As the season’s first snow fell on New Haven, a crowd filed into a Yale School of Management classroom, shedding coats and hats as they settled in for CITY’s fall Accelerator Pitch-Off, a chance to hear 14 Yale student teams pitch the big ideas they’d developed over the semester.

We talked to CITY mentor-in-residence Margaret Cartiera about Yale’s healthcare innovation ecosystem and how she applies her background to supporting students.

“‘We want to create an ecosystem for students to develop and pursue their ideas, be it a social movement, a rock band, a documentary series, or a nonprofit organization,’ Associate Director of Tsai CITY Onyeka Obiocha told the News.

Yale Divinity School (YDS) and the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale (Tsai CITY) are located far apart on Yale’s campus — with YDS’ Georgian-style campus perched on Prospect Hill while CITY occupies office space downtown — but a new initiative aims to bring them closer.

“Penta, founded by Trang Duong, a Brown student, and Victor Wang and Henry Iseman, both from Yale, collects used prosthetic devices from prosthetic clinic chains around the U.S., and brings them to Vietnam and other developing countries. Penta plans to help 6,000 amputees over the next three years.”

“Smart” devices are everywhere, from the Amazon Echo to the Fitbit. This fall, students from all corners of campus had a chance to imagine and prototype their own smart devices and systems as part of a cohort-based Intensive held at Tsai CITY.

One student is constructing a giant block wall, while another forms shapes with Play-Doh. At nearby tables, students draw and rifle through a stack of worksheets, pausing occasionally to reflect before diving back in.

How do you build a mentor network that inspires students from all backgrounds and disciplines in the journey of innovation? We recently sat down with Victor Padilla-Taylor, Tsai CITY’s new Director of Mentor, Advisor, and Partner Networks, to get his perspective on this question.

“Since the beginning of 2016, women-led companies have received only 4.4% of all venture capital, according to PitchBook Data. Furthermore, while teams led by men receive an average of $12 million, women-led teams receive an average of $5 million. The numbers only shrink when considering ventures helmed by women of color.