Columbia Organization of Rising Entrepreneurs

The Columbia Organization of Rising Entrepreneurs (CORE) works to inspire, educate, and launch the next generation of entrepreneurs from Columbia University. We reach a membership of over 5,000 students across campus, with a focus on the four undergraduate schools. In the past five years, we have had the honor of hosting entrepreneurship icons including DJ Khaled, Evan Spiegel (Snapchat), Alexis Ohanian (Reddit), Howard Marks (Activision Blizzard), Chris Poole (4chan), Jared Hecht (Groupme, Fundera), Zach Sims (Codecademy), and Jessica Livingston (Y Combinator). We also worked closely with the University to welcome Jack Dorsey (Twitter, Square), Drew Houston (Dropbox), Walt Mossberg (Re/code), and Geoffrey Canada (Harlem Children's Zone). We host more than 100 events in any given school year, including founders panels, intercollegiate startup socials, and designathons. Every semester, we run Columbia’s Startup Accelerator, Almaworks, to support Columbia’s aspiring student entrepreneurs. As part of a cross-campus coalition, we also co-organize the #StartupColumbia Festival and lead its $50,000 venture competition. Our educational initiatives have impact within our school, local, and global community. We teach entrepreneurship to high school students in partnership with the Double Discovery Center and to our peers in our weekly Enterprises class. In the Spring, we are proud to organize Global Tech Treks to expose Columbia students to entrepreneurial communities around the world. Our leadership team includes some of the most accomplished and promising students at Columbia. For our work, we've been honored to receive the 2014 Zvi Galil Award, in recognition of the student organization which has had the greatest positive impact on engineering student life. Our leaders have been honored with the Columbia Venture Community Roars Award, as well as the Dean's Award for Leadership in Innovation & Enhancement.