Entrepreneurship & Innovation News and Updates

What began as a typical student venture journey in TIA quickly evolved into a multi-year talent pipeline between Colgate University and Ozeki Technologies. “For the students, Ozeki represents the opportunity to work with me and our CTO, exposure they would not be able to get in a larger company. Moreover, if Ozeki succeeds as a business, it will raise the students’ professional profile for having been involved as an early employee,” said Ozeki CEO Ken Carter ’92.

From virtual reality art to a deep dive into social entrepreneurship, the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation is kicking off the fall 2025 semester with a dynamic and diverse lineup of events.

The first draft for her Film and Media Studies senior thesis was due in one month. After facing three setbacks, doom scrolling through videos led Ankita Suri ’25 to an unlikely breakthrough: “I was so focused on telling everyone else’s stories that I realized that I had no choice but to tell my own.”

For Vitalize’s Talia Broder ’28, the importance of reaching out to specialists in niche areas of the business plan was her biggest insight from the field work portion of the Summer Accelerator. “For me, this was especially valuable in understanding sea freight and fulfillment processes.”

Jahanvi Chamria ’28 and Diya Badola ’25 developed a prototype to fully automate vanilla farming.

Five Colgate student and alumni ventures — from AI to agriculture to the arts — took big steps forward in this year’s TIA Summer Accelerator, proving that with the right mentorship and structure, bold ideas can grow fast.

The importance of mental health isn’t widely known or recognized in India. But Projects for Peace recipient Harshitha Talasila ’26 is currently working with a Young Indians Chapter in Amaravati, India to change that.

For Hunter Macy ’22, having a vision and product wasn't enough; the TIA Summer Accelerator helped him realize that even though he knew there was a problem in the market, he didn’t understand the business well enough to solve it.

For Colgate Alum Lisa Heller, the biggest lesson she had to learned the hard way is that in entrepreneurship you really can’t do it alone: “Asking for support isn’t failure, it’s how things actually grow.”

TIA Summer Accelerator mentors Andres Echenique ’83, Steve Rock ’85, Brian Horey ’82, and Kim Schafer ’92 share why they give their time to their alma mater.