Last night, we were delighted to attend the opening party celebrating Warby Parker‘s Philadelphia retail store (1523 Walnut Street; opening to the public on Saturday, January 28). Warby Parker got its start right here at Wharton, when four MBA students got together over a beer and started to wonder why glasses were so expensive. We’re proud to say that Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship helped them every step of the way.
We’re thrilled that Philly has its very own retail store–although we reminded cofounders Neil Blumenthal WG’10 and Dave Gilboa WG’10 that this is in fact their second retail location in Philadelphia. The first was Neil’s apartment at 20th and Walnut.
Dean Geoffrey Garrett on the grand opening of the Pennovation Center and the state of innovation and entrepreneurship at Wharton and Penn
On Friday, October 28, the Pennovation Center officially opened the doors to its three-story, 58,000-square-foot facility located on the banks of the Schuylkill River. The multipurpose space offers co-working, lab, and production spaces, and more resources for researchers, innovators, and entrepreneurs seeking collaboration and community.
“We’ve got a fantastic skill set when it comes to innovation at Penn,” said Dean Geoffrey Garrett in a video message to celebrate the launch.
“The Mack Institute is focused on a key challenge — innovation in large, mature organizations, that really want to innovate but sometimes find it hard to get that innovative mindset.” “Then on the student-facing side, [Penn] Wharton Entrepreneurship provides incredible opportunities for our students to learn by doing,” continued Dean Garrett.
The Center is already home to 20 startup companies and over 100 individuals, ushering in a new hub for innovation and entrepreneurship at Penn.
I recently argued that even if the Trump slump continues, we should take Trump-ism very seriously. With 80% of Americans having suffered declining incomes since 2005, there is a deep structural foundation to Donald Trump’s electoral appeal. Let’s call it “stop the world, I want to get off.”
I’ve represented the Wharton School at three big international events so far in 2016 — the World Government Summit in Dubai, the Wharton Global Forum in Kuala Lumpur, and now the China Development Forum in Beijing. “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” has been at the top of every agenda because countries world over are desperately seeking productivity-enhancing innovation, and because startups seem better at generating it than big established organizations. Nowhere was this more clear than in Beijing last week. Amid a star-studded program of political, business, and academic leaders from China and around the world, there were two rockstars — Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Wherever I go in the world, everyone is desperately seeking innovation and they’re looking to Silicon Valley for inspiration. This is true for places as different as Tokyo and Dubai, Amsterdam and Mumbai, Beijing and Singapore.Read more Scale Matters: How to Make Startups Sustainable ›
