Dr. Cesar Bandera is an electrical engineer who was thrust into entrepreneurship in the mid-eighties. After decades of helping students from the vantage point of industry, he is now doing the converse: helping startups from the vantage point of academia. His research interests follow three paths: cross-cultural experiential entrepreneurship education, innovation-driven business incubation, and mobile healthcare innovation. In addition to directing the entrepreneurship program at NJIT, Bandera is also the founding partner of several startups including the m-health company Cell Podium, which conducts wireless public health campaigns for CDC, NIH, EPA, and foreign ministries of health. He maintains active roles in industry, academia, and policy-making; students build upon these activities in their BS, Masters, and Ph.D. studies and research, and to launch their own startups.

Bandera received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University at Buffalo, NY, with a concentration in biomimetic computer vision. His work has yielded four patents, numerous publications, and received the NASA Space Act award and two Small Business of the Year Nominations from the US Department of Defense. He is Director of the Academy of the International Council for Small Business, Associate Editor of the Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine, and Senior Member of the IEEE.