1 2021-2022 Annual Report
Alumni Survey
InnovationPartnersOrganizingWelcomeContentsInnovate@BUintheCurriculum
First-YearSummerIncubatorAcceleratorInnovation Fellowship
Opportunities
Director of PartnershipsEntrepreneurship
Innovate@BU is a Universi ty-wide initiative to enable all BU Terriers to become drivers of innovation in their own lives, careers, and communities. Through its physical home on the Charles River campus, the BUild Lab IDG Capital Student Innovation Center, it provides a variety of signature programs that foster an entrepreneurial mindset and help students turn their ideas into something real.
Micaelah Morrill
2
Hunger Challenge
Lisa Lavina
Wellbeing Challenge
Academic Director of Research & Curriculum and QST Feld Family Professor in Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Director of External Relations
Peter Marton
Program Director, Social Entrepreneurship
New Venture Competition
Innovation Pathway Idea
Innovation & Entrepreneurship Minor Research
Interim Executive Director and Director of Curriculum
Managing Director, BUild Lab IDG Capital Student Innovation Center
Siobhan O’Mahony
Campus Challenges
Innovate@BU by the Numbers
Rana Gupta Director of EntrepreneurshipFaculty
Affiliated Faculty Highlights Venture Capital Investment Competition Catalyst Program Expert Mentorship
Katie Quigley Mellor
Staff
OfficeInnovator-in-ResidenceHours 2010435678912131415161818212223
Thomas Samph Program Director, Business Ventures
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
Enlight Social Entrepreneurship Summer Internship Norway Entrepreneurship Program
Li Liang
Leadership
Austin Boyer Marketing Communications& Manager
Lou Brum Event Coordinator
Doug Hannah Affiliated Faculty, Questrom School of Business
Director of Operations
5th Annual Cannabis Competition IDEA SupportConferenceforInternship
Hewitt Pathfinder Start-up Internship Fund
Ian Mashiter
Beyond extracurricular programming, the Innovate@BU initiative also prom ised to increase the opportunities for our students to study innovation and entrepreneurship. To that end, we
3 Ian Mashiter Executive Director
Nana Younge Program Manager
Ryan Roth Gallo (LAW’99)
Carol Kaufman (CAS’71)
Richard Cohen (CGS’67, Questrom’69)
Yousif Al Nowais (Parent CAS’14)
This year challenged faculty, staff, and students as we shifted from remote to hybrid to in-person learning, and I am proud of our team’s excellent work during this period.
Beverly Brown
launched the Innovation and Entre preneurship minor in 2020. In its first year, we graduated 2 students, while in 2022 we graduated 58. This year also saw more than 185 students declare the minor, making it the 6th most pop ular minor on campus. We are very pleased with the minor’s popularity and we owe many thanks to the facul ty who teach in the program. We also offer two HUB co-curricular classes, and these are always oversubscribed. We continue to be recognized by the Princeton Review and Poets and Quants as a top program for studying innovation and entrepreneurship and for working on your ideas outside the Weclassroom.areexcited to get started on the full calendar of in-person program ming in the upcoming 2022-23 aca demic year and, with the addition of a new program director for social entre preneurship, we will be increasing the number of programs for our students who are engaging in solving problems in Thanksociety,you all for your continuing sup port of Innovate. We couldn’t do this without you.
Collin Yip (Questrom’12)
During my over 10 years at Boston University, I have devoted my time to teaching entrepreneurship as a Ques trom faculty member and to build ing extracurricular entrepreneurship programs. Many of you may remem ber that I was the founding managing director of the Build Lab and recently served as curriculum director for Inno vate@BU. I am committed to building on the initiative’s success in my time as executive director.
Ranch Kimball
Alicia C. Mullen (CAS’83, Parent CAS’19)
Billy Bloom Questrom’84)(CGS’82,
Ken Menges (Questrom’79)
Allen Questrom (Questrom’64, Hon.’15)
Hugo Shong (COM’87)
Lou Volpe (Questrom’78)
Welcome!
During the last year, Dr. Gerry Fine, our founding executive director, retired. We thank him for his strong and thought ful leadership during the first years of the Innovate@BU initiative. While we search for a permanent replacement, the Provost asked me to fill the role of interim executive director.
Greg Stoller
Ziad Dalloul (ENG’86)
Advisors
Affiliated Faculty, Questrom School of Business
4Organizing Innovate@BU Innovate@BU Campus Initiative Innovate@BU - Deans’ Advisory Council Faculty Steering Committee FacultyEntrepreneurship Network Law Clinic VenturesMedia EPIC Spark! College of Fine Arts Questrom College of Arts & SchoolSciencesofLaw College Communicationof DesignStudioBU onInitiativeCities School Medicineof BUild Lab IDG CapitalInnovationStudentCenterCollege Engineeringof Initiatives Colleges/Schools Cohort
» Startup Law Clinics
University Partners
» BU Sustainability
» BU Arts
Ecosystem Partners
» Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC)
Housed at Boston University’s Facul ty of Computing & Data Sciences, BU Spark! aims to help students realize their potential and passion by provid ing access to resources, knowledge, and expert networks to support their innovation and applied learning jour neys. BU Spark! is a technology incu bator and experiential learning lab for computer science and engineering bu.edu/sparkprojects.
