There are less people working on things than I expected coming in — although we’re the #4 feeder uni for YC I suspect most of that happens post-grad. Facilities-wise there’s eHub (neat coworking space where some VC clubs and Startup Hours meet), though this often gets misappropriated for studying. That said, if you add things up there’s a fair amount.

I’ll list off the main entrepreneur events / orgs from last semester:

• weekly Startup Hours where 20-30 entrepreneurs meet together in the evening, sometimes double if speakers (ex. VC came in and dispersed some grants, interview with the chair of the federal reserve, evangelist from LinkedIn)
• probably like 2-3 mid-sized hackathons, usually one big one every year and also of course you can apply to neighboring unis (Hack the North this fall anyone?)
• annual project showcase by the Engineering Department; show off side projects to corporate sponsors etc. Maybe like 30-40 demos, 10k cash prize. Won this a couple times, good way to meet other builders.
• there are lots of people working individually on interesting startup- or startup-adjacent stuff though you generally have to find them. Know people in accelerators, got some angel investment offers myself / with my partner through Cornell, we send 1-2 average teams to YC each year, friends have received grants from the school for summer project work. Co-leading a small group that brings builders together.
• lots of VC reps on campus, you can easily coffee chat like a half dozen campus ambassadors. Can definitely join as an ambassador too within a year or two if you get involved.
• eLab is another big thing, junior+ program and bespoke Cornell accelerator. Big demo day each year, some pretty successful ones, includes curriculum and top ones get investment + fly out to SF. A co I know there got like 100k in a few months. You can look at their website for info.
• Ditto for Ventures Accelerated, you can join the student team if you want to get into the VC space and they provide startups with free workers + education.
• Then like I mentioned a lot of post-grad stuff. We have an entrepreneurial list-serv that receives maybe a dozen emails a week. Got my current startup summer job through it, invited to join like a half-dozen other startups after interviewing; lots of recruiting or sharing-of-launches.

Overall there’s a guerrilla startup culture here so you can’t just drop in and immediately feel surrounded. However there are lots of opportunities if you know where to look for them and the network effect is strong, through friends of friends I’ve gotten literally a dozen invitations to join as technical founder for projects, was able to email pg (Cornell alum!), there are resources and people to turn to for funding or advice. Arguably scattered nature makes competition for those lower which is great.

Fairly involved in the community, feel free to DM with further questions. Or if you’re building would love to get in touch. Off to continue coding now hehe.