Winners of Global Entrepreneurship Week, MTV, & NYSE Movers & Changers Competition

Recognized by CNBC and Mark Cuban

Sushanth and Karishma founded SkillHub this past summer just after they interned at Google. They both saw a need for an online platform to enable users of all backgrounds to share skills and knowledge. SkillHub, which is currently in alpha phase, is a disruptive platform that aims to bridge traditional knowledge disparities as well as enable the sharing of skills with “micro-lessons.”

Sushanth and Karishma applied on a whim to Movers & Changers and are incredibly grateful to have secured $25K in seed funding. After the exhilarating experience of ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange alongside Mark Cuban and receiving his mentorship, Karishma and Sushanth are looking forward to testing the first version of SkillHub in the Penn community before iterating and scaling.

Besides SkillHub, Karishma is Co-President of the Wharton Private Equity and Venture Capital Association and Captain of the Penn Raas team, pursuing a degree in Economics and Math. Sushanth has served on the Boards of Alternative Spring Break and Penn Society for International Development and is pursuing a degree in Physics and Math.

Seniors,

Jesse is a senior Operations and Information Management major. He has interned with This Is That Corporation, the indie film production company that put out “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “21 Grams,” and “Adventureland.” He has also interned with JP Morgan’s Private Bank. At Penn he started the Jewish Film Society, but his Hillel contact was let go due to budget cuts and his club perished. He is also a member of Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity and plays in the band Rail 3 – maybe you’ve seen their posters, maybe you haven’t. Jesse typically wears graphic tees (like his “Little Lebowski Urban Achievers” shirt) and often sports his red “Life Aquatic” beanie.

He is currently working on a film project with his brother Zachary. They wrote a script called “Elijah the Prophet,” and it beat out over 500 other submissions to win first place at the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition. Together, they have been assembling a team and raising money to bring their vision to the big screen. They have assembled an all-star cast including an actor from HBO’s “The Wire,” a cinematographer who worked on “Degrassi,” and a producer who has put together films with budgets around $15-20 million and has worked with Jessica Biel, Milla Jovovich, and Forest Whitaker. Below is a link to their Kickstarter page – an online forum that helps independent artists, like Jesse, fund their project. They are about one third funded and, with a wink, he added that they offer cool prizes for donating money to the project.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1312644311/elijah-the-prophet – Kickstarter page
http://apps.facebook.com/my-polls/2ej24e4j – to vote for their project on indieWire (before 10/31 at 10am)

Jesse can be reached at hjesse@wharton.upenn.edu.

Born and raised in Monaco, Guillaume decided to come to the United States to study Finance and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Creating his own startup is something that he always wanted to achieve. This is one of the reasons why he decided to come the US which he sees as the Eldorado of entrepreneurship. He believes it is the only place where students can get taken seriously and encouraged when building their own business at a very young age. The result: Famocracy.

Guillaume Hajek thinks Famocracy is filling a void: epic successes such as American Idol, America’s Got Talent, America’s Best Dance Crew, or the X-Factor, have not been replicated online. Until now.

Two Penn students, Guillaume Hajek and Edward Lando (’14) have created Famocracy.com, a platform that allows people to become famous for their talents. Many Penn groups and artists have joined, so go ahead! Share your talent, and support your fellow Quakers by voting for them on Famocracy! You’re the judge and their gateway to their fame.

It’s time to officiate our SENIOR status on Penn campus and have it known to the rest of the school…

SENIORS 2012 T-SHIRTS!

on Sale M-F this week, 12-2 PM

@ Houston Hall 2nd Floor (outside Office of Student Affairs)

$10 each. Available in both regular and V-neck!

And V-necks for girls…

And of course, the shirt reps 2012 on the back:

Much love,

Your 2012 Class Board

If you are part of the great Class of 2012, then you are probably just as  baffled as I am at where the past three years have flown. Time has        been moving incredibly fast over our collegiate careers and this year    will undoubtedly zoom by faster than ever. It’s because of this that I    strongly emphasize taking as much advantage of this final year at  Penn as possible. Penn, college, and the school environment we are   in now will all be over before we know it.

Check out some new clubs for this year, trying out activities you would  have never thought of doing before. Or, heck, make your own club –  after all, once you’ve landed that job/grad school/research grant/etc,  what are you going to do with that new free time? If you’re trying to l  learn outside of classes, there are some great preceptorials you should check out on PennPortal. Maybe your more interested in seeing what your fellow peers have been up to in their respective involvements. Hit up as many sporting games (in the process, check out the new Penn Park!), performing arts events, and other campus on-goings as possible. With so many things going on all the time, there’s no excuse to ever find yourself bored this year.