The BU Startup Law Clinic and Tech nology Law Clinics provide invaluable pro bono advice and legal services to student entrepreneurs. Services are provided by BU School of Law Students, under attorney supervi sion. Since Innovate@BU’s launch in 2018, the law clinics have become a top-recommended resource among the bu.edu/startuplawcommunity.
5
The mission of BU Sustainability is to lead the University in a more sustain able direction and integrate sustain ability into the culture and structure of Boston University. Implementing the Climate Action Plan (CAP) will allow the University to reduce its use of natural resources, operating costs, and improve environmental and social bu.edu/sustainabilityimpacts.
» Bioengineering Technology & Entrepreneurship Center (BTEC) BTEC is a 5000-square-foot, bioengi neering “maker space” with a Molec ular, Cellular, and Tissue Engineering Suite, a Biosensors and Instrumenta tion Suite, and a Digital and Predictive Medicine Design Suite. Courses in BTEC provide students with experien tial education in all three areas. Excit ingly, BTEC also enables students to engage open-ended innovation on their own and in partnerships with bu.edu/eng/alumni/btecindustry.
EPIC is a 15,000 sq ft maker-space that includes a machine shop, design and collaboration studios, a materials characterization laboratory, a metals foundry and a wood shop. The Cen ter works closely with key industry partners at the forefront of advanced product design and manufacturing innovation in the region to provide students with the skills required to prosper in the innovation economy. On a daily basis, EPIC serves as a key resource for classes throughout the University and for student entrepre neurs who need to prototype their ideas for new hardware bu.edu/eng/current-students/epicstart-ups.
The Boston University Arts Initiative ensures that the arts are fundamental to the student experience by devel oping and supporting university-wide programs to advance the role of the arts at BU through building commu nity; supporting interdisciplinary arts teaching; and highlighting diverse art ists and modes of artistry. bu.edu/arts
» BU Spark!
» Innovation & Entrepreneurship Minor
6 of courses we offer as well as innovative programs sup ported by the University and alumni investment like our student internship at Mass Challenge. Professors Ian Mashiter and Siobhan O’Mahony were also interviewed in a Poets & Quants video that championed innovation pro grams at BU.
Students explore the innovation pathway process and apply the tools embedded in this process towards creat ing a product or service.
» Curriculum
The 2022 Class of I&E Minor Graduates
Innovation in the Curriculum
Hub CC 161: Starting a Startup: Discovering & Validating Ideas
Hub CC 163: How to Launch a Project students learn to bring a project idea to life while developing their cre ativity and innovation skill-set through handson workshops, reflec tions, office hours, and feedback sessions.
» Program Innovation Innovate@BU launched the Boston University Innovation Quorum (BUIQ) Fellows to foster stronger relationships with corporate innovation leaders. We met with over a dozen corporate leaders from companies like Citibank, Verizon, Hanover Insurance, Eastern Bank, Welch’s, Sher lock Biosciences, and Booking Holdings to better under stand their innovation challenges. Deeper engagement with corporate innovation leaders is important for Inno vate@BU as it is critical to furthering experiential learning opportunities for our students. Three fellows have already identified opportunities for experiential learning or career opportunities for Questrom or BU students. We are also developing a class on managing corporate innovation that will launch next year and offer live projects sourced from corporate sponsors.
From Innovate@BU, the Innovation & Entrepreneurship minor enables students pursuing any undergraduate major at BU to develop their ideas and create tangible eco nomic or social impact. It’s not just for students who want to “launch a startup,” but for anyone who wants to learn how to be more entrepreneurial in all aspects of their lives. Since it launched 3 years ago, it has become the 6th most popular minor on campus with more than 180 students having declared the minor this year. The core class, SI 250: Ideas2Impact, has had to add new sections to accommodate the 287 students from 8 schools and col leges. To date, we have graduated 96 students with an I&E minor, with 58 having graduated this spring.
