Jane Flint

On Friday, the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology hosted a pitch event for 5 participants with the Acceleration Program of Tokyo for Women Entrepreneurs (APT). Each participant was given 5 minutes to pitch their startup to a panel of four judges and then take 10 additional minutes to answer any questions from the judges.

Pitches ranged from luxury goods to finding sustainable food waste solutions, with each pitch focusing on bringing people together and giving back to the community. Scroll through to see each entrepreneur and their pitch.

Gigi Wang introduces the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, highlighting the Berkeley Method of Entrepreneurship and briefly discussing the growth mindset.

“A big part of entrepreneurship is going somewhere new,” Wang said. “The APT program is perfect because it recognizes that it’s not just about learning, it’s about meeting the people.”

Guest judges: Gwen Edwards, Kal Deutsch, Hilary Weber and Jay Onda visited to listen to each pitch, ask questions and offer advice to each entrepreneur. All four have extensive backgrounds in business, especially in the tech field. Click here for more information.

As the largest official startup accelerator of the University of California at Berkeley, we are proud to roll out our new UC Berkeley SkyDeck branding! You’ll see the change on our website and in other places, but this new branding represents so much more than a different logo. We are an inextricable part of UC Berkeley and it remains at the heart of everything we do. Berkeley SkyDeck is the place where game-changing ideas, global resources, and research excellence come together to develop businesses that innovate for a better world.

The newly launched “Bio Track” at SkyDeck partners with UC Berkeley’s QB3 to create a program specifically targeted towards the needs of life science founders, including access to advisors, equipment, facilities, and of course investors. Berkeley SkyDeck expanded its international reach with the first ever “China Bio” event, which brought four top portfolio companies on a week-long trip to eastern China where they met leading pharmaceutical/biotech companies and venture capital investors in Suzhou, Wuxi, and Shanghai. The aim of the trip was to identify collaborators that will help the startups to bring their technologies to market even sooner. Three of our startups won prizes at a Suzhou pitch contest and they returned from the trip excited about the relationships and collaboration opportunities they found in China.

As part of the UC Berkeley Alliance for Inclusive Entrepreneurship, SkyDeck hosted the soft launch of Women Who Found on July 31, 2018. A highly-engaged group of 60 people attended from our internal network of founders, campus partners, faculty, students, advisors, and investors. After the panel moderated by Caroline Winnett, attendees broke into eight groups to discuss their experiences and brainstorm about what they want the group to offer. Panelist Hilary Weber, CEO & Founder of Opportu Startup Innovation, commented about the event:  “All leadership starts with self leadership, and what I saw at the WWF event was a room full of leaders working together, despite the odds, putting their ideas out there and creating forward momentum. Join us! We’re just getting started, and we have some very big things to accomplish.”

Four-time Super Bowl winner Joe Montana showed up for the Berkeley SkyDeck Friday Office Hours and talked about wisdom gained from his experience as a football champ and investor: “It’s all about the team.”