Company Formation
CourseInfo was formed in late 1996- early 1997 via a partnership agreement between Dan Cane and Stephen Gilfus. Early on Dan Cane had begun developing web based scripts for professor Cindy Van Ness, at Cornell University, for her Statistics class. This activity was mostly driven by Dr. Van Ess's desire for bringing technology in the classroom and Dan's creativity with new technologies on the web. At this time there is a famous quote from Bill Gates technical assistant saying "Cornell is Wired". As one of the 5 supercomputer centers holding up ARPANET - the precursor underpinnings of the internet - Cornell was on the bleeding edge of email, web and technology usage. Further, Cornell had been using computer based course technology such as PLATO dating back to the early 1970s.
Dan Cane and Stephen Gilfus met as they attended the same undergraduate school at Cornell. In fact, Gilfus was a teacher's administrator at the time for Cornell's entrepreneurship studies and was assisting Professor Deborah Streeter with her business plan writing classes. Dan Cane and Stephen Gilfus met as Dan was a student in one of the classes Gilfus was administering and that year Cane won an award for a business plan call "EleFun" based on an educational website business model.
Earlier that year Gilfus had also won an award from Cornell for his work in his business planning and consulting class. During the same time Gilfus assembled an undergraduate team and launched the Cornell Entrepreneur Organization a student organization focused on connecting successful entrepreneurs and business and engineering students in order to foster new business opportunities and relationships. To this day Gilfus is an advisory member to Cornell's entrepreneurship program. Cane approached Gilfus based on his successes at Cornell and the two joined forces to develop "CourseInfo - 'Making Education Easier'" into a platform for course based websites.
The CourseInfo History is robust in its roots at Cornell University and its involvement in Cornell's entrepreneurship program. A link to an article on the companies Cornell University roots can be found here at http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/97/10.16.97/Web_company.html
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Famous quotes containing the words company and/or formation:
“We do not mind our not arriving anywhere nearly so much as our not having any company on the way.”
—Frank Moore Colby (1865–1925)
“I want you to consider this distinction as you go forward in life. Being male is not enough; being a man is a right to be earned and an honor to be cherished. I cannot tell you how to earn that right or deserve that honor. . . but I can tell you that the formation of your manhood must be a conscious act governed by the highest vision of the man you want to be.”
—Kent Nerburn (20th century)