This year, we were pleased to gain national recognition from the Princeton Review which ranked BU in entre preneurship at #25—a significant increase from #40 in undergraduate entrepreneurship programs the year prior. BU is now #7 in the Northeast which is a great place to be given the intensity of competition in the Boston area. This increase in rankings reflects the diversity and scale
HUB CO-CURRICULARS
O’Mahony, Academic Director of Innovate@BU: “Changing the Sys tem, not the Seeker” examines how investors can more equitably evalu ate the ideas and potential of diverse entrepreneurs. This research targets a significant problem as the vast majority of venture capital is invest ed in white male, elite founders. Through a series of field experiments in 8 programs in Africa, India, the Middle East, and Latin America that made actual investments in entre preneurs, Amisha was able to show how investors could change their evaluation practices to reduce the biased evaluation of entrepreneurs. Siobhan and Amisha are working on
“Rather than blame investors’ biases for funding mostly white, male founders, Amisha’s research reveals very modest process changes in how entrepreneurs are evaluated that can produce a significant, large effect on diversifying the types of founders funded”
Alumni also created new services like the first web-based solution for retire ment income planning, the first online law school (which launched in 1998), and BroadwayHD, which captures Broadways content and streams it throughout the world! And we should not fail to mention the first food ser vice truck on Cape Cod! On average, alumni who went on to found a firm did so 13 years from their earliest BU degree but in the last few years alumni were more likely to found a firm within ten years of graduation.
Working in close collaboration with BU’s Office of Alumni Relations, a team of two students and profes sor Raviv Murciano-Goroff, Siobhan O’Mahony designed and surveyed 1,680 alumni. Many BU alumni have undertaken amazing initiatives, but there has never been an overarching study to understand their innova tive and entrepreneurial accomplish
getting this important research pub lished this summer and fall.
Amisha Miller
7
With a team of 6 undergraduate and graduate students, the New Venture Lab is examining how venture capital firms recruit, evaluate and develop BIPOC (black, indigenous people of color) founders to foster more diverse high technology startups. This multiyear project examines how under represented founders are evaluated by potential investors and traces the progress of 50 founders admitted to a Fellowship Program where all receive an initial $25,000 to develop their ideas. Founders can apply for ongoing funding as they progress.
Doctoral student Amisha Miller, who is leading this project, received 3 global awards for her research on female and underrepresented entre preneurs including Best Paper from the Organization and Management
» Alumni Survey
Theory Division of the Academy of Management, Best Paper from the Strategic Management Society, and the Industry Studies Association Ris ing Star award. In addition, Amisha received the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion award from Questrom and the Questrom Outstanding Research by a Doctoral Student award. Her dissertation, chaired by Siobhan
Siobhan O’Mahony, Academic Director of Research & Curriculum
Whatments.
Research
we learned: Our alumni are innovative! Three-fourths of alumni who responded had founded a firm in the last two decades. Two-thirds had launched a product or innovative ser vice; 39% had led an innovative team and 16% had filed a patent. These innovations ranged from the highly technical like solar photovoltaic sys tems, hydrogen refueling stations, a 3D dental measurement system, bar coding software, and Wi-Fi hot spots to the everyday necessities such as new Jello-O flavors, custom cookies, and Scrunchi hair products!
You with early validation
ThePathwayInnovationPathway provides students with a self-paced process to launch a new venture or project by guiding them toward the necessary resources such as funding, leader ship skill building, and mentoring. The program consists of three stag es: Walk, Run, and Fly. Within each stage is a series of resources to use and milestones to complete. During the Walk and Run stages, teams are given the chance to pitch for seed grants ranging from $1,000 to $2,000. This year, 276 student teams participated in the Innovation Pathway and $14,000 in seed grants was awarded. Four Innovation Pathway teams (right) were accepted into the competitive MassChallenge U.S. Early Stage program for startups—the highest number of BU teams accepted in one year! Special thanks to BU trustee Cynthia Cohen (MET) for funding this program.
8
Run
Innovation
Walk
have a venture idea
Fly
Cynthia Cohen with the women in the Pathway
a compelling
research
feasible ven
You have and ture idea with a viable business model.
A student displays their venture at an Advancement Ceremony
Your venture is ready for launch, you’ve built the first version, and you’re ready to grow
- Idea Incubator Participant
Idea Incubator
CompSciLib
The BUild Lab is an incredible community that gives the opportunity to explore entrepreneurship in lowrisk, high-reward settings. It’s literally a once in a lifetime opportunity to help establish your dreams.
Cashless Fatima Bouladjoul,ZohraQST’22
Niyi Oyeniyi, ENG’20
9
N.J. Umoh, CAS’23
Dialysis-X is creating a new dialysis experience for patients and clinicians. Our solution will improve both the experience and out comes for patients, as well as provide measurable cost savings to the clinics that serve them.
The Idea Incubator is a self-paced, beginner-friendly program that helps students identify problems and come up with an idea for a venture or self-contained project. At the end of the program, students have a chance to compete for seed grants and a best demon strated learning prize, each worth $500. Participants get access to: curated and self-paced learning content and resourc es such as the Innovation Pathway handbook and a guide to launching new venture and project ideas; peer-to-peer learning within a community of 250+ teams who share feedback, advice, and tips; and priority access to meeting spaces at the BUild Lab and to RSVP capped programs.
CompSciLib is an EdTech web app that revolutionizes computer science learning and comprehension. We use technology to enhance technological calculations, contribute professional explanations, and provide learning resources.
Philomena Asantem, MD MPH, QST’