Uploaded May 2021 | Updated September 2026, 15 hours ago
Excerpts from an online discussion between Dean Andrea Goldsmith, and professors Lynn Loo and Jennifer Rexford.
Excerpts from an online discussion between Dean Andrea Goldsmith, and professors Lynn Loo and Jennifer Rexford.
![Christine Blauvelt: DUMA Works [Princeton Entrepreneurs]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/q9OJNs8DRz0/mqdefault.jpg "Christine Blauvelt: DUMA Works [Princeton Entrepreneurs]
Christine Blauvelt is co-founder of Duma Works, a Kenya-based mobile platform that efficiently connects matches employers with job seekers. Currently more than 200 employers across Kenya use Duma to find potential hires.
Duma evolved out of a social entrepreneurship class taught by John Danner that Blauvelt and co-founder Arielle Sandor took in their senior year at Princeton.
The summer after they graduated, Blauvelt and Sandor participated in eLab, a startup accelerator sponsored by Princeton’s Keller Center. The eLab team included Eric Kuto (Princeton ’12), a Kenya native who was DumaWork’s first chief technology officer, and Luke Paulsen (Princeton ’14).
Blauvelt emphasizes the importance of mentors at every stage of a startup’s development but says that an important realization for her was that “the mentors that are the most valuable are actually your teammates.” She advises that startup founders “hire people who have more experience than you, whether it’s in technology or networking or business development – because it’s really, really important to have a strong team that can help the whole team grow. “
Blauvelt earned her undergraduate degree in anthropology from Princeton University in 2012. She is currently in medical school at the University of Pennsylvania.
PRINCETON ENTREPRENEURS
Executive Producers:
John Danner
Chris Kuenne ‘85
Derek Lidow ‘73
Ed Zschau ‘61
Editorial Director:
Teresa Riordan
Video Editors:
Evelyn Tu
Ben Abrams
Technical Consultant:
Delaney Granizo-Mackenzie ‘14")
![Brian OKelley: Appnexus [Princeton Entrepreneurs]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rHmabtbrGsM/mqdefault.jpg "Brian OKelley: Appnexus [Princeton Entrepreneurs]
Brian OKelley is CEO and co-founder of AppNexus, the world’s largest independent ad tech company. Before founding AppNexus, O’Kelley was chief technology officer of Right Media, where his team invented the first online ad exchange. Right Media sold to Yahoo! in 2007 for $850 million.
O’Kelley, who has been called “the new king of ad tech,” credits past failures with his current success. Failure, he says “was the only way to really quickly learn and build skills that would allow me, once I was in the right place at the right time, to actually be successful. I think the biggest risk for an entrepreneur is often that if you are successful for the wrong reasons – like if you get lucky – then when hard times come or the business grows, you don’t have the next set of skills you need to overcome those challenges.”
O’Kelley is an active investor in and early-stage advisor to dozens of tech companies, including Invite Media (acquired by Google in 2010), MediaMath, Dstillery and Solve Media. He has been honored by Crain’s 40 Under 40, Adweek 50, Silicon Alley 100, and was recognized as an E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year in the New York region in 2012. He earned a BSE in computer science from Princeton University in 1999.
For more about entrepreneurship at Princeton, visit http://kellercenter.princeton.edu/
PRINCETON ENTREPRENEURS
Executive Producers:
John Danner
Chris Kuenne ‘85
Derek Lidow ‘73
Ed Zschau ‘61
Editorial Director:
Teresa Riordan
Video Editors:
Evelyn Tu
Ben Abrams
Technical Consultant:
Delaney Granizo-Mackenzie ‘14
Special thanks: Christina Caraco")
