[VIDEO] Ticker News
Bill Lang joined Holly Stearnes from Ticker News to discuss the exciting addition of an Australian Chapter for the Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs.
The Australia Chapter of HAE was established in January 2020, making it HAE’s newest chapter and the only one to span an entire continent. All Harvard alumni in Australia are welcome to join as are their friends with an interest in entrepreneurship. In the early months, the Leadership Team was established and a series of workshops were launched to help create the vision and chapter areas of focus.
Learn more at www.harvardae.org
Holly Stearnes – Ticker News
In some good news for businesses, the Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs has actually come to Australia and also Asia. Can you just elaborate a little bit about what that program actually is and how it all works?
Bill Lang – Small Business Australia
So Harvard University has more than 350,000 alumni all around the world and they have what are called special interest groups. And the Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs is a group of alumni that are very interested in everything to do with entrepreneurship.
And look, we’ve got some great alumni, we’ve got Bill Gates at Microsoft, we’ve got Zuckerberg over at Facebook, but even here in Australia, the founders of Macquarie Bank, Tony Berg and David Clark, were both Harvard alumni, and then created what is now this fantastic organisation, a global leader in Macquarie Bank.
So we’re pretty excited because now we have a chapter in Australia, which means we have for not just alumni of Harvard, but also their friends can come and join the Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs and there’s a whole range of programs, virtual conferences, learning events, physical get togethers, networking, to help educate people about how to be successful in the world of entrepreneurship.
Holly Stearnes
Yeah, it’s great. I love it. It’s all about innovation and that’s what we’re all about here at Ticker. How do people actually get involved in it, though?
Bill Lang
Yeah, so there’s a great website www.harvardae.org. If you just go to that website
Holly Stearnes
We’ll get up on the screen as well.
Bill Lang
Oh, thank you very much. And I’ll be able to go to click the button on chapters look at about the Australian chapter in this little video that explains what it’s all about. And then even if not an alumni you can join, you can join for free as what we call a friend. And then you’ll start receiving the newsletter and seeing the different events that are taking place around the world from pretty much early in the morning, Australian time now to late at night. There is stuff going on every couple of days that you can tap into. We have many Harvard alumni in Australia and throughout Asia. And you can get to know them and you can get to work with them.
Holly Stearnes
Just an elaborating on that as well, what’s the funding behind this as well. It’s not funded by Harvard University. Is it? No?
Bill Lang
No, it’s a volunteer organisation set up in the US and the Harvard alumni members themselves actually pay fees to be able to be a member of it, but they’re able to invite their friends also to be members. And then various events take place. Some of them are free for members. There are sponsors that will sponsor particular events. But now look, it’s a group of Harvard alumni that love entrepreneurship, want to give back and contribute want to find the next generation of entrepreneurs invest in them, help them grow and develop and it’s all about you know, having more entrepreneurs be more successful.
