Princeton Entrepreneurship Council is pleased to organize the popular startup showcase to kick-off the 2024 Tiger Entrepreneurs Conference. We are pleased to co-host this year's showcase with Princeton Alumni Angels. Don Seitz '79 and Gia Fruscione '00 will serve as emcees for this event.

Six Princeton founders will present to the audience and answer questions. These founders are leading startups across a range of industry sectors, represent a mix of undergraduate and graduate degrees from multiple decades, and with diverse backgrounds. Each is impactful new technologies and/or market solutions. 

The six startups are as follows:

Azalea uses technology developed at Princeton — light mediated genetic switches — to minimize wasted carbon and reduce the cost of bio-based products, such as specialty chemicals, food, materials, and pharmaceutical precursors. Presented by Kevin Xu *24 and Saurabh Malani *24, Co-Founders.

Delfi has built the world's first AI-driven financial risk management solution, designed to give CFOs and asset-liability committees an edge in their day-to-day operations. Presented by Daniel Ahn ’04, CEO and Joseph Ahn, Chief Strategy Officer.

Giving Credit, a non-profit social credit network that amplifies community finance by bringing transparency to informal lending networks, protecting peer-lenders against loan loss through loan guarantees, and reporting informal loan repayment to credit bureaus. Presented by David Henderson, Princeton START Innovator.

Overwatch Health is a telehealth platform for health systems to administer live, monitored cardiac rehabilitation. Presented by Kazuo Nakamura ’23, COO.

Schoolytics is a purpose-built data platform designed to give district leaders and school staff the insights needed to track trends and monitor progress on student outcomes. Presented by Courtney Monk ’01, COO.

Strobe Power remotely manages distributed batteries, enhancing grid stability and power supply resilience for commercial and industrial clients. Presented by Jay Parikh ‘12, COO.

At the conclusion of the showcase, audience members will electronically vote for their favorite startup, and the winner of the 2024 Tiger Entrepreneurs Conference People's Choice Award will be announced.

Following the showcase, join us in the tent at McCosh courtyard for a festive opening evening reception to network with fellow alumni founders and investors, faculty and students, and guests. Food and drink will fuel the opportunity to connect with old and new friends and begin to learn about the incredible innovation occurring across Princeton’s campus, one of the themes of this year's Tiger Entrepreneurs Conference.

Continental Breakfast will be served in the McCosh Courtyard tent

Anne-Marie Maman '84, Executive Director of Princeton Entrepreneurship Council (PEC) will warmly welcome attendees to this year's Tiger Entrepreneurs Conference. This is the fifth PEC conference and first one on campus. As such, we will showcase many of the faculty entrepreneurs, alongside many alumni founders and funders, who are making substantive contributions and positive impacts to society.

Next, Craig Arnold, Princeton’s Vice Dean for Innovation, will share his perspectives as to how entrepreneurship is core to the mission of the University. The pace of innovation at Princeton is accelerating rapidly and Craig’s remarks will shine a light on this momentum.

Don Seitz '79, Associate Director, Alumni Engagement, Princeton Entrepreneurship Council, will then provide an overview of the agenda and important logistics for the day.

Princeton recently announced two new initiatives, an AI Innovation Hub in collaboration with the State of New Jersey, and Princeton Language + Intelligence, with significant funding to explore the inner workings of large language models, the fairness and equity considerations that must become part of AI-based solutions, and some exciting use cases being developed and commercialized by alumni founders. The panel will explore these topics, the investing landscape, and more from a variety of perspectives. 

Moderator: 
Nick Dumont '02, Partner, Cooley LLP

Panelists:
Daniel Ahn '04, Founder, Delphi
Brannon Jones '17, Investor, AlleyCorp
Mihir Kshirsagar, Clinic Lead, Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton
JT Lu PhD *17, Co-Founder and CEO, Vysioneer
Sarah Nagy *14, Co-Founder and CEO, Seek AI

Two successful faculty founders, Yibin Kang and Ed Felten, will each share their entrepreneurial journeys as co-founders in two of strategic importance to both Princeton and the broader community.

Yibin Kang, a leading global authority on cancer metasisis, has spun out two therapeutics companies based on the research being conducted in his lab on campus.

Ed Felten, retired Princeton professor, is the co-founder and chief scientist at Offchain Labs, a startup utilizing transformative technology to deliver products and solutions for developers, businesses, and individuals to harness the power of Ethereum in the blockchain space.

Speakers: 

Blockchain Sector 
Ed Felten, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist, Offchain Labs
Pramod Visanwath, Professor in Engineering, Princeton                                      

Biotechnology Sector
Yibin Kang, Professor of Molecular Biology, Founding member of Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Princeton Branch; Co-Founder, Kayothera
Mike Wiley, Vice President, Foundation Venture Capital Group

Participate in this interactive workshop that focuses on tools and techniques that help founders and others refine their entrepreneurial mindset. Enhance your skills in areas such as creativity, resiliency, grit, and vision.

