Kairos Society: 350 Student Biz Whizzes to Pitch Execs, Talk Shop, Save World

Posted by: Nick Leiber on February 24, 2011

Not-for-profit student entrepreneur networking group Kairos Society is holding its third annual Global Summit—meetings and breakout sessions with promising business founders and seasoned executives—on Feb. 25 and Feb. 26 at the United Nations and the New York Stock Exchange.

The goal, says the group’s 21-year-old founder, Ankur Jain, is ambitious: to create “billion-dollar businesses that tackle the world’s greatest challenges.” He expects 350 student entrepreneurs from around the globe and approximately 150 business and political leaders to participate.

The event isn’t open to the public but some of the sessions will be recorded, edited, and posted on the Kairos website, Jain says.

More from the Bloomberg story about Kairos and the event:

Most of Kairos members … have ideas for improving global living conditions and the environment such as electric motorcycles for city residents or portable solar panels for farmers.

[…]

Several Kairos members have been able transform their ideas into businesses, Jain said. Levant Power Corp., a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company founded by former Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Shakeel Avadhany, makes a vehicle shock absorber that converts the bumps in the road into energy, according to the company’s website.

MobilEdu is an iPhone application developed by former Stanford students Kayvon Beykpour and Joe Bernstein that universities can customize to let students look up information such as class schedules, events and maps. Their San Francisco- based company, Terriblyclever Design LLC, was acquired in 2009 by Blackboard Inc., a Washington-based company that makes software for colleges, according to a press release.

[…]

Among the executives scheduled to attend are: Peter Diamandis, chief executive officer and founder of the X Prize Foundation, a Playa Vista, California-based company that hosts competitions for entrepreneurs; Duncan Niederauer, chief executive officer of NYSE Euronext, owner of the New York Stock Exchange; and Bruce Mosler, chairman of global brokerage for New York-based Cushman & Wakefield Inc., the world’s largest privately held commercial real estate broker.