New York Brainchild

The E-Waste Column is my New York brainchild.

Founders all too often refer to their ventures as being (one of) their children. While there are certainly parallels in the effects a newborn or young child and a new company can have on your life, I am not personally big on using that analogy myself. If I were, I would probably refer to The E-Waste Column as my “New York baby” though.

I conceived the idea for The E-Waste Column in New York. I carried the concept to term through my 9 months at Columbia Law School. I gave birth to and nurtured the infant version of the venture’s blueprint while still in New York, and a lot of people that helped carry the project through its early days where people I met at Columbia University.

Putting that comparison aside, I am fairly certain that without my time in New York, The E-Waste Column would never have come to be. What started out as a weekly column and has now grown into a multi-stakeholder platform needed things only New York has ever given me to come into existence.

After years of working a corporate job, I needed a place like Columbia to give me the space to read, ponder, and discuss. I needed the streets of New York to return my faith in the validity of my own voice and perspective to me. I needed the bookstores and the newspaper stands in Manhattan to invite me back into the world of storytelling and writing. I needed the theater, musical, and opera stages of Broadway to be surrounded by people with big dreams and realize that it was also okay for me to dream big. I needed the quiet of Morningside Heights to think clearly and the safety of the Columbia Entrepreneurship Design Studio to find the courage to start something of my own. I also very much needed to be surrounded by the openness and craziness of New Yorkers to come back out of my shell.

In short, The E-Waste Column needed New York to come into existence and take shape. New York made me realize that if one crazy dream of mine was possible, perhaps another one was too. And the funny thing is that after all this time, whenever I feel lost or stuck on what to do next or generally doubt that things will work out, I still just close my eyes for a few minutes and pretend to be back in New York.

If you would like to share your own story around The E-Waste Column and support our ongoing fundraising efforts, I welcome you to submit your #impacttestimonials here.

The photo is of me at 26 at an interactive art exhibition in the middle of my New York era, which entailed consuming large amounts of art despite coinciding with the pandemic.