Last modified: [November 16, 2023]

Introduction

The Hirshberg Entrepreneurship Institute (“HEI” or ”we”) is a US-based startup institute that offers programs for entrepreneurs to learn about financing, marketing, organizational challenges, finding personal balance, managing change, and the many other areas that are fundamental to growing an enterprise (collectively, “Programs”).  HEI respects your privacy and is committed to protecting the Personal Information (defined below) you share with us through our compliance with this privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”).

This Privacy Policy explains how HEI handles Personal Information obtained through your use of our website (hirshberginstitute.com) and its various subdomains (collectively, the “Website”), as well as your application to or participation in any of our Programs.

With respect to the collection of your information, if you do not want your Personal Information collected, please do not submit it to us. If you have already submitted information and would like to review, correct, or remove it from our records, please contact Carlene Ruesenberg at info@Hirshberginstitute.com.

By visiting and using the Website, you are acknowledging that you have been provided with this Privacy Policy and have agreed to the provisions of this Privacy Policy, to the extent allowable by law. 

This Privacy Policy may change from time to time (see Changes to Our Privacy Policy). Your continued use of this Website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates. 

Information We Collect 

Personal Information You Provide

We collect different information from you depending on how you engage with us at HEI, which information, either alone or in combination with other information in our possession, could be used to identify you (“Personal Information”). Personal Information may include, but is not limited to, information regarding the founder(s) of a company that applies to one of our Programs or purchases a subscription-based service from our Website, such as names, email addresses, telephone numbers, education, employment history, professional and/or educational experience and the city/country in which they live, as well as information about an applicant or subscription-based company, such as the name, industry, and status of the company, as well as the company’s investor pitch deck, and financial information on the company’s revenues, gross margins, valuation and related data, if submitted in connection with an HEI educational Program.

We may also collect Personal Information you publish or display (hereinafter, “post”) on public areas of the Website or transmit to other users of the Website or third parties (collectively, “User Contributions”). Your User Contributions are posted and transmitted to others at your own risk. 

Our Website may include social media features, such as the Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter buttons. These features may also collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our Website, and may set a cookie (see below) to enable the feature to function properly. These features may also give you the option to post information about your activities on our Website to your profile page to share with others within your network. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy notice of the company providing them.

Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies

We also automatically collect non-identifiable data through the Website (such as browser characteristics, device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, information on actions taken on the Website, and dates and times of Website visits).

The information we collect automatically is only statistical data and does not include Personal Information, but we may maintain it or associate it with Personal Information we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. It helps us to improve our Website and to deliver a better and more personalized service, including by enabling us to:

  • Estimate our audience size and usage patterns.
  • Store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize our Website according to your individual interests.
  • Speed up your searches.
  • Recognize you when you return to our Website.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:

  • Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Website. 
  • Flash Cookies. Certain features of our Website may use local stored objects (or Flash cookies) to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from, and on our Website. 
  • Web Beacons. Pages of the Website and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit HEI, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related Website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain Website content and verifying system and server integrity). 

How We Use Your Information

We use your Personal Information to provide you with the information you have requested from us, to manage your application to participate and/or your participation in one of our Programs, to operate our Programs, to operate and improve HEI’s Website, and to otherwise run HEI’s business and services. For example, we may use your Personal Information to:

  • Present our Website and its contents to you.
  • Provide you with information, newsletters, or services that you request from us.
  • Manage your application, and verify your eligibility, to participate in a Program.
  • Match you with panelists, speakers, and judges.
  • Match you with partners. 
  • Match you with other Program participants and HEI staff in order to operate our Programs. 
  • Provide you with notices about your account or subscription, including expiration and renewal notices.
  • Carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection.
  • Notify you about changes to our Website or any products or services we offer or provide though it.
  • Allow you to participate in interactive features on our Website.
  • Fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it.
  • In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.
  • For any other purpose with your consent.

