Entrepreneurship
Mr. Gilfus’s roots in entrepreneurship began at Cornell University where he was an academic scholar and participated in Cornell’s multi-disciplinary approach to education.
Cornell Entrepreneur Organization
During his undergraduate program, he worked in the Office of the Registrar, was an administrative TA for a leading business planing class, and won an undergraduate award in his department for exceptional business planning and consulting. In this capacity, he launched the Cornell Entrepreneur Organization, bringing together undergraduate business students and engineers, generating new ideas and socializing with successful alumni entrepreneurs
CourseInfo LLC. (A Cornell Start Up)
While at Cornell University, he wrote the business plan for CourseInfo, titled, “Making Education Easier,” and brought together a select group of undergraduate and graduate students in developing the business. CourseInfo began building web pages for instructors, adding technology scripts and capabilities that allowed them to have more control of the course environments. This effort eventually led to the development of a learning platform and technology that is still core to the market-leading learning management system. As part of his development efforts, he brought together key clients including Cornell University, Yale Medical School, University of Pittsburgh, and several others, fostering innovation in eLearning and developing CourseInfo’s fundamental business. CourseInfo LLC. eventually merged with Blackboard LLC. to form Blackboard Inc.
Entreprenuership@Cornell Advisory Council
Mr. Gilfus is on the Advisory Council of Cornell’s Entrepreneurship@Cornell program. The program works with all campus schools, colleges, and organizations to help create and promote entrepreneurship education, events, and commercialization.
Cornell University traces its origins to the vision of an entrepreneur and an educational innovator who together saw the opportunity to create a new kind of university for America. By combining traditional subjects with new, emerging, and practical areas of inquiry, Ezra Cornell and Andrew D. White built a university singularly able to address the needs of 19th century America. – View the rest of Cornell University President David J. Skortons Welcome message.