By Bridget Hagen Many students at Cornell spend the summer between their junior and senior years gaining professional experience through internships. For students interested in entrepreneurship, the Kessler Fellows program provides a unique, funded opportunity to complete a summer internship at a startup of their choice. This summer, the 18 students in the program’s 2023 cohort took advantage of their chance to make an impact for a growing company. Throughout their summer-long internships, they acquired valuable skills, grew their networks and explored their potential futures in entrepreneurship. Rooted in the College of Engineering and open to all juniors at Cornell, the Kessler Fellows program begins in the spring semester with entrepreneurship education. Students learn from seasoned startup founders and past Kessler Fellows about what it takes to get a startup off the ground, and expert Entrepreneurs in Residence offer guidance as fellows work to secure internships for the summer. During their internships, fellows receive a weekly stipend, which is generously funded by Andrew Kessler ’80. The financial support mutually benefits the fellows and the startups they work for — students work closely with the founding team, while the early-stage companies benefit from the extra help at no cost to them. The 2023 Kessler Fellows are now back on campus for their senior years and recently shared their reflections on their internships. Read on to learn more about how the program and their startup experiences have shaped their goals and plans following graduation next May. Shirin Dinasan ’24, Applied Economics and Management As a strategy and operations intern for Shef, a food delivery platform connecting local chefs with customers seeking homemade meals, Dinasan nurtured her longstanding interest in entrepreneurship and wore many hats. “My main project was strategizing and executing ways to grow different segments of their customer base within their food delivery platform,” she said. “I was also really interested in having some sort of analytical component of my internship as I wanted to gain some real-world application of the technical skills I've learned here at Cornell.” Beyond that, Dinasan was able to tap into her creative side with marketing projects and food photography. She said she enjoyed the passion that the Shef team demonstrated about the startup’s mission, how driven and creative they were, and how receptive they were to her ideas. “Early on in your career, it’s really awesome to be surrounded by people that have this very prominent ‘let’s build’ mentality,” she said. “What that meant is they’re very open to your suggestions, even if you haven’t been at a company for very long. There are not a lot of hoops or systems that you have to jump through in order to execute or even propose something.” Going into the Kessler Fellows program, Dinasan already saw herself working in the startup space in the future, and her experience at Shef confirmed this interest. She said she recommends the program to anyone interested in entrepreneurship. “I was really looking for a unique junior year internship experience in the startup world, and I don't think there was a better option than Kessler Fellows out there,” she said. Kate Kim ’24, Information Science Kim previously freelanced for GovCompete, a startup that uses machine learning to find best-fit government contracts for small businesses. The ability to have a large impact and access to the executive team inspired Kim to explore entrepreneurship further, which led her to the Kessler Fellows program. Her summer internship took her to Berkeley, California, where she worked for Grabango, a leading provider of checkout-free technology for large-scale grocery and convenience store chains. She spent her time there enhancing the user experience (UX) of the startup’s software, designing pay station screens and app screens to improve the shopper experience, and creating marketing materials for retailer clients. “I got to have direct conversations with the CTO of the company and also worked under the VP of Product, so having that mentorship of people who are so far along their careers and getting to learn their journey into entrepreneurship was really cool,” she said. Back on campus for her senior year, Kim said she is now actively searching for positions at startups. “My summer at Grabango reaffirmed my interest in UX design for sure, but it also reaffirmed my interest in working for a startup in the future,” she said. “It was a really once-in-a-lifetime experience.” Emma Shen ’24, Information Science Shen’s entrepreneurial journey began when she co-founded Design Consulting at Cornell, the university’s first student-run design consulting firm. “Leading that initiative really gave me hands-on experience in what I feel very much is a startup, a student organization,” she said. “We take clients on and we have funding from those clients, so it’s also somewhat of a real business. I want to continue to build products, systems, and communities that I can take ownership of and share with others.” To further explore her interest in the startup world, Shen joined the Kessler Fellows program and became a product intern for Terra Quantum, a quantum technology company offering quantum computing applications and algorithms. “My main project was to create the beta landing page experience for TQ42, which is Terra Quantum’s quantum-as-a-service platform,” Shen said. “The project very much served as my window into the world of quantum, quantum technology, and product management skills such as customer discovery and go-to-market strategy.” Shen worked directly with the startup’s heads of product management and product design on the project. By the end of her internship, she handed off her final design and research findings to the company’s leadership, and the landing page will be live later this year. “You really have a very high impact and a tangible seat at the table, speaking with leadership and executives and getting to listen in on some pretty big conversations,” she said. “Interns get work that full-time employees get, and you’re working at a very, very high level, having to learn extremely quickly and bring yourself up to pace really quickly.” With this experience under her belt, Shen feels confident that she works well in the fast-paced environment of a startup, and she is interested in continuing to explore entrepreneurship. Yiming Wang ’24, Computer Science and Sociology In his internship at Vlogmi, a new social media platform focused on authenticity and connection rather than comparison, Wang enjoyed having opportunities to contribute directly to the startup’s mission. “You get to argue what would be extremely beneficial or what would be extremely useful to work on at the current stage with the leadership team or with the board, especially at a relatively early-stage or small startup,” he said. “You have this sense of accomplishment that all the skills you’ve built up throughout the years are actually useful.” Wang found that Vlogmi’s leadership appreciated his knowledge across multiple areas, from computer science to project management. In addition to helping with coding, creating algorithms to analyze user data, and designing a creator studio, Wang was also involved in strategic conversations about how to attract users to join the platform. “A lot of times, the management skills are as important as the coding,” he said. “You have a lot of flexibility in your work.” As he looks toward the future, Wang now has a better idea of how he can prepare for a career working at a startup or pursuing his own entrepreneurial endeavors. “Before the Kessler internship, I actually didn’t know what some of the skills are that are valuable to a startup setting,” he said. “It helped me realize there’s a lot of things I can do and improve upon in my very last year of my undergraduate education.” Applications are now open for the 2024 cohort of the Kessler Fellows program. Any junior at Cornell University with a strong interest in entrepreneurship is encouraged to apply by the December 1 deadline and register for the virtual information session on October 26.

The 2023 Kessler Fellows have accepted internships and will spend the summer gaining firsthand entrepreneurial experience in industries ranging from renewable energy to quantum technology.

After receiving a historic number of applications, the Kessler Fellows program has welcomed a record 20 students to its 2023 fellowship cohort.

For 10 weeks over the summer, the 13 students in the 2022 cohort of the Kessler Fellows program spread across the globe to gain firsthand experience working for startups. Now, they have returned to campus for their senior year armed with valuable new skills and connections in the startup world.

Students in this year’s Kessler Fellows cohort have secured summer internship placements and are getting to work contributing to startups across the nation.The Kessler Fellows program is rooted in the College of Engineering at Cornell University and offers juniors across disciplines the chance to fully immerse themselves in the world of entrepreneurship.