We may also use your Personal Information to contact you about our own and third-parties’ services that may be of interest to you. If you do not want us to use your information in this way, please email info@Hirshberginstitute.com.

We use analytics tools like Google Analytics to understand how you and others use our Website. These analytics tools may also use cookies and other tracking tools like web beacons or local storage objects in order to perform their services. Google allows you to prevent your information from being included in Google Analytics by downloading a browser add-on available here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Disclosure of Your Information

We may share your Personal Information with people and organizations HEI works with to run its Programs or perform other services related to HEI’s business and services, including, but not limited to, Program participants and sponsors, and HEI staff. Your information will be used by these individuals primarily to evaluate your company and otherwise facilitate your participation in HEI Programs. HEI implements commercially reasonable measures to protect your Personal Information. However, you understand and acknowledge that the confidentiality of such Personal Information is not guaranteed and that such information may be seen and used by individuals who run and/or invest in companies that are competitive with yours. You therefore submit all Personal Information at your own risk.   

We may also disclose Personal Information:

  • To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.
  • To enforce or apply our Terms of Use www.Hirshberginstitute.com and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes.
  • If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of HEI, Program participants, or others. 

Accessing and Correcting Your Information

We make good faith efforts to provide you with access to your Personal Information and either to correct this data if it is inaccurate or to delete such data at your request if it is not otherwise required to be retained by law or for legitimate business purposes. 

You can review and change your Personal Information by logging into the Website and visiting your account profile page. You may also send us an email at info@Hirshberginstitute.com to request access to, correct or delete any Personal Information that you have provided to us. 

Important Information for California Residents

Your rights: To the extent provided for by law and subject to applicable exceptions, California residents have the following privacy rights in relation to the Personal Information we collect: 

  • The right to request that we disclose what categories of Personal Information we have collected about them, what categories of sources from which we collect Personal Information about them, the business or commercial purpose for which we collect their Personal Information, the categories of third parties with whom we share their Personal Information, and the specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected about them;
  • The right to request deletion of their Personal Information; and
  • The right to be free from discrimination relating to the exercise of any of their privacy rights under California law.

To request that we disclose or delete your information, you may email us at info@Hirshberginstitute.com.

How we verify consumer requests: For your protection, we verify your identity before complying with a request for disclosure or deletion of your Personal Information. As part of your request, we will ask you to provide your first and last names, your email address, your telephone number, and your company affiliation so that we can match that information to our records.

If an agent submits a request on your behalf, we will verify that the agent is authorized to act on your behalf.

Children’s Privacy

HEI’s services do not address anyone under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal identifiable information from anyone under 18. In the case where we discover that a child under the relevant minimum age has provided us with Personal Information without parental consent, we will immediately delete such information from our servers. If you have reason to believe that a child has provided us with Personal Information, please contact us and we will endeavor to delete that information from our databases.

Visiting our Website from outside the United States

We store and process all Personal Information we receive within the United States.

If you are visiting our Website from outside the United States, applying for participation in a Program, or otherwise providing Personal Information to HEI, please be aware that your information will be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated. The data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in your country. You agree to this risk when you use the HEI Website, participate in our Programs, or otherwise provide Personal Information to HEI. Please be assured that we seek to take reasonable steps to ensure that your Personal Information is protected. By using our services, you understand that your information may be transferred to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it as described in this Privacy Policy.

Data Security

We have implemented measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure. 

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password for access to certain parts of our Website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone. We urge you to be careful about giving out information in public areas of the Website. The information you share in public areas may be viewed by any user of the Website.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee the security of your Personal Information transmitted to our Website. Any transmission of Personal Information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Website.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our Privacy Policy on this page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users’ Personal Information, we will notify you by email to the email address specified in your account or through a notice on the Website home page. The date the Privacy Policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting our Website and this Privacy Policy to check for any changes.

Contact Information

To ask questions or provide comments about this Privacy Policy and our privacy practices, contact us at: 

info@Hirshberginstitute.com