Starting this fall semester, we are launching our Inaugural Shuford Wellness Initiative. This pilot program will be a 4-session series designed to assist our Shuford students with their mindfulness and mental health wellness. Martin Godwin, UNC ’92, has been appointed as our Shuford Wellness Advisor-in Residence for the academic year 2022-2023 and will launch a lunch series entitled Resiliency in the Defining Decade: Building your Emotional, Social and Mental Wellness Toolkit. Over these four lunch sessions in the Fall 2022 semester, a cohort of Shuford students will take part in an exploration of what their authentic selves look like. Through honest dialogue and challenging exercises, participants will learn from one another through the sharing of individual and collective experiences. The goal is to discover approaches that can help strengthen and support themselves as they advance into the defining decade of their 20s and beyond. Class will be limited to 20 participants. This new initiative is in direct response to the students’ requests for additional support related to mental health and wellness. Sign up here!

Dates

Thursday, September 15 12:15 – 1:45pm
Thursday, September 29 12:15 – 1:45pm
Thursday, October 20 12:15 – 1:45pm
Thursday, November 10 12:15 – 1:45pm

We are announcing our first Shuford Young Alumni-in-Residence position, and I am pleased to appoint Conrad Ma, UNC ’18, as the Inaugural Young Alumni. Under this new collaboration, Ma will support UNC in its efforts to coach, mentor, and fund exceptional young startups coming out of UNC’s Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship. The goal will be to equip our Shuford student startups with innovative technologies, creative solutions, and investor networks. Ma, originally from China, was a computer science major, a Morehead-Cain Scholar and a Shuford Ambassador. He is also the founder of Beta Fellowship, a community dedicated to help pre-founders & founders with knowledge, networks, and funding. Conrad is also an active angel investor and had extensive product management experience from Alibaba, GoDaddy & Microsoft. This is a great way to build upon our alumni connection, which was a significant pillar of our Strategic Plan.

Finally, we are announcing that UNC alumnus, Shri Kolanukuduru, will join the team as the Shuford Startup Mentor-in-Residence for the academic year 2022-2023. Shri was enrolled in the Shuford Program and left in 2020 to launch Simplify, a Y Combinator-backed startup that optimizes the job search process for students and new grads. Shri cashed out and now currently works as an investment partner at Pioneer, a venture capital fund backed by Stripe and Andreessen Horowitz, where he invests in founders at their earliest stages. Shri will use his knowledge and networks to mentor, educate, and invest in our Shuford students and their startups. Shri’s and Pioneer’s funding are often the first checks a company receives.