About CORE

Mission

CORE (Columbia Organization of Rising Entrepreneurs) was founded in late 1999 by students with the desire to become entrepreneurs. CORE's leading objective is to provide educational and professional resources for students at Columbia University with an interest in entrepreneurship. As the only university-wide forum for the exchange of ideas, experiences, and challenges relating to entrepreneurship, CORE has successfully organized university-wide business plan competitions, awarded both graduate and undergraduate students over $100,000 dollars in seed capital, and sponsored numerous events featuring successful entrepreneurs as speakers. There are currently over 1,200 members in CORE.

Goals

CORE helps students learn more about entrepreneurship by providing a wide range of resources from basic information to contacts in the business world. During the fall semester, CORE hosts a seminar series that focuses on basic concepts critical to starting up a business. Past seminars have included: Writing a Business Plan, Financing Your Startup, Marketing Your Startup, The Law and Entrepreneurs, and How To Get Rich in Two Minutes, a seminar focusing on the art of giving an effective elevator pitch. CORE also has drawn successful entrepreneurs to Columbia such as Mark Cuban and has co-hosted Blake Ross, creator of Mozilla Firefox, to share their insights with students.

In addition to developing student entrepreneurship, CORE aims to channel that interest, energy, and talent back into the community through the expansion of the CORE Entrepreneurship Challenge (E-Challenge). CORE has helped students develop and implement business plans that have resulted in student-run, profit-generating enterprises that target the needs of the immediate university and greater New York community.