Deadline Extended! Apply by August 15 for Project 2.8 - Cohort 5
Due to overwhelming interest and many requests for more time, we’re excited to announce that we’ve extended the application deadline to August 15 for Project 2.8, Columbia Venture Community’s flagship incubator dedicated to supporting women founders.
Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, so don’t wait to apply. A select number of applicants will be invited to a virtual interview as part of the selection process.
We’re thrilled to invite founders to apply to Cohort 5 of Project 2.8 - a collaborative, empowering space for startups that include women in the founding team, across the Columbia ecosystem (students, alumni, faculty, and staff) who are ready to transform vision into venture.
If you’ve validated a promising startup idea and are driven to build something impactful, this program is designed for you.
Key Dates
New Application Deadline: August 15, 2025
Decisions Released: August 25, 2025
Program Begins: September 6, 2025
Duration: 10 weeks
Let’s shape the future together. We can’t wait to meet the next generation of changemakers and innovators!
Apply here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfeJAnfFZvtKqDKO6d3k_yLngYegmKL3bThDFaTxGR5SkbYuQ/viewform
Amy Osorio - Instructor Lead
Amy Osorio has over 15 years of professional experience in the health care and life science sectors. She has provided advisory and strategic services to health systems on health policy, community health programs, and frontline staff development. As a senior consultant in market access at an international contract research organization, she worked with large pharmaceutical clients on identifying opportunities and risks for product launches as well as marketing and regulatory related projects. Her interest in venture arose at Columbia Business School, where she also became an angel investor. Most recently she was selected as a SomosVC Fellow. She continuously mentors students and has been highly involved in the Columbia community by serving on the Mailman School of Public Health Alumni Board for 8 years on its Governance and Events committees.
Amy holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Southern California, an MPH from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and an MBA from Columbia Business School. She is currently based in Los Angeles, CA.
Katherine Lee - Sponsorship Lead
Katherine Lee is a PhD candidate in Pathobiology and Mechanisms of Disease at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where she investigates how ribosomal DNA damage impacts hematopoiesis and leukemia transformation. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, she was a Cancer Research Training Award Fellow at the National Cancer Institute, where she studied mechanisms of carcinogenesis in oral cancer using advanced imaging techniques. She graduated from Georgetown University in 2019 with a BS in Biology, where she conducted research at both the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and Georgetown University School of Medicine. Her current research was supported by the Genome and Epigenome Integrity in Cancer T32 Predoctoral Award for two consecutive years. Katherine is actively involved in mentoring through Columbia University's Health Sciences Exploration and Research Experience program, which aims to inspire students from historically underrepresented groups to join health professions. Originally from Hong Kong, she is currently based in New York City.
Marsha B. Murphy - Operations Lead
Marsha B. Murphy is an alumni of Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation with a Master of Science degree in Real Estate Development. She is a 14-year veteran of the real estate brokerage sector in New York and New Jersey and is licensed with Serhant Real Estate via The Lesley Steiner Team. Over the years she specialized in international relocation, managing multiple accounts and hundreds of clients for the team in the Hudson County and New York City region, grossing millions of dollars in transactions. She has transitioned into the commercial and real estate development markets, where she concentrates on institutional-level off-market asset transactions throughout the country.
In addition to her work in real estate brokerage, Marsha specializes in redevelopment and value-add acquisitions and is in the process of securing investment properties of her own. Her goal is to redevelop the existing built environment into structures that no longer cause the significant carbon, water, material, and energy waste that contributes to the climate change taking place worldwide.
Marsha is a Chicago-born native with two undergraduate degrees: a BFA in Fine Art from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and a BA in Art from Western Illinois University.
Vinita Vijay - Founder Lead
Vinita Vijay is a venture and strategy professional with over nine years of global experience across private equity, venture capital, and early-stage company building. She began her career in investing, managing over $100M in transactions across India, North America, and APAC, before co-founding a technology advisory firm supporting startups on go-to-market strategy, product validation, and fundraising. She also led U.S. expansion efforts for a $17B publicly listed multinational, launching operations across 10+ cities. Vinita has worked with founders across FinTech, HealthTech, and SaaS to refine business models, launch MVPs, and navigate key inflection points - from customer discovery and technical validation to early GTM, AI product strategy, and capital raise. While her expertise is rooted in business and investments, she thrives at the intersection of product and technology, translating market insights into actionable decisions. As a founding and investment committee member of a $20M India-based venture capital fund, she focuses on backing high-growth tech companies in emerging and underserved cities. Vinita holds a Master’s in Technology Management from Columbia University and remains actively engaged in the venture ecosystem through her commitment to building inclusive and innovation-driven communities.
Orçun Dogmazer - Workshop Lead
Orçun Dogmazer is a Fulbright Scholar studying International Affairs at Columbia SIPA with a particular focus on development. He graduated from Koc University in Istanbul with a degree in Economics and International Relations. During undergrad, he co-founded a digital marketing SaaS and engaged in various community-building activities, mostly through his podcast series. Before joining Columbia University, he worked as an analyst in a global development firm working to advance the SDG agenda. He has prior experience in product, growth & e-commerce and is an alumnus of the Turkish Entrepreneurship Foundation.
Lona Vincent - Venture Ecosystem Lead
Lona is a creative strategist building what’s next in health. At Johnson & Johnson Innovation, she helps shape the future of health by attracting innovation into the partnership and venture capital portfolios. Previously, she led a team of venture and growth designers in J&J’s global design studio, crafting award-winning strategies for new products, services, and business models across consumer health, med tech, and pharma. She's known for turning ambiguity into opportunity and ideas into action. Before joining J&J, Lona worked in venture philanthropy and management consulting, where she partnered with Fortune 100 companies to drive impact and navigate transformation. As a corporate strategist, she has a track record of accelerating growth through innovation and building high performing teams - as comfortable in a boardroom as she is in a whiteboard session. Lona has a Masters in Public Health and Sociomedical Science from Columbia University where she focused on digital health and human behavior and an MBA from Cornell University. Based in Harlem, she is an angel investor for diverse founders and believes weekend brunch is a sacred ritual of creative recovery.
NanaYaa Mensah-Thomas - Director
NanaYaa Mensah-Thomas is the Managing Partner and founder of Purelite Ventures. Purelite Ventures is a Healthcare venture capital firm based in New York which specializes in funding seed stage startups. She graduated with a Biology degree from Grinnell College, and worked as a research and clinical laboratory scientist, as well as a quality control/quality assurance lead at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for over two decades. She completed her MBA at Columbia Business School, where her passion for venture capital was born. She currently serves as a mentor at Techstars Chicago, and Nucleate, where she has the opportunity to help the next wave of founders cultivate winning strategies for their startups.
PAST EVENTS
Sports in Venture @ The Post Clubhouse | oCTOBER 23rd @ 6pm | NYC
About this event: Dealmaking, investing and entrepreneurship in the sports industry is poised for high growth – the sports technology market alone is set to a CAGR of 17.9% potentially reaching 100 billion by 2030 while sports properties are expected to attract record valuations in 2024 as private and institutional investors, like JPMC which just announced the creation of a sports-focused investing team, seek to tap into the increasingly lucrative industry.
Columbia Venture Community – NY presents a special series on Venture in Sports, led by CBS Alum & Team U.S.A Figure Skater, Chloé Katz.
In this series we will cover topics across Investing, Entrepreneurship and Technology in Sports while also shedding light onto the human journey of the elite athlete. Our guests will share their personal stories of heartache, survival, and love for their sports and share insights into the identity challenges athletes face post retirement.
Join us at the Post Clubhouse - Social Club founded by former NFL Player Christian Ponder – for a panel with Professional & Olympic athletes.
Our discussion will focus on:
Strategies for winning championships in private equity and venture capital
Methods to identify and invest in untapped potential
Winning business ideas in the sports industry
Strategies for investing in athlete-led ventures
Experiences of elite athletic training & life on the field
How hard – won lessons of sports can be channeled into building thriving enterprises
The identity challenge facing athletes post-retirement
Speaker Bios:
Sarah Parsons Wolter:
Sarah is a Principal and Head of Growth at FinTech Collective, an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York City and investing globally. Prior to joining FinTech Collective, Sarah spent ten years at Morgan Stanley, most recently in Global Capital Markets as a member of the Equity Syndicate Team, primarily focusing on TMT and international offerings. Prior to that, she worked in Sales and Trading, where she began her career as an analyst in Foreign Exchange. A former athlete and sports enthusiast, Sarah was the youngest member of the 2006 Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey Team that won a bronze medal in Torino, Italy, and is a 2x World Champion. She also co-authored a book on Serie A, the top Italian professional soccer league, as well as a book on the US Men’s National Soccer Team. Sarah received her MBA with highest honors from Columbia Business School and her B.A. in Economics cum laude from Dartmouth College.
Kyrha Ruff
Kyrha Ruff is the Director of Brand Operations & Programming at The Post, a private membership community connecting former collegiate, professional, and Olympic athletes turned business leaders. During her time at Amherst College, where she earned a BA in Psychology, Kyrha competed as a rower on the crew team, bringing a firsthand understanding of the collegiate sports experience to her current roles. Her background spans entertainment, venture capital, angel investor syndicates, and startups. She previously served as an Investment Associate & Community Manager at Plural VC, an angel collective where she screened and conducted research on investment opportunities in fintech, regtech, blockchain, and emerging technologies. She also worked in film & TV production and development at notable organizations such as Tribeca Film Festival, Imagine Entertainment, and Scott Rudin Productions. Kyrha holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA in Psychology from Amherst College where she was a member of the crew team.
Chloé Katz
Chloé Katz is Director of Partnerships at BlackRock, where she is responsible for technology partnerships. Chloé is a former competitive pair skater. With partner Joseph Lynch she is the 2008 Couple de Nice silver medalist and the 2005 U.S bronze medalist. competed as part of the U.S National Figure Skating Team from 2006 to 2011. She also earned eligibility to two Olympic Games, including an alternate position for the 2006 Olympic Team. After a career ending injury leading up to the 2010 Olympic Games, moved into a career in emerging technology within the financial services industry. Chloe specializes in business development and strategic partnerships and was part of the founding team of an Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning startup. She has also founded two organizations to provide career opportunities for underrepresented communities in the workplace, a mission that she is passionate about. Chloé is a graduate of New York University and has completed an MBA from Columbia Business School. She currently sits on the board of the NY Chapter of the Columbia Venture Community.