Advance, Cornell ILR School's publication for alumni and friends.
Issue link: https://advance.epubxp.com/i/211071
O eLab means business n fire. That's how Dan Cohen describes Cornell's eLab, where undergraduate teams are building business concepts that attract private funding and generate revenue. "We teach them how to sell, how to get in front of customers … We're getting results and changing their lives and they're raising capital and creating jobs," said the ILR faculty member. "We have created a culture," said Cohen, director of eLab since it started in 2008. "Teams feel like they can take risks. They can fail." As a result, some eLab inventions have the potential to change industries, Cohen said. Consider thinkplay, the brainchild of ILR student Jesse Orshan '14. In New York's West Village, 16 people — including seven full-time workers — are employed by thinkplay. Orshan describes the product, designed for musicians and would-be musicians, as a first for the music industry — "a home studio suite that gives you complete control over your instruments." "Using our patent-pending ePedal building software," he said, "you can upload audio/video clips and turn them into playable notes, taking your performance to the next level." Voilà, let the good sounds roll. Twenty-five teams competed in 2012 for eLab slots. Ten were chosen. Home base is a cramped and windowless boxcar-shaped office tucked off a Collegetown alley. Operated by Cornell's Student Agencies, Inc., in collaboration with Entrepreneurship@Cornell, eLab will soon move into eHub, a proposed 11,000-square-foot facility slated to open in 2014 on College Avenue. Cohen said eLab draws students from across the university's disciplines. "It fits 6