An Interview With Ankur Jain, Founder And President, Kairos Society (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What are the benefits of being a Kairos Society fellow?

Ankur: For example, one of the most exciting things we did, this past September, was we took 50 of our fellows to China with Alibaba.com. We took them to look at U.S.–China trade opportunities.

Where are the entrepreneur opportunities in China for Americans, and vice versa? What are some of the biggest problems China faces that we can help solve?

Going back to breaking down economic barriers and tackling global problems collaboratively, we brought along [former California governor Arnold] Schwarzenegger and had a pretty incredible trip with these 50 fellows. They got a chance to experience China firsthand.

This month we’re hosting our global summit, where 350 of our fellows are coming to New York City. We’re hosting a two-day summit at the New York Stock Exchange and the United Nations. [We’ll be] taking a look at what some of the most pressing issues are and what the next billion-dollar businesses are so that we can take some of these issues on.

Being a fellow allows people to be engaged with all of these private summits we host, as well as be part of a community that hosts local gatherings on a regular basis. More important, throughout the year [we] connect with the right mentors to say, “What are the next businesses we can start together to take on this or that problem?”

There are 350 fellows coming to the global summit. And there will be 150 mentors, including some extremely high-profile CEOs, political leaders, nonprofit leaders, and science leaders to create a interdisciplinary, cross-generational and cross-national approach to starting these companies.

Irina: Who is a typical Kairos fellow?

Ankur: They are students who with different academic backgrounds. They are engineers, scientists, finance majors, business majors, designers.

Irina: What about the mentors? Where do the mentors come from?

Ankur: We reach out to a lot of mentors to find out who’s passionate about helping the next generation of leaders and who’s passionate about solving the problems of the world through entrepreneurship. We have an incredible group of supporters. These are people who continue to reach into their networks and bring in new mentors as well.

Irina: Can you talk about how mentors work with entrepreneurs?

Ankur: Yes. For example, at the global summit, coming at the end of February, these mentors will look at the 50 companies we’re unveiling on the trading floor and say, “How can we improve your business? How can we apply your service or technology to solving bigger problems of the world? How can we open doors for you or introduce you to people who can be helpful to you?” We’re trying develop these businesses in the break-out sessions, again looking at what are the next billion-dollar companies to take on healthcare, clean tech, or even clean water.

And the mentors can say, “Here’s what we’ve tried. Here’s the experience we’ve had with this problem. Here’s the business model we’re working on currently, and here’s where an opportunity for you is.” So, it’s a very relationship-based mentoring rather than somebody coming in and giving a speech and leaving.

Irina: Do you have any success stories?

Ankur: Absolutely. I mentioned Levant Power, which is one of our exciting stories. An interesting recent story is that of Benjamin Gulak, who is a student at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and a prolific inventor. He recently built the Uno-cycle, which an all electric, portable vehicle that looks like it’s on one wheel, but it’s actually two wheels side by side.

[It] can transform into a motorcycle as it goes, and the company’s grown quite well and actually won the Popular Science Invention of the Year award. Gulak also built the DTV Shredder, which is an all-terrain personal transportation vehicle. [It] deals with both commercial and military applications. I believe his sites are BPG Werks or BPG Motors.

This segment is part 4 in the series : An Interview With Ankur Jain, Founder And President, Kairos Society
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