Dave Mawhinney
Associate Teaching Professor | Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA, UNITED STATES
Dave Mawhinney is the executive director of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship and the Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship.
Biography
Dave Mawhinney is executive director, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, and executive director, Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship. He serves as the managing director, Open Field Entrepreneurs Fund, and director, i6 Agile Innovation System, a collaboration between InnovationWorks and Carnegie Mellon University. He was co-founder, chairman and CEO of mSpoke, an internet content and advertising recommendation engine that was acquired in 2010 by LinkedIn. In 2006, Morgan Stanley’s MSCI/Barra business unit acquired mSpoke’s first business line, a quantitative investment recommendation engine. Prior to mSpoke, Mawhinney was a general partner of PNC Technology Investors. He is an advisory board member to InnovationWork’s AlphaLab, Pittsburgh Equity Partners, and Carnegie Mellon University’s Project Olympus. Mawhinney also served as executive-in-residence at the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse working with healthcare information technology startups.
Areas of Expertise (4)
Entrepreneurship
Advertising
Startup Businesses
Healthcare Information Technology Startups
Media Appearances (5)
What went wrong: Pittsburgh experts explain failures of Silicon Valley, Signature banks
Tribune-Review online
2023-03-14
“I do think that this is more of a unique situation in banking and not an overall barometer for what’s happening in the tech world,” said Dave Mawhinney, executive director of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University.
Going faster takes less effort with smart shoes from Carnegie Mellon spinout
The Columbian online
2023-01-03
“When they came to me with this idea, I said this was a game changer,” said Dave Mawhinney, executive director of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University, private investor and founding board member of the new company, Shift Robotics. “There’s a lot of really amazing conveniences.”
2022 Fire Awards, Ecosystem Advocates: Dave Mawhinney, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh Inno online
2022-09-12
It’s nearly impossible to go through the process of launching a startup at Carnegie Mellon University without getting the aid and support of Dave Mawhinney along the way. Given his role as the executive director of CMU’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, Mawhinney works mostly with undergraduate startup founders who are looking to tap into the vast and plentiful opportunities available at one of the world’s most prestigious research universities. Mawhinney’s efforts can lead founders to investors or to a better understanding of their product/market fit so that they’re set up for success from the start. A proud champion of some of Pittsburgh’s youngest entrepreneurs, Mawhinney is a staple of Pittsburgh’s startup scene.
VCs discuss the opportunities — and challenges — in Pittsburgh’s startup ecosystem
TechCrunch online
2021-06-28
“But one of the challenges is getting that capital to come into the community,” said Mawhinney, who leads CMU’s startup efforts. “If you look at how much Uber ATG brought in, how much Argo AI and Aurora — collectively, those three companies, which have all licensed CMU technologies, they’ve all got over $7 billion in collective capital. Not all of it will be spent here, but a lot of it will be spent here. But that doesn’t necessarily trickle down to the next AI startup raising their first $3 million.”
Revolutionary Entrepreneurship: An Interview with David Mawhinney of CMU
Pittsburgh Quarterly online
2020-09-09
Donald Bonk interviews David Mawhinney, executive director of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University, as part of the Pittsburgh Tomorrow podcast series. This is the first part of a two-part interview, conducted before COVID-19. The transcript is abridged and edited for clarity.
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