Newswise — Babson College, the top-ranked college for entrepreneurship, has named influential Bostonian, entrepreneur, and angel investor David Chang the Director of its Summer Venture Program (SVP)—Babson’s world-renowned 10-week startup accelerator.
“I have known David Chang for many years, and can say with great confidence and excitement that he is the perfect person to lead Babson’s Summer Venture Program,” said Debi Kleiman, Executive Director of the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson College. “His background, knowledge, and personality are exactly what our student founders need to make the most of this extraordinary experience. He will take this program and these student startups to the next level.”
The Summer Venture Program is an intensive experience designed to accelerate the development of student entrepreneurial ventures. It supports the most promising graduate and undergraduate entrepreneurs from Babson, F.W. Olin College of Engineering, and Wellesley College. Each summer, approximately 15 teams are chosen to participate, and receive housing, work space, advisers, a speaker series, and other resources to help develop their businesses.
The program concludes with the annual Summer Venture Showcase, where teams present their accomplishments to investors and members of the Babson and local startup communities.
David Chang
David Chang is an entrepreneur and angel investor with product, marketing, and software development experience at internet and mobile startups. He is currently an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EiR) at Harvard Business School, Executive Chair at Feelter, and Co-founder of PersonalVC where he works closely with Boston-area founders and investors.
Chang has a successful track record in hands-on roles at both direct-to-consumer and enterprise companies, six of which were acquired or IPO'd.
He previously led the PayPal Boston office and co-founded the Start Tank innovation space and the Where Angel Fund. Before WHERE’s acquisition by PayPal in April 2011, he held the role of VP of Product, which included strategy and corporate development.
Earlier in his career, on the consumer side, Chang was Director of New Products at TripAdvisor where he launched new features to meet consumers’ needs. He was VP of Marketing and Co-founder of SnapMyLife where he led product and marketing efforts. On the enterprise side, Chang was Director of Product Marketing at m-Qube, a pioneer in the mobile content space. He was Senior Product Manager at edocs and was a VP of Technology at Goldman Sachs.
As a leader in the entrepreneurship community, Chang holds several advisor/board memberships. He is on the board at MITX, an advisor at Harvard Ventures, Nanigans, Co Everywhere, Sharalike, Campseekers, and Linkwell Health.
He has made 40 angel investments in startups such as Crashlytics, clypd, Amino, Inmoji, Cuseum, CarePort Health, Dashfire, Reactor Media, xPeerient, Uncharted Play, and through the Where Angel Fund. David is a frequent speaker on the topics of startups, fundraising, and the Boston tech ecosystem, and he actively mentors students and founders. Recent awards include Boston Business Journal's Power 50: Most Influential Bostonians, BostInno’s 50 on Fire: Investment Winner / Tech Finalist, and Finalist for NEVY Angel of the Year.
David holds a BS with Distinction in Computer Science from Cornell University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
About The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson College
Dedicated in 1998, The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship is the nerve center for entrepreneurial activity at Babson and home to the largest dedicated entrepreneurship faculty in the world. The 6,000-square-foot center was named in honor of Arthur M. Blank ’63, H’98, co-founder of The Home Depot, and provides a home for the Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC), Diana Project, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices (STEP) Project, and the John E. and Alice L. Butler Launch Pad. The center focuses on expanding the practice of Entrepreneurship of All Kinds® through innovative co-curricular programs and global collaborative research initiatives that inspire and inform Entrepreneurial Thought & Action®. Outside the classroom, students live entrepreneurship through more than a dozen student-run entrepreneurship organizations and forums, and the Boston-area entrepreneurial ecosystem.
About Babson College
Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds®. The top-ranked college for entrepreneurship education, Babson is a dynamic living and learning laboratory where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society. We prepare the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to make a difference in the world, and have an impact on organizations of all sizes and types. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value.
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