Lehigh’s entrepreneurship program has expanded its partnership with the Nasdaq Center on the West Coast.
The new entrepreneurship program, Lehigh’s Startup Academy, is an undergraduate education opportunity offered through Lehigh. According to their website, their goal is to help students develop relevant skills and an entrepreneurial mindset to succeed in their careers. An important part of this program is giving students practical experience to exercise their skills.
Lehigh’s partnership with the Nasdaq Center began in 2017 with Lehigh@NasdaqCenter, a program that gives students an opportunity to work with startups.
Lehigh’s Startup Academy is one program the center provides for students to get real-world experience, allowing them to work with startup companies in San Francisco. The expansion aims to give Lehigh students opportunities outside of the school’s geographic borders.
Sam Dewalt, the managing director of Lehigh@NasdaqCenter, explained the reason for the expansion of the program.
“Silicon Valley is certainly a hub of entrepreneurial activity and will continue to play a very important role in what we continue to offer programs for students,” Dewalt said.
Students and startups can mutually benefit from immersive experiences, Dewalt said, whether those be physical or virtual.
Part of the expansion will be looking at other locations where even more business opportunities can be offered.
“Our mission is to develop the next generation of global entrepreneurial leaders,” Dewalt said. “To do so we educate, connect and inspire Lehigh students of all backgrounds, regardless of discipline and career path.”
According to a press release by StartUps Magazine, Lehigh’s Nasdaq Center has served more than 1,400 students since the 2017 launch. Over 400 students utilized the program last year.
Lehigh is the only university to have an exclusive partnership with the Nasdaq Center, meaning it is the only higher education institution that works with the center in this way.
Dewalt said the partnership began when the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, a nonprofit program working to improve access to knowledge on entrepreneurship, was looking for schools to work with.
Lehigh got in contact with the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center in 2016 through Lehigh Silicon Valley, a program run by Lehigh Baker Institute for Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation.
“The Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center wanted an academic partner to enhance their work with entrepreneurship education and research,” Dewalt said. “Lehigh took advantage of this and has shared a space with them in San Francisco since.”
The Startup Academy was one of the opportunities that emerged from this relationship.
Gabby Covino, ‘25, studies finance and accounting and is a member of the program.
“I’ve always loved the idea of startups,” Covino said. “I think it’s super cool to be a founding member of a team, have your responsibilities and watch something grow.”
Covino said she believed the expansion would benefit students by giving them another location to access more and different opportunities through the program.
Shreya Chawla, ‘25, is studying international relations, economics and environmental science. She is also a member of the Startup Academy program and said she learned from the experience.
“We were thrown into an atmosphere where we had to teach ourselves a lot of things,” Chawla said. “We were also given a lot of power in our position by being able to directly interact with the CEOs and the managers.”
Chawla said having this contact helped the team figure out the goals of their individual roles and how to deliver out-of-the-box thinking.
As a College of Arts and Sciences student, Chawla said she’s not studying anything directly related to entrepreneurship. She said regardless of a student’s education choices, she recommends the program to anyone who wants to learn more about business.
“I’m not planning to be an entrepreneur anytime soon, but I still believe I got a lot of things from that experience of being in that area and around those people,” Chawla said.
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