In addition to pursuing more on-campus events, definitely take advantage of the everything Philadelphia has to offer this year. If you’re into the arts then definitely check out a Symphony or the Philadelphia Film Festival this year. If you’re a sports fan, there’s no better time to be rooting on the Phillies. Most of you are 21 now, so why not check out the Sugar House Casino some night? And let’s not forget the endless dining adventures to be had in the City of Brotherly Love.

All in all, really push yourself to make the most of this year. It will probably be, for most of us, the last opportunity to freely explore and learn without being constrained by work, family, and other obligations. We as the Senior Class Board are working to do as much as possible to maximize your ultimate college year experience and hope you really do maximize this year. Get amped, 2012!

Best,

Jibran Khan

President, University of Pennsylvania Class of 2012

Thanks to the charitable donations from our Juniors Tap for Charity event, the Penn Class of 2012 was able to raise over $1700 for educational development! Though funds were originally to go to Save the Children’s Rewriting the Future Campaign (for international educational development), this campaign had already been fulfilled by the time our fundraising was complete. Instead, the funds have been donated to Kitab Korner, a non-profit organization based out of India founded by Penn senior Poorvi Kunzru. We as the 2012 Class Board selected Kitab Korner due to its incredible dedication to educational development and KKEF’s ability to fully maximize the $1700 that has been donated. As you will read below, thanks to the Class of 2012′s partnership with Kitab Korner, hundreds of school children in India will be endowed with the gift of books for years to come.

The Kitab Korner Educational Foundation (KKEF) is a non-profit organization with the mission of helping underprivileged children read their way to a better life.  KKEF works towards this mission by establishing sustainable library centers in underprivileged communities including slums and government schools in India.  Till date we have established 11 library centers, across 2 Indian states (Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra), which have brought 3000 children an incremental 5000 books and 100 workshops. Over the years we have partnered with several reputable Indian organizations including Zensar Technologies and the Akanksha Foundation and have received extensive coverage in the media for our work.  For more information, please visit www.kitabkorner.org.

Each Kitab Korner library center costs approximately $850 to create.  Thanks to your generous contributions totalling $1700, Kitab Korner will be able to establish two Kitab Korner library centers, bringing them closer to their goal of 50 libraries by December of next year. The “UPenn Class of 2012” library centers will be set-up this June, in two government schools located just outside of Mumbai. Each library will benefit approximately 200-300 school children. We look forward to sending you updates and pictures of the library centers once they have been set-up!

COREY METZMAN and JACOB “COBI” BLUMENFELD-GANTZ (both W/C’12)

Founders of Dorm Room Diplomacy

Recognized by President Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative University Conference (April 2, 2011)

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Corey and Cobi founded Dorm Room Diplomacy (DRD) with a group of American and Middle Eastern college students who believe that mutual understanding and intercultural dialogue are key to the pursuit of peace between the West and the Arab World. DRD was inspired through a series of conversations that they had with Middle Eastern students, when Corey studied Arabic in Jordan and Cobi attended the Seeds of Peace camp. Each week, DRD connects American college students (from Penn and other schools!) to our peers in the Middle East using online videoconferencing, and students discuss everything from American foreign policy to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to the role of the news media. Starting this spring, DRD will partner with the U.S. State Department, which will invite a prominent diplomat to join monthly online conversations and answer questions from students in the Middle East. Last weekend, Corey and Cobi—along with the rest of the DRD team—were recognized by President Clinton for their work, and they are excited to continue expanding to new campuses in the U.S. and abroad.

Besides DRD, Corey is a student in the Huntsman Program, the co-chair of the Wharton Dean’s Advisory Board, a brother in Sigma Alpha Mu, a MGMT 100 TA, and a member of the Huntsman Student Advisory Board. He was recently awarded the 2011 Truman Scholarship, and he also works on international development projects in Nicaragua, Tanzania, and Kenya. Cobi is pursuing degrees in Diplomatic History and OPIM, serves on the board of Penn Model Congress, and dances for Soundworks Tap Factory. He is currently studying abroad in Israel, where he is researching the connection between the West Bank economy and public perceptions of Salaam Fayyad, the Palestinian Prime Minister in the West Bank.

YouTube Clip of Award from President Clinton

Congrats to Sining Zhou, SAS’12 for having her Hey Day T-shirt design selected as the design contest winner!

Hey Day Package prices will be as follows:

$35 for the T-shirt, Hat&Cane, and Picnic

$20 for the T-shirt and Picnic

$15 for the Hat&Cane and Picnic

- More details with regards to the Picnic, Hat/Cane, and Package sales to come soon -

Get Amped,

– 2012 Class Board –