Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology
The Pantas and Ting Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (SCET) is where aspiring entrepreneurs and innovators take deep dives into the world of technology entrepreneurship and innovation. Since 2005, SCET has created the foundation of Berkeley’s entrepreneurship ecosystem, which includes SkyDeck, the Fung Institute, the Engineering Leadership Professional Program, Global Venture Lab and an extensive network of Silicon Valley and global partners. The Center is also known for developing the Berkeley Method — an internationally recognized approach to teaching technology entrepreneurship and innovation to students and professionals alike.
Did you know?
Graduate student research in AS&T is advancing the frontiers of knowledge across disciplines, including:
- SCET organizes Cal’s largest summer-abroad program, Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which challenges students to build a startup project in 4 weeks in Europe with other international students.
- In the Disaster Lab, students are creating new technologies to prevent and manage natural disasters. Its Fire Foundry program is training underrepresented youth to be firefighters and advancing new technology to better prevent California wildfires.
- Our students are creating meat alternatives to address adverse effects on animal welfare, the environment and health caused by the meat industry. Since 2019, students have created six venture-backed companies.
Vanessa Kahkesh
B.S.’25, Business Administration & Economics
A better alternative to meat
Alternative meat startup Planted Poultry has created a groundbreaking innovation: a faux chicken drumstick. Born out of the Sutardja Center’s Alt:Meat Lab, the team wanted to address the fact that most plant-based alternative meats tend to be really dry. They decided to create something more complex using agar, which has a double helix structure, to mimic the texture of solid fats in animal meats. In the future, the team hopes to expand its product to Bay Area grocery stores and restaurants.
What does it mean to design with a critical lens?
Another SCET team has identified two types of company mindsets: the traditional belief that by building superior products and services, commercial success will automatically follow; and another mindset that believes establishing real relationships with customers is today’s secret to success. The team defined these two approaches as IQ (Intelligence Quotient) vs. EQ (Emotional Quotient) and found that the most successful companies — such as Amazon, Apple, Tesla, and Netflix — have found the sweet spot between the two. This phenomenon is becoming a
critical factor in what separates successful firms from those that will be left behind.
