New student group offers opportunities for technology, entrepreneurship

The start-up world finally has a student organization to call its own.

STEP — Students for Technology and Entrepreneurship at Penn — aspires to “foster a community of Penn students who share a common interest in the emerging technology and start-up world,” according to its founders Talia Goldberg, a Wharton junior, and Jacob Schulman, a College and Wharton junior.

Though clubs previously existed for students in technology and for students in entrepreneurship, STEP is the first to marry the two to build awareness and engagement across University lines, hoping to involve students from every school with every and any interest level.

Goldberg and Schulman had the idea to start the club while interning in New York this summer at two start-up technology firms, Foursquare and Hunch.com, respectively. According to Goldberg, they decided they could use their connections and networking experiences to benefit the Penn community.

“We realized that there are a lot of people interested in this stuff,” Schulman said. “There was no specific club for start-ups and web services, and that gave the opportunity to meet with industry leaders.”

Emily Cieri, managing director at Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs, said that she is happy to see Goldberg and Schulman fill this niche. “One of the great things about Penn is that there are students with initiative,” she said. “If they feel there’s a need for something, they can pull things together and make it happen.”

STEP’s first event will bring former Wharton student Joseph Cohen of Coursekit and David Tisch, a 2003 College graduate and managing director of TechStars NYC — a selective start-up accelerator ­— to campus on Oct. 27 to speak about their experiences in the start-up world.

“I’m happy to engage students about starting internet companies and alternative career paths,” Tisch wrote in an email. “The amount of exciting internet companies coming out of Penn in recent years is staggering,” he wrote, adding, “We try very hard to keep kids off the street (Wall Street).”

College freshman Matthew Gibstein said he is “really looking forward to the STEP panels and speaker series.”

“I’m super interested in the tech sphere, specifically start-up culture and information technology,” he said. “STEP seemed like a pretty stellar option to pursue both of those fields, and I hope to gain more of an insight to the inner-workings of tech companies and get a better feel for the way the industry — and its players — operates.”

Wharton sophomore Wesley Zhao, who took a leave of absence from Penn last May to pursue his own start-up, AvantCard, commends STEP in its mission to connect students interested in the start-up world. “There are two ways to look at start-ups,” he said. “One in which people are very, very open, and one in which people are set in their old ways. When you share your ideas, people really help and connect you, and being in a collaborative environment can be extremely helpful.”

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