Undergraduate entrepreneur hits the Mega Screen in Times Square

The Nasdaq Tower in Times Square recently featured rising junior in economics Weilyn Chong for her work producing and hosting The Venture Equity Project Podcast. The honor was part of a Nasdaq celebration supporting innovators in venture capital.

Chong attended a conference hosted by the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center last summer and was appointed the advisory board's youngest member soon after. She became involved with the Center's Venture Equity Project, a collaborative working group focused on the complex problem of addressing the inequities in venture funding. Its mission is to spread awareness of the disparities underrepresented entrepreneurs face, create system-level change, and build a more equitable capital allocation ecosystem.

Chong utilized the skills she acquired while developing a podcast of her own in the eLab Incubator, The EntrepreNUers Network to help her ideate and launch the new podcast. In each episode of The Venture Equity Project Podcast, Chong chats with early-stage entrepreneurs to gain insight on everything from how we can increase access to capital for underrepresented entrepreneurs to tips on getting in front of VCs and angels.

A few days before her feature on the Nasdaq Tower, Chong reached out to Keller professor John Danner to tell him she was making her NYC debut on the big screen. She took his course, Failure: The Other 'F' Word, as a first-year and acknowledges it is where her entrepreneurial journey began. In his course, Danner gives students the space to adopt attitudes and skills to deal with failure in a way that can help shape a positive trajectory of accomplishment.

"I cannot thank you enough for all your work to inspire and teach students. I really wouldn't be the same person without your class or having your guidance throughout the last year," Chong recently told Danner.

When asked how she felt seeing herself larger than life in the middle of Times Square, Chong remarked, "If I am being honest, I'm still a little in disbelief. It was truly an unreal moment to see myself but, more importantly, everyone who has worked on the project on the tower. It is all so crazy. A year ago, I would never have called myself an entrepreneur, and now I get to work alongside the most inspiring innovators to build a more equitable future in venture funding."