Rensselaer Entrepreneur Network

The RAA is looking for 20 alumni entrepreneurs to work with the Vice Provost of Entrepreneurship to mentor students interested in becoming entrepreneurs. It will require several hours a month including mentoring training and a visit to campus for at least one face-to face meeting with the student.

This is an excellent opportunity to get involved with the academic activities at the school and share your entrepreneurial expertise and real life experience with a student. You can make a difference in their life.

If you are interested, take the “self-survey” below to see if you’d like to sign up:

Teacher… Tutor… Coach… Counselor… Self Survey: A mentor wears many hats and needs to have some specific characteristics.

• Willing and caring to take sincere interest in others’ success
• Experienced in entrepreneurship
• Knowledgeable about organizations and business cultures
• Aware and can help connect the dots between cultural trends, career-related networks and resources
• Committed to the advantages of a diverse perspective
• In a position of achievement, but accessible and able to give mentoring some priority within their primary responsibilities
• Skillful in coaching without ordering, while providing constructive feedback, positive reinforcement, and can help to build self-esteem
• Able to help students protect their ideas and intellectual property
• A patient listener, thoughtful, articulate and an objective problem-solver
• Freely offers relevant life experiences and perspectives as relevant learning opportunities
• Someone who sets a strong, role model example

To sign up as a mentor and for more information, click here

RPI Alumni Reception at the Game Developers Conference March 23, 6-8 p.m.
San Francisco Marriott

Join us at a reception for Rensselaer alumni during the Game Developers Conference. Co-sponsored by the Office of Alumni Relations and the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, the event is a great opportunity to meet and network with other alumni in game development. The program is open to anyone who has an interest in the topic and would like to network; you do not need to be attending the conference to join us.

This year several speakers will share an update on what is happening in the world of Game Development.

Marc Destefano ‘98, ‘01G
Clinical Assistant Professor of Game Studies, Rensselaer
http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/people/marc/

Tobi Saulnier ‘84, ‘94PhD
CEO, 1st Playable Productions
http://www.1stplayable.com/

Mark Seminatore ‘89
XNA-Development Lead, Microsoft Corporation
 http://www.xna.com/

Please pass the word along to anyone who might enjoy joining us.

Though there will be no charge for this event, please sign up by clicking here, so that we know how many to prepare for.  There will be food to enjoy, a free drink ticket, and lots of conversation.  Come network with us!

San Francisco Marriott
55 Fourth Street
(across the street from the Moscone Center)
Foothill D Room

Questions?  Contact Kathy Kinsey at (518) 276-2832 or kinsek@rpi.edu.

Join Lally School Dean David Gautschi and New York Metro area alumni at the New York Yacht Club for an intriguing discussion on our current economy with John Lonski ’73, Chief Economist and Managing Director, Moody’s Investors Service.

Lonski, who is responsible for the analysis of global credit markets, with special emphasis on the interaction between economic phenomena and the demand for and supply of credit market funds, will speak on the topic: “Outlook 2009: How Low Will We Go?” Lonski’s comments on credit market conditions and the business cycle appear daily in Moody’s CreditTrends and weekly in the Market Outlook publication of Moody’s Capital Markets Research Group. He has appeared many times on CNBC, Bloomberg Television and Radio, and NPR, and is regularly cited in The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, The New York Times, and other leading publications.

Don’t miss your opportunity to learn about the state of the economy from one of the most respected leaders in the field. The cost to attend is $10 per person and includes a cocktail and hors d’oeuvres reception. This event is limited to an alumnus/a and one guest. 

Questions: Contact Kathy Kinsey at kinsek@rpi.edu or (518) 276-2832

The New York yacht Club is located at 37 West 44^th Street, New York, NY 10036.

To register, visit here

Just in from LinkedIn:

This Friday, we will be adding several much-requested features to your group:

• Discussion forums: Simple discussion spaces for you and your members. (You can turn discussions off in your management control panel if you like.)
• Enhanced roster: Searchable list of group members.
• Digest emails: Daily or weekly digests of new discussion topics which your members may choose to receive. (We will be turning digests on for all current group members soon, and prompting them to set to their own preference.)
• Group home page: A private space for your members on LinkedIn.

We’re confident that these new features will spur communication, promote collaboration, and make your group more valuable to you and your members. We hope you can come by LinkedIn on Friday morning to check out the new functionality and get a group discussion going by posting a welcome message.

I am not sure how we can leverage this, but be sure we will try!

We now have a “group” on LinkedIn. This will allow users of LinkedIn who are members of the group to contact each other directly. Membership requires validation, so make sure you list RPI as one of your schools.

Click here to join the group. If you are not already a member of LinkedIn, you will be presented with the opportunity to join at that link as well.

Other interesting groups on LinkedIn:

• RPI Alumni Association
• RPI Alumni
• RPI Friends

Our next event will be in New York City on January 22, 2009 at the NYC Yacht Club. The keynote speaker will be John Lonski ’73, Chief Economist and Managing Director, Moody’s Investor Services. Stay tuned for more information.

Jeff Stewart, one of RPI’s serial entrepreneurs, has started yet another venure: Urgent Careers.

According to BNet: “Urgent Career today unveiled its groundbreaking service, which applies linguistic analysis to the job matching space. By utilizing linguistic technology to analyze and match sales professionals with compatible roles, Urgent Career seeks to eliminate both unnecessary hiring mistakes for growing companies and poor career choices for sales professionals.”

I originally heard about this in an article in Crain’s New York: “Despite a weak job market, two Manhattan-based tech companies that provide niche job hunting services are expanding. Urgent Career unveiled on Wednesday a new service that helps companies hire good sales people, while BountyJobs Inc., which operates a Web site that connects headhunters to employers, has raised $12 million in venture funding.”

I don’t think this is a complete list, but here are some of the companies Jeff has started:

• Square Earth
• Mimeo.com
• Monitor110
• Urgent Career

Visit Jeff’s own blog at www.urgentspeed.com.

This iteration of the REN website is obviously a blog. The intent is to share information with the Rensselaer community, especially entrepreneurially minded alumni, about starting and building technology oriented companies.

If you are interested in being a contributor to the REN blog, please send me a note. This is a community effort and will only grow if we have participation from the community.