The second annual Women Entrepreneurs Festival at NYU was as much a celebration of female empowerment as it was a lesson on the capacity of women to succeed as entrepreneurs.
Organized and hosted by the Interactive Telecommunications Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, the festival was filled with excitement and anticipation on the part of the panelist speakers and attendees. The two-day event ran from Jan. 17 to 18 and featured 46 successful female entrepreneurs in fields ranging from education and production to fashion and investment.
Ariana Huffington, president and editor-in-chief of The AOL Huffington Post Media Group, was the keynote speaker on the first night of the festival.
Panelists included Anne Dwane of student recruitment site Zinch, Jennifer Hyman, co-founder and CEO of Rent The Runway, Emily Olson, co-founder of online marketplace Foodzie, and Lindsay Campbell of web video production company Bright Red Pixels, among many others.
"What's fascinating is that I haven't met two women who are similar to each other," said Elizabeth Wessel, recent University of Pennsylvania graduate and attendee. "They are all so diverse in their experiences."
Divided by category in rooms throughout Tisch's main building located at 721 Broadway, the panels of entrepreneurs shared their individual experiences in the start-up business and gave advice on topics such as public relations, investment, products, demographics and other aspects of entrepreneurship.
The festival attracted a wide variety of women, most of them seeking to start organizations and businesses of their own, like part-time Stern MBA student Lisa Kon.
"It's great that NYU is supporting the start-up community," she said. "I'm from the Silicon Valley, so it's nice to see that other people are starting to compete with them."
The festival provided the attendees with networking opportunities during coffee and lunch breaks, as well as the opportunity to learn from successful female entrepreneurs who have already been through the start-up process.
For Hyman of Rent the Runway, the most beneficial part to the festival was "just being around women who are entrepreneurially inclined and who pursue their passions," she said. "I want to encourage women to start their own companies."
