Dr. Arnold Chen
Managing Director, Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship
Purdue University

Abstract

"Entrepreneurship as a Career Path"

Graduate students make up almost 25% of Purdue’s student population and within this large group, one would think there would be many budding entrepreneurs.  But, a small percentage of graduate students pursue entrepreneurship as a career path.  Graduate students may not realize until very late in their graduate studies that commercializing a technology is a viable career choice.  Students are also unaware of the strong infrastructure in place to help them succeed in this journey.  Therefore, in my talk, as someone who has a PhD and also found his way as an entrepreneur,  I hope to engage the audience by exposing them to entrepreneurship as a potential career path and exposing them to some of the resources available to them on campus.

Bio

Arnold’s expertise includes start-up companies (semiconductor hardware), culture, team building, manufacturing, and operations. Prior to joining Burton D Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Arnold spent the last 17 years at the epicenter of entrepreneurship, Silicon Valley, working at 3 different start-ups, one of which was acquired and one went IPO and a year with the Foundry as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Arnold is a Purdue alumnus (BSEE’91), received his M.S. (’93) and Ph.D. (’96) degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Part of the Fall 2018 Graduate Seminar Series