Proud of Helen Greiner, Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship
By Bilal Zuberi
I could not be more proud today that Helen Greiner, my friend and founder/CEO of Lux Capital portfolio company CyPhy Works, has been named a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship (PAGE) by the President of the United States, Barack Obama, and U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker. The U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are also partners in this effort. She is in Washington D.C. today to meet the group at the White House.
Helen joins an elite group of entrepreneurs in promoting President Obama’s vision of global entrepreneurship. Others members of PAGE are:
- Rich Barton, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Zillow
- Tory Burch, Chief Executive Officer, Tory Burch; Founder, Tory Burch Foundation
- Steve Case, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Revolution
- Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, LinkedIn
- Quincy Jones, Chief Executive Officer, Quincy Jones Productions
- Salman Khan, Founder and Executive Director, Khan Academy
- Daphne Koller, Co-Founder and President, Coursera
- Hamdi Ulukaya, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Chobani
- Nina Vaca, Chief Executive Officer, Pinnacle Technical Resources
- Alexa von Tobel, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, LearnVest
Helen is herself an immigrant entrepreneur who came to the US as a child, utilized opportunities to become a world class engineer, graduated from MIT and started her first company that ultimately became perhaps the most well-known robotics company in the world, iRobot. She is now building her second company, a leading aerial robotics platform for commercial, civilian and defense applications, where I am proud to be an investor and Board member. She is an inspiration for future scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs who shape the world they want to live in. I have no doubt that she will make for an amazing ambassador who “…will use the position to promote the creation of scalable technology companies to improve quality of life, employment, employee growth, community prosperity, and social good.”
As an immigrant myself who has found success in life by working with startups, first as an entrepreneur and now as an investor, I could not be more supportive of Helen’s efforts. I firmly believe that higher education and entrepreneurship are key ingredients to human development around the world. People listed above have built some of the most amazing companies, brought their ideas to life, created jobs, improved human life, and have made the world a better place to live. Their working together to share lessons learned and to help promote practices and policies globally that support entrepreneurship can help many others in the USA and in around the world achieve similar goals.
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About Helen Greiner:
CyPhy Works’ founder & CEO Helen Greiner is a pioneer in commercial, consumer, and military mobile robots. In 1990, she co-founded iRobot Corporation (NASDAQ:IRBT) and served as President until 2004 and Chairman until October 2008. iRobot Corporation is the global leader in mobile robots having delivered 10 Million Roomba ™ vacuuming robots and deployed over 6000 tactical mobile robots (PackBot ™ and SUGV™). Follow Greiner on Twitter @helengreiner. Greiner was named a one of America’s Best Leaders by the Kennedy School at Harvard in conjunction with the U.S. News and World Report and was honored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) with the Pioneer Award. She has also been honored as a Technology Review Magazine “Innovator for the Next Century” and has been awarded the DEMO God Award and DEMO Lifetime Achievement Award. She was named one of the Ernst and Young New England Entrepreneurs of the Year, invited to the World Economic Forum as a Global Leader of Tomorrow and Young Global Leader, and has been inducted in the Women in Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame and the National Academy of Engineering. Ms. Greiner is a Trustee of the Boston Museum of Science (MOS). Greiner holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), both from MIT. She was presented with an honorary PhD by WPI in 2009.
About CyPhy Works:
CyPhy Works is a leading robotics company developing aerial robots and UAVs for large industries such as defense, oil and gas, agriculture, entertainment, law enforcement, and mining. CyPhy Works combines UAV experts with product proven roboticists to create rugged and reliable aerial solutions. CyPhy (pronounced: Sci-Fi) is a contraction of Cyber and Physical. We are technology lovers at heart, but we know that it all begins and ends with people, and that is the basis of our company and the foundations of our mission statement—Our community inspires; Our team creates; Our robots empower. For more information please visithttp://www.cyphyworks.com.
