An increasing number of individuals rely on their mobile devices, rather than on their laptops or desktops, to conduct web searches. Accordingly, businesses in Silicon Valley and around the world are increasing their efforts to create helpful, specialized smartphone applications. In addition, Google, a Silicon Valley leader, has announced a new search engine strategy to help people find what they need from their smartphones as efficiently as possible.
In order to bridge the gap between web searches and applications on mobile devices, Google will soon allow users to search indexes of mobile application content and link directly to those applications. For example, when a person searches for a nearby restaurant on his or her phone, the search results may return a link to the Yelp application page for that restaurant if the user has the Yelp application installed.
A major impetus for this new strategy is the revenue lost when people use their phones rather than their computers to search for information. Google loses out on a significant amount of advertising revenue through mobile searches. The new strategy has the potential to recoup some of this lost money.
Recently, University of Michigan Provost Martha Pollack announced that the school would soon launch a campus-wide entrepreneurship program. The Stephen M. Ross School of Business and the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan teamed to create a new master of entrepreneurship degree program in which students from every major can participate. The creation of this overarching entrepreneurship program makes its rich resources available to all students and encourages a greater degree of collaboration between students involved in radically different fields of study, generating innumerable opportunities for creativity and innovation as they gain access to local startups.
The campus-wide entrepreneurship program links several entrepreneurial programs developed at the University of Michigan in recent years. The initiative also creates an important precedent that may influence other institutions around the nation to offer similar opportunities for their students. Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate dean for entrepreneurial programs at the College of Engineering, designed the program. The University is currently funding the effort, but Zurbuchen plans to reach out to third-party investors in the near future.
Rick Bolander, managing partner of San Francisco-based venture
capital investment firm Gabriel Venture Partners (GVP), maintains close
ties to many of the high-technology companies he has assisted over the
years. Bolander currently serves as a member of the board of directors
of Chegg, Inc., a leading online textbook rental company that prides
itself on giving back to its community through its nonprofit arm, Chegg
for Good.
Chegg recently partnered with Techbridge, a pioneering
organization offering science and technology-centered extracurricular
programs for girls in the Bay Area since 2000. In a day-long event,
Chegg opened its doors to more than a dozen young women aged 11 to 13 to
show them its state-of-the-art operations. The students, in a
Techbridge program at their charter school, learned about Chegg’s
website, tested in-house equipment and services, and spent time with
female engineering staff, who served as informal mentors.
To
date, Techbridge has worked with more than 4,000 elementary- and middle
school-aged girls to give them hands-on experience in the worlds of STEM
(science, technology, engineering, and math) subjects in the real
world. The group aims to show young women and underrepresented minority
students the full range of college and career options available to them
in these increasingly vital fields.
Rick Bolander and his staff
at GVP continue to work with start-up companies with the same potential
and commitment that Chegg has demonstrated since its founding.
Cavan Canavan, who earned his master of business administration at the University of Michigan, conceived of his big idea while weight training. He experienced trouble keeping track of the exercises that became part of his regular routines and began seeking out a device to meet his needs. Surprised by a glaring lack of suitable instruments, he created Focus Solutions, a wearable device paired with an application that records workouts while also providing coaching services and making recommendations. Individuals simply wear the device while working out; it automatically recognizes the type of exercise and begins registering sets, repetitions, and rest periods. The device offers real-time audio and visual feedback via smartphones.
To found Focus Solutions, Canavan collaborated with another University of Michigan graduate, Grant Hughes. The pair capitalized on the many services available to entrepreneurs at the University of Michigan to create the company. One of these resources is the Entrepreneurship Clinic at the university’s law school, which connected Canavan and Hughes to complimentary legal assistance on matters related to intellectual property and corporate structure. Canavan and Hughes are now focused on raising angel funding and hope to begin selling a product this spring.
A mobile communications company that specializes
in developing and marketing cellular phones for children, tweens, and
teenagers, Kajeet, Inc., features five different service plans as well as
various add-ons. Plans range in price from $4.99 per month to $50 per month and
include varying amounts of text messages, picture messages, and voice minutes.
Furthermore, the company's $24.99 and $50 plans come with unlimited access to
its GPS phone locator service, which enables parents to go online at any time
and pinpoint the location of their child's phone. This service is also
available through Kajeet's other plans, either at the rate of $0.99 per locate
or as a $7.99 per month add-on.
Parents can also opt to add mobile web capabilities to their children's phones.
Finally, every Kajeet phone features unlimited access to parental controls such
as blackout capabilities, history checks, and call blocking.
A member of Kajeet's Board of Directors, Rick Bolander has helped build a
variety of other start-up ventures as cofounder and managing director of
Gabriel Venture Partners, a venture capital firm headquartered in the San
Francisco Bay Area.
Rick Bolander earned his bachelor’s and master’s
degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan (U-M) before moving on to Harvard Business School and subsequently establishing his own companies. As
the founder of the real estate investment company Blue Sky Ventures in Chicago
and a co-founder of Gabriel Venture Partners in California’s Silicon Valley,
Bolander has developed a wide depth and breadth of knowledge of venture capital
funding and investment strategies. He shares his expertise in funding and
leading high-technology and information-based companies through his
participation in Michigan eLab, a technology-focused venture capital
fund-raising and advisory project that aims to assist U-M graduates.
In addition, U-M alumnus Larry Page, the CEO and co-founder of Google, has
created disruptive innovations in the business world. He graduated from U-M
with a bachelor’s degree in engineering, building on his lifelong passion for
computers. During his time as an undergraduate, he constructed an inkjet
printer out of plastic Lego bricks. In his 2009 commencement address at U-M,
Page advised new alumni to follow their dreams and curiosity, even in uncertain
economic times.
Dick Costolo, the CEO of Twitter, also encouraged new graduates of U-M to
practice boldness and follow their individual paths in his 2013 commencement
speech. Costolo earned his bachelor’s degree from the institution before going
into improvisational comedy. He subsequently served in executive positions with
numerous technology companies.
Another U-M graduate, Tony Fadell, also made his mark in the world of
high-tech. A former executive in the iPod division of Apple, Fadell created
several iterations of the iPod and iPhone. Currently, he serves as the founder
and CEO of Nest Labs, Inc., which produced the Nest Learning Thermostat and a
smarter smoke and carbon monoxide alarm.
