By Isabella Picillo

The emergence of technology has transformed many industries, particularly retail. Today, many people rely on online retailers to purchase items: according to a 2018 NPR/Marist Poll, 25% of adults in the U.S. buy an item online at least once a month. It is not surprising that so many people gravitate towards online retailers. They offer people the convenience of checking out by simply clicking a button while never having to leave the comfort of their homes. Moreover, the growth of online retailers has paved the way for the increased demand for value, or quality care at low costs, as well as consumerization. We have seen online retailers add value to the consumer’s experience by using recommendation engines to suggest products to consumers based on their past purchases, tastes and preferences, and by allowing users to access information about products quickly. Therefore, we see this shift towards consumerization, which means more of a focus on the individual consumer as the end-user. The shift towards consumerization and value has spread to the health care industry in the form of telehealth and retail clinics, reflecting the growing demand for convenience, affordability, and accessibility.

Photo Credit: VAntage Point- Veterans Affairs

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By Jessica Zand

Valued at $3 trillion, the textile industry plays a significant role in the global economy, accounting for 2% of global gross domestic product. However, industry growth has been offset by the ways through which clothing is designed, produced, and consumed—non-renewable resources are used to produce clothes that are made cheaply and disposed of quickly. Overconsumption of cheaply produced clothing and underlying environmentally unsustainable practices have led to more than $500 billion in annual losses.

Photo Credit: Fashion United

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By Kyle Castellanos

Art dealership is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Although not covered by mainstream media, major art auction houses sell hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of artwork every day. Christie’s, the largest international art brokerage, reported over $7 billion total revenue in sales for 2018. In the same year Sotheby’s, Christie’s biggest competitor and largest public art auction house, made $5.3 billion in aggregate auction sales. These companies have enjoyed a duopoly over the art dealership industry, marketing over 80% of artworks worth over $1 million. 

Photo Credit: Sotheby’s

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By Madison Kang

From the Bakken Formation in North Dakota to Eagle Ford in Texas, increased U.S. oil fracking since 2014 has taken its toll on crude-dependent Nigeria. The 2014 rise in American oil production robbed Nigeria of its largest consumer and induced an international collapse in prices. The price of Nigerian oil fell from the break-even $122-a-barrel to just $50 by 2016, leading to recession. With a 6% decline in oil exports, Nigeria also experienced currency devaluation of 20% against the U.S. dollar.

Photo Credit: ATPS- African Technology Policy Studies Network

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By Robyn Bardmesser

The United States is ostensibly in solid macroeconomic health, stock markets continue to break records, unemployment is at a record low, and the recovery from the 2008 recession is now stretching into over a decade. There are still some reasons for concern, such as key manufacturing indexes dipping over the summer and a stubbornly depressed labor force participation rate. But overall, there seem to be few structural undercurrents that would justify pushing the federal funds rate, the main tool the Federal Reserve uses to steer the economy—which is typically employed as a countercyclical measure employed during, not before, a recession. Nothing, except for President Donald Trump, and his increasingly tempestuous relationship with Jerome Powell, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Photo Credit: Anadolu Agency

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By Sophie Jin

In the cult classic Clueless, Cher Horowitz famously scrolls through her gigantic closet with the ease of swiping on a tablet. At the time, many admired her exaggerated closet full of the newest season of designer clothing. Now, two decades later, there are various ways to achieve Cher’s reality—one of them being direct-to-consumer (DTC) subscription boxes.

Photo Credit: Trend Hunter

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By Steven Romero

Food delivery isn’t just for Chinese takeout or late-night pizza anymore. Nowadays, it is becoming just as common to order a convenience store snack as it is to order a complete dinner. Options are increasing, and the industry is determined to fill the rising demand for delivery that comes along with the surge in variety. New independent delivery platforms offer a way for restaurants and other stores to manage the volume of orders, and more businesses are taking advantage of the convenience they provide—letting platforms handle the entire delivery process in return for a portion of revenue.

Photo Credit: Seattle Magazine

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By Winny Sun

In 2013, whistleblower and former CIA employee Edward Snowden delivered the shocking revelation that the National Security Agency had been spying on the phone and internet activities of millions of Americans. Just a few years later, the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal brought the issue of online privacy under spotlight once again. More than 87 million Facebook profiles were breached, and the stolen information was used by the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to develop strategies for the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. Incidents like these have raised the societal importance of online privacy in the US. In fact, a 2017 Pew Research study found that 50% of Americans think that their personal data is less secure today compared to five years ago.

Photo Credit: Government Technology

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By Jacob Spiegel

Do you remember the moment you opened your first bank account? Did you go over to your local bank and make your first deposit of a few dollars with perhaps your proud parent standing behind you? Or, did you download the “bank app” on your smartphone, enter your personal information, and deposit funds into your account via PayPal or other virtual money-transfer service? While a visit to the local bank may have been the experience of new bankers for centuries, current and future generations may more often taking their visit virtually. Many new banks are online-only—they have no tellers or branches—just a website, app, and perhaps customer service reps. While banking at these institutions involves no face-to-face interactions, they offer many attractive features for younger customers, and are forcing the brick-and-mortar banks to adapt to the digital age.

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“My name is Keivan Shahida. I’m from New York, and I wanted to attend Cornell because I was looking for schools with strong Computer Science programs. I wasn’t looking for just that, as I was also interested in schools that had a strong focus in entrepreneurship and where those programs were really growing -- because in high school one of the things I was introduced to that I really enjoyed was product development: building apps (mobile app, web app, or a physical product). I always thought that was super interesting, so I wanted to go to a school where it wasn’t just theory. I wanted a school where it was actually applied as well.”

-Keivan Shahida

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By Rubin Thomas

For many, 2018 was a wake-up call for the threat that climate change poses to human safety. Countless natural disasters hit hard, from Hurricane Michael in October to the disastrous California Camp fire in November, the deadliest wildfire ever recorded in the state. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the estimated total damage from all U.S. natural disasters came out to around $91 billion in 2018. 2017, meanwhile, was the costliest year ever for climate-related disasters around the globe, according to the United Nations; the NOAA estimate for damages in 2017 hit $306 billion.

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By Steven Romero

If you were to stand on a street corner in the 1970s and shout about how the United States never actually landed on the moon but instead pulled off the most elaborate scheme in history, you probably wouldn’t attract a large crowd. But if you were to do the same thing in 2019 using social media, you would have the ability to spread the exact same rhetoric to a larger group of people, increasing the audience that would have to decide whether to ignore your message or investigate it further. The spread of misinformation on social media is just one reason why there has been a dramatic decline in overall trust towards these giant corporations. The  oversaturation of content, growing alienation of users, and constant overreach into personal data have also contributed to this distrustful sentiment. It is clear now that social media companies must make significant changes to their strategies in order to avoid losing many of their users permanently.

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By Derek Kartalian

Wireless connectivity is finally getting an upgrade. After years of planning and development, 5G connectivity has started to become a reality. Once fully operational and implemented on a wide scale, this new form of connectivity will allow for far greater data transfer speeds across all mobile devices, transform the use of current technologies, and spur technological innovation. Several emerging industries, including driverless cars, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR), are expected to greatly benefit from the steep increase in data transfer speeds.

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“Being the accountable official for critical IT infrastructure and support services in various organizations for nearly three decades has shaped my management style in many ways.  First, I have learned to take a risk-based management approach to most tasks and initiatives—prioritizing those that would have the most impact to the organization. As a technology partner, as well as a service provider, there is always a disproportionate amount of demand versus resources to accomplish the work.  I have learned over time that, through building strong coalitions based on common goals and objectives at the enterprise level, and effective influencing to gain consensus on priorities, everyone’s needs can be met—just not all at once.”

-Pamela Dyson

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By Robyn Bardmesser

Synergies: the buzzword reverberating across every corner of the business community whenever a new merger or acquisition comes down the pipe.  Yet amid the buzz, the harmful effects of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on industry are often ignored. Each M&A deal professes that the newlywed companies will together produce synergies, ultimately creating value for shareholders without harming consumers.

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By George Chai

When considering data from Startup Genome indicating that 90% of startups fail due to any number of internal complications, we are better able to relish those that succeed. More importantly, we should learn, study, and analyze these startups to gain a better understanding of the different paths that lead to entrepreneurial success and attempt to shed light on what patterns these paths share. Since success can be found in diverse forms and stages, chronicling the stories of different categories of startups will be crucial to this analysis. Therefore, I will take an in-depth look at three types of companies in different phases of their respective lifecycles.

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By Sebastian Fernandez

In 2013, Colombia’s incumbent president, Iván Duque Márquez, co-wrote The Orange Economy: An Infinite Opportunity, an economic manual that advocates for the development of creative and cultural industries (CCIs). Duque uses the term “Orange Economy” to refer to CCIs as a whole. He attributes the necessity of the term to the ambiguity that has existed when discussing CCIs due to the copious number of redundant labels with similar meanings—such as leisure industries, cultural economies, and so forth. The new term solves this problem by taking all of these labels and sectors and “squeezing” them together like an orange into the compact title of “Orange Economy.”

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By Karla Kim

Imagine a company that, within 24 years, is the second U.S. company to have briefly met the $1 trillion market cap threshold, is founded by the richest man in the world with a $131 billion net worth, is the second largest employer in the U.S., and is the biggest e-commerce marketplace and cloud computing platform in the world. Amazon’s extraordinary path from an online bookstore in Jeff Bezos’s garage to an empire of online retail and cloud computing exemplifies the success of a small startup with a visionary mission.

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