Welcome to the Fall 2010 Portfolio, our magazine for alumni and friends of the Leeds School. Thematically, this edition focuses on our alumni and friends working, innovating, and creating in and with technology. You will hear a lot about Boulder in this edition, in part, because of its status as the No.1 U.S. city for tech startups according to BusinessWeek and other national publications, and, of course, because many of our alumni choose to stay in Boulder and the surrounding region upon graduation. However, as you will see, many of our alumni are geographically dispersed and in occupations inhabiting a broad swath of the technology sector.
Alumni have combined their degrees with a variety of industries beyond the obvious tech companies. They are using their business experience with technology to influence areas such as sports, health care, banking, museums, higher education, online gaming and technology startups. At the same time, through the intersection of business and technology, alumni are demonstrating the Leeds School core values of entrepreneurship, knowledge, the whole person and connection. They are leveraging their expertise and compassion to make a difference asking, “What can be done with emerging technology to build new things and solve problems, such as the health care crisis in the U.S. and underserved Native American communities?”
Furthermore, our alumni are brainstorming ways to better meet customer needs and create innovative business solutions. As people become accustomed to technology in their daily lives, they expect more from the companies that serve them. One example is to create new decision making software to help companies and communities improve personal investment or better recruit and manage a workforce. Alumni are using technology to engage football fans as they watch their favorite sports teams (Go Buffs!) on TV.
Tech companies, especially startups, need financing, and our alumni are able to guide and assist with specialized banking needs. And these companies must evolve to survive and meet the ever-changing needs of their customer or consumer base, be it from digital cameras to promotional USB drives or discovering new ways of engaging clients in “cloud computing” as companies change the way they do business. Finally, our faculty are also entrepreneurial, practicing what they teach in the classroom by founding companies.