Thank you. I'm Holden Thorp, and I'm the chair of the chemistry department and will become the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in a few weeks. I have had far more opportunities to do interesting things at Carolina than I ever imagined (or deserve for that matter), and certainly being involved in the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative is one of those.

My extraordinary run of good luck started several years ago when former Provost Dick Richardson called me and asked if I would sit on a panel to talk about the future of the university at the 100th anniversary of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Dick chaired that panel, which included the CEI's own Jim Johnson and Julius Chambers and Bill Friday, three of my absolute heroes. I was stunned at such an invitation. I went home and proudly told my wife that I would be on this important panel with Julius Chambers and Bill Friday, and she said "Sure you are, dear. And after that, they'll ask you to play goalie for the women's soccer team."

I came to Carolina to teach and do chemistry, which I've always considered to be the serious part of my job. Along the way, I've helped start many venture-backed science companies, which I always thought of as something I did for fun. So when Jack Kasarda asked me to teach a class on scientific entrepreneurship — basically one of my hobbies — it was once again almost too good to be true. I thought Jack was kidding, so I said, "Sure, Jack. And next I'll teach a course on classic rock guitar technique."

Actually, now that I'm Dean of the College, I realize that we might actually have a class on that. Of course if we did, I still wouldn't get to teach it.

I found out after I took this job that the Dean of the College also serves as chair of the management committee for the CEI, and I'm very excited about that because I'm convinced that weaving entrepreneurship into the fabric of Carolina's teaching and scholarship will redefine higher education as unapologetically rigorous within our traditional disciplines and, at the same time, startlingly pragmatic. This description leverages our extraordinary ability to create knowledge with a relentless determination for doing something with it. Traveling around the country to talk about this, I've seen that we're on a journey that none of our peers has mustered the courage to take in the same way.

Early on in the evolution of the CEI, Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka, came to Carolina and talked to the faculty seminar group. Drayton is the father of social entrepreneurship and has backed scores of successful social entrepreneurs. When we asked him what characteristics he looked for, he said "an entrepreneur is someone who learns whatever he needs to in order to keep his idea alive." I think what he said is that entrepreneurs are curious.

To get more deeply at this, let's think for a moment about how knowledge produces value. In the sciences, it seems obvious: some nerdy guy like me finds the secret to recombinant DNA, his next-door neighbor just happens to be a venture capitalist, and next thing you know, you've got Genentech. Well, it's not quite that simple. The nerdy guy has to realize what he's got, and if he's got it, he probably didn't actually go looking for it. As Albert Einstein said, "If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research."

So you know what? This process is not very efficient. We have to look in a lot of places to find these opportunities. Entrepreneurs are patient.

And here's the next thing. You might find a perfectly good proprietary drug in a lab, but if you don't put the right people around it, it's never going to cure anyone. I've been involved with ventures that produced something useful and made money, but I've also been involved with companies that produced something useful but no financial returns. And you know what, some of them produced returns without really making anything that contributed to society — a uniquely American option.

This can happen because there's something that venture capitalists understand better than academics do: smart investors invest in people. It's painful for academics to grapple with the fact that the idea alone is not enough -- perhaps — God forbid — it's not even the most important thing. Chemistry doesn't teach you how to lead a team or to transform society. But the humanities and social sciences do. The collective behavior of people defines markets and describes opportunities. And since history and literature provide a record of ideas that have true staying power, the entrepreneurs of the future would do well to learn something about the entrepreneurs of the past: Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Darwin, Curie, and the Pauls — Saint and McCartney. Entrepreneurs are social.

I've spent a lot of money going to executive education programs where they try to teach entrepreneurs how to think up new ideas. I hate to give away the secrets, but you know what they do for all that money? Put people in a room with crayons and ask them to visualize new solutions. Who knew coloring would be a vehicle for creating value? I guess my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Barnhill, should have upped her tuition. It must work, though, because I think we'd all agree: Entrepreneurs are creative.

I'd like to end by saying something to those of you who entered the Challenge, made it to tonight, but aren't going home with a check. Congratulations. Don't worry, I'm not saying that because "it's an honor just to be here." I know you don't think that — you wouldn't be here unless you wanted to win! Still, I congratulate you because failure is useful. One more slide, one less slide, better financials — you'll figure out what the next effort needs. Any successful entrepreneur can show you an endless string of term sheets, legal agreements and even SEC filings for deals that never got done. My advice is: lean into it. That's why we called it a Challenge. Entrepreneurs are resilient.

Let's face it, gang: you've all got the bug. What's worse, there's no cure. Maybe one day we'll have twelve-step meetings and in-patient treatment for recovering entrepreneurs. But in the meantime, get out there and do it. And one day when your boss or your board comes and says "Hey, you know you're really curious, patient, social, creative, and resilient," you can say: "Thank you. I learned it at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill."

Congratulations to all of the participants.