Search company founder to speak on entrepreneurship, Feb. 9

Princeton alumnus Steve Papa, founder and chief executive officer of Endeca, an information-technology search company, will speak at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, at the Friend Center Auditorium. His talk is titled "Building a Pre-IPO Company in the Face of Recession, War and Google."

The presentation is the second in a technology entrepreneurship lecture series that is free and open to the public. The lectures are sponsored by Princeton's Center for Innovation in Engineering Education in collaboration with the Jumpstart New Jersey Angel Network. They are followed by a reception where students, faculty, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and investors meet informally to discuss ideas and exchange knowledge and advice.

"This lecture series will strengthen connections between students, faculty, entrepreneurs and investors in the region," said Ken Kay, chair of Jumpstart, a group that invests in early-stage technology companies in the Mid-Atlantic region. "I hope some potential entrepreneurs will be inspired to pursue their dreams."

The Cambridge, Mass.,-based Endeca pioneered "Guided Navigation," a search technology for businesses that gives employees better and more efficient access to their company's own data.

Papa received his bachelor's degree from Princeton in 1994 from what was then the Department of Civil Engineering and Operations Research. He earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

The Center for Innovation in Engineering Education, a recent academic initiative in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, strives to set a new standard for engineering education by emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration, societal context and leadership.