colgate University in 2017, where he majored in Computer Science and minored in Economics.

Arpana Chaudhary, ’22BUS
Founder of Sheo Health

Arpana's Bio

Arpana is an EMBA student and the founder of Sheo Health. Sheo Health is a a digital clinic aimed at providing high-quality and standardized maternal healthcare accessible to women in developing countries. Arpana holds a PhD in Chemistry from Georgia State University

Peter Rhines ’22BUS
Founder of Jupiter Card

Peter's Bio

Peter is a current MBA student and founder of Jupiter Card, the first credit card to offer dynamic credit terms that adjusts monthly based on the financial habits of each user. Previously, he was Head of Product at ForwardLane, a fintech startup in NYC. Peter has a BS in Finance from Virginia Tech.

Tilak Pasala ’22BUS
Founder of PasalaTech, Inc

Tilak's Bio

Tilak Pasala is an EMBA student and founder of PasalaTech, Inc, an early staged company focused on developing medical devices used in interventional cardiology, specializing in structural heart interventions. Prior to CBS, Tilak worked in the medical field.

Aurore Gosmant ’21SEAS
Founder of SheepMe

Aurore's Bio

Aurore Gosmant, is a second-year SEAS graduate student studying Operations Research. She is the founder of Sheepme, an online platform that aims to decarbonize the shipping industry and simplify package sending logistics through an eco-responsible sustainable community-based shipping solution. Aurore holds a Masters in Computer Science from Telecom Paris.

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Meet the 2020-2021 Cohort

Meet the 2019-2020 Cohort