You are listening to the Draper Fisher-Jervinson Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Seminar,

brought to you weekly by Stanford Technology Ventures Program at Stanford University School of Engineering.

Let me welcome a very special guest to kick us off, and that is the president of our university, John Hennessey. Welcome, John.

Thanks, thank you.

Well, I don't want to take a lot of time because the true genius today are the members of this panel,

and so I want to make sure we leave them enough time.

But when I think about what makes a great entrepreneur, I think about four things.

First of all, a vision, a vision of seeing to an end goal, of seeing an opportunity to make a change.

Secondly, the ability to stay focused on that goal.

Lots of small companies that fail, fail because they can't stay focused.

Lots of people who fail and their research endeavors fail because they can't stay focused.

Third, thinking outside the box, finding innovative solutions to problems. And fourth, seeing the endeavor through, seeing not only the discovery in the lab,

but seeing that discovery go outside the walls of a research laboratory and go out

and have the impact it can really have in the world. This afternoon, we're going to hear about how to apply these kinds of ideas,

this kind of entrepreneurial thinking to the area of global problems.

The kinds of problems that are often not approached in an entrepreneurial way.

They're approached with big bureaucracies and lots of people,

rather than thinking about new solutions and new approaches. We've got a distinguished panel,

I think, that's going to help us think about that, and think in a different way, really using

the kind of pioneering spirit that entrepreneurship really embraces.

So let me turn it back to Tom so he can introduce our panel and we can get started.

Thank you.

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