Washington DC: Carlyle Group Founder David Rubenstein Gives $15M To Duke For Innovation

by Kyle in Everywhere Else, Funding, Incubators, North Carolina, Startups
Comments Off on Washington DC: Carlyle Group Founder David Rubenstein Gives $15M To Duke For Innovation 0 Like 1,886

One of Washington DC’s top investors and philanthropists, David Rubenstein has given $15 million dollars to his alma mater Duke University for innovation.

Rubenstein recently donated $7.5 million dollars to repair cracks sustained in the Washington Monument during last years freak east earth quakes. Rubenstein’s $15 million dollar donation to Duke University makes it his largest single donation to one institution.

Duke University just recently completed a $50,000 startup challenge. A health and life sciences startup called Nanoly was the recipient of the $50,000 award. Their startup has found a way to chemically preserve vaccines outside of refrigerators, and make them easier to administer in developing and third world countries.

Another great startup emerged from the Duke University Challenge called Mobile Foods which is entering the food truck tracking space. Their technology will allow customers of their favorite food trucks to track their location and find them easier using existing mobile phone technologies.

Rubenstein is the founder of the Washington DC private equity from, The Carlyle Group, which recently went public.

Rubenstein said today that the money will fund courses, mentoring and an incubator for students and faculty to develop new startup ventures through Duke’s innovation and entrepreneurship initiative which is also the backbone to the annual startup challenge contest.

Linkage:

source: WGME

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North Carolina Startup: Nanoly Wins Duke Startup $50,000 Spring Challenge

by Kyle in Competitions, Everywhere Else, HealthTech, North Carolina, Startups
3 Comments 0 Like 2,418

(photo: Sophia Palenberg/The Chronicle)

A women owned startup called Nanoly has just won the Duke startup $50,000 spring challenge. Duke University’s $50,000 spring startup competition ran from February until this week. The startups in the challenge had to fit into one of three tracks; the functional track, special interest track or pilot track. Within the functional track were 5 categories; Clean Energy, Healthcare and Life Sciences, IT, Internet and Media, Social Enterprises and other. The grand prize winner came from the Healthcare and Life Sciences category.

Ting Ting Zhou (Duke University), Nanxi Liu (Berkeley) and Crystal Lee (Stanford) founded Nanoly with one common goal, to use a nano-sized solution to solve a macro sized problem. While you may not think about it the problem that these three women are hoping to solve is actually a big problem and one as Americans we may take for granted.

Zhou explains in her pitch video that while developed countries have access to vaccines and diseases like small pox are pretty much eradicated, emerging countries don’t have access to vaccines. One of the main reasons emerging countries don’t have access to vaccines can be boiled down to refrigeration and electricity.

More after the break
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