Bachelor Thesis, Master Thesis or Project Study
📌 Key facts
Contents
- 💡 Background
- 🦾Who We Are
- 🎯 Goals
- 🎓 Profile
- 📚 Further Reading
- 📄 Requirements to any Work
- 📬 How to Apply
💡 Background
Diversity is crucial to innovation. Therefore, there must be more diversity entrepreneurs and venture capitalists that support them explicitly. Y Combinator, one of the most successful and famous accelerators, added directories specific for black, latinx, and women founders. VCs like BLCK.VC specifically target black founders. However, entrepreneurship and venture capital markets are private and thus less is known about the stakeholders, players, and people that make up the innovation, entrepreneurial and venture capital ecosystem. Making this tacit knowledge visible and thus analyzable is one goal of this work. Help us identify Germany's (Europe's, The World's) diversity shapers and leaders, how they connect, where they come from, and where they are going.
🦾Who We Are
The Chair for Strategy and Organization is focused on doing research with impact. This means we do not want to repeat old ideas and base our research solely on the research people did 10 years ago. Instead, we currently research topics that will shape the future. Topics such as Agile Organizations and Digital Disruption, Blockchain Technology, Creativity and Innovation, Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation, Diversity, Education: Education Technology and Performance Management, HRTech, Leadership and Teams. We are always early in noticing trends, technologies, strategies and organizations that shape the future, which has its ups and downs.
🎯 Goals
- Review literature on diversity, venture capital, entrepreneurship, and innovation, innovation in VC investements and angel investments
- Research and identification of the relevant stakeholders (people as well as institutions) of the German (European/Worlds) innovation system by category, e.g. entrepreneurs, serial entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, business angel networks, family offices, universities, entrepreneurial programs, incubators, journalists, platforms etc. (e.g., crunchbase, LinkedIn, dealroom, VC portfolios, initiatives) that drive diversity
- Database building of relevant stakeholder (names, focus areas, links, investments, background, etc)
- Visualization of distribution and networks of relevant stakeholders
- Interviews with VCs, founders, and opinion leaders
- Elaboration of possible, novel ways of dynamic visualization of these ecosystems.
🎓 Profile
- Reliable and self-driven
- Enthusiasm for innovation/ diversity / technology / entrepreneurship / VC
- Ability to do sophisticated internet, desk research, and connect with practitioners
- Passion to learn more about the future and do research with impact
- Good with visualizing insights and data
📚 Further Reading
Closing the diversity data gap - we need your help
Tech has a diversity problem. This isn't controversial. We see it at tech industry events. In the Medium posts from discriminated former tech employees. In the mainstream news stories on toxic culture. But as a data company, we know that diversity has a data problem.
blog.dealroom.co
Karlsson, C., Rickardsson, J. & Wincent, J. Diversity, innovation and entrepreneurship: where are we and where should we go in future studies?. Small Bus Econ (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-019-00267-1
The future of diversity and inclusion in tech
Silicon Valley is entering a new phase in its quest for diversity and inclusion in the technology industry. Some advocates call this part "the end of the beginning," Code2040 CEO Karla Monterroso tells TechCrunch. At first, advocates were focused on calling out the lack of diversity at tech confere...
techcrunch.com
Diversity and inclusion in Tech | Deloitte Insights
As organizations evolve into technology companies, CIOs and leaders across the business are at the forefront of instilling and rethinking diversity and inclusion in tech. From redefining recruiting practices to driving mentorship and building a culture of inclusion, initiatives with a diverse tech workforce are best equipped to serve diverse customers and achieve business outcomes.
www2.deloitte.com
Diversity in Venture Capital - NVCA-Deloitte Human Capital Survey Dashboard | Deloitte US
How was the study conducted? An email was distributed to 1,428 active VC firms, including NVCA members, asking them to participate in the study. Firms had the option to complete the assessment one of two ways: through a web-based survey, or through an identical spreadsheet.
www2.deloitte.com
Here's A Detailed Breakdown Of Racial And Gender Diversity Data Across U.S. Venture Capital Firms
Chamath Palihapitiya, the opinionated venture capitalist who once got into a public spat with Ron Conway over income inequality and challenged founders to have the "courage to move to Oakland" a few weeks ago, has catalogued detailed racial and gender diversity data on venture firms thr...
techcrunch.com
Yale's David Swensen Puts Money Managers on Notice About Diversity
America's most prominent endowment chief has a message for the firms that manage the school's money: Hire more women and minorities, or possibly lose the university's backing. David Swensen is the veteran investment chief of Yale University's $31.2 billion endowment.
www.wsj.com
Black-founded YC companies
YC companies founded by Black founders
www.ycombinator.com
Latinx-founded YC companies
YC companies founded by Latinx founders
www.ycombinator.com
39 Stats About Diversity In Entrepreneurship
If you regularly read the HubSpot Sales Blog, you know we talk a lot about entrepreneurship. We have covered everything from how to start a business to the ins and outs of social entrepreneurship and everything in between. One topic we haven't discussed is who is starting and running successful businesses.
blog.hubspot.com
📄 Requirements to any Work
We do not want your research to gather dust in some corner of a bookshelf but make it accessible to the world. Thus, we warmly encourage you to create some or all of the following:
- Infograph - visually represent some of your work (find examples here)
- Slide Deck - summarize the most original insights/tweets/graphs/sources of your topic and present it
- Extract most important sequences from podcasts, videos, and other media
- 3-4 Tweets about the most important findings and summarizing the topic
- optional: Medium Article - let people outside university know about your research and start your personal brand
📬 How to Apply
If you are interested, please contact Prof. Dr. Isabell Welpe (e-mail below) by submitting your CV and grade report. Please also briefly outline your tentative research idea (research question, data and methods, possible outcomes with a tentative outline all in word as *.docx)
We're greatly looking forward to hearing more about you!
👉 welpe@tum.de