The Horn Program in Entrepreneurship has announced the sixth annual President’s Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, “Breaking Down Barriers,” to be held Thursday, April 18, in Clayton Hall on the University of Delaware’s Laird Campus.
Aimed at bringing together students, faculty, alumni, entrepreneurs, investors and community members, the three-part event will begin at 1 p.m. with the final round of Hen Hatch, the university’s venture funding competition. Finalists in the student track are:
– Bonneterie, led by Caroline LaPrise;
– Nemesis Autosport, led by Danielle Whitaker and;
– Anniversary, led by Benjamin Klein and Kenneth Wallach.
Finalists in the alumni, faculty and staff track are:
– WholesomeOne, led by Kevin Burke, Greg Wilson, Cristie Ritz-King, Jessica Braun and Kristen Stewart;
– AnCatt, led by Sue Wang, Nar Wang and Jianguo Wang;
– Heilio, led by Peter Jackson, Benjamin Arneberg, Gino Inverso, Nathan and Patty Furukawa.
The event will continue with a networking reception before the main program at 3 p.m., which will feature welcome remarks from UD President Patrick Harker and Dan Freeman, director of the Horn Program.
Featured speakers will include Trevor Owens, founder, Lean Startup Machine; Cat Oyler, senior director, Emerging Technologies, Johnson and Johnson; Patrick Riley, executive director, Global Accelerator Network; Roger Frank, founder and managing director, Innovare Advisors; Liz Griggs, chairman and CEO, NextImage Medical; Catherine Cook, cofounder and vice president, brand strategy, MeetMe; Tanya Bakalov, cofounder and senior vice president of operations, SevOne; and Charlie Horn, chairman, Pro Private Equity.
An entrepreneurial exhibition featuring several student and alumni startups as well as the awards ceremony for Hen Hatch will follow the main program in the Clayton Hall lobby.
New this year, the Horn Program partnered with the New Castle County Economic Development Council to include an installment of the “Cutting Edge in IT Performance Management Series,” which will feature alumni business SevOne at 6:15 p.m.
Registration is free, but since seating is limited. Interested persons may register for all or part of the forum.
Free admission to the forum is made possible through the support of sponsors including Belfint, Lyons and Shuman, Connolly Gallagher, Barnes and Thornburg, Corporation Service Company and Hunter Public Relations.