Presenter: 
Christine Galib '08, Early Stage Startup Advisor; Adjunct Professor; Author

Several talented alumni venture capitalists will come together for a fast-paced conversation about the investment trends and opportunities - and particularly across the sectors highlighted throughout the conference - they see in the VC industry, the political and global headwinds and tailwinds, and challenges the funding industry faces in the current environment.

Moderator: 
Craig Arnold, Vice Dean for Innovation, Princeton

Panelists:
Camilo Acosta '11, General Partner, Perceptive Investors
Jim Cohen '86, General Partner, Fitz Gate Ventures
Shahram Hejazi, Managing Director & CEO, BioAdvance; Lecturer, Head of Entrepreneurship, Princeton
Susannah Shipton '14, Partner, AlleyCorp

A Princeton entrepreneurial conference always shines a light on entrepreneurs across the arts and humanities. This year’s panel, comprised of several diverse, multi-generational alumni, are founders or leaders of amazing organizations making sizeable societal impacts in their respective fields.

Moderator: 
Aaron Landsman, Lecturer, Princeton; Multidisciplinary artist

Panelists:
Manish Bhardwaj, CEO & Co-Founder, Innovators in Health; Director, Design for Innovation, Princeton
Carlton Brown '73, CEO, Direct Invest Development LLC 
Lou Chen '19, Founder, Trenton Arts at Princeton
Natalie Tung '19, Co-Founder, Homeworks Trenton

The co-founders of PumpKin Baby, a Princeton faculty-led spinout of technology developed on campus, will share their experiences and learnings as they launch in the marketplace. The startup uses technology developed in the Department of Molecular Biology that extends the shelf life of the nutritional value of frozen breast milk, providing an invaluable benefit as mothers return to the workplace.

Presenters:
Justin Silpe *20, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton; Co-Founder and CEO, PumpKin Baby
Maggie Moore, COO, PumpKin Baby
Cortney Cavanaugh PhD, New Ventures and Licensing Associate, Office of Technology Licensing, Princeton

The conference now shifts to the topics of new energy and climate tech and the roles and impact Princeton faculty and alumni are making in these sectors.

In this presentation and discussion, Steven Cowley, the Director of Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, will provide an overview of the innovations and impact flowing from the various strategic initiatives at PPPL, from new fusion technologies and various new energy strategies to a new innovation center. Learn firsthand about these exciting initiatives and their climate impact.

Presenter: 
Steven Cowley, Director, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

A team of alumni climate tech specialists – representing startup founders, policy and project executives and investors – will speak to their views of trends, opportunities, and challenges across various sustainability markets.

Moderator: 
Andrew Eil *09, Head of Climate Risk, North America, Tata Consultancy Services

Panelists:
Frank Norcross *09, Vice President, energyRe
Rebecca Singer '18, Vice President, Decarbonization Partners (a Blackrock and Temasek joint venture)
Elizabeth Troein PhD '13, Founder, CarbonTech Consulting
Sean Zheng *24, Founder, PureLi

Led by Christina Pellicane, Lead Instructor of the NSF I-Corps Northeast Hub hosted at Princeton, this workshop will focus on techniques and approaches to conducting effective customer discovery and to validating the value proposition and solution of an early-stage startup.

Christina will be joined by three entrepreneurs who have participated in the I-Corps program and who will share their experiences.

Presenter: Christina Pellicane, Lead Instructor, I-Corps Northeast Hub

Panelists:
Khadidiatou Sall
Elijah M. Gallimore-Repole
Anvitha Sudhakar

The programming portion of the conference concludes with an exceptional panel of faculty and alumni quantum engineering leaders. You will engage with leaders and startup founders in the space who are exploring new horizons of quantum science with enormous potential.

Moderator: 
Mary Catherine (MC) Lorio '22 *23, Engineer, HRL Laboratories

Panelists:
Pranav Gokhale '15, VP of Quantum Software, Infleqtion
Andrew Houck '00, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering; Co-Director, Princeton Quantum Initiative
Stephen Lyon, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Princeton
Jeff Thompson, Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering; Associated Faculty, Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton

Due to unforseen circumstances, this session has been canceled. Please join the Quantum Technology panel in McCosh 46.

We thank you for joining Princeton's entrepreneurial community during this first on-campus Tiger Entrepreneurs Conference. Please continue to engage with Princeton's innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem and reach out to us with your ideas and suggestions.

To that point, we will email a feedback survey to you just before the end of the conference. We'd appreciate you taking a couple of minutes to respond. Your feedback will help guide us with future events and programs.

For all of you who want to continue networking with each other, the closing reception will allow you to spend your remaining time with fellow alumni and students to reflect on the many discussions and conversations of the day and how you might want to further engage with Princeton's entrepreneurial community.

We hope the conference was informative, inspiring, and rich in conversation. Safe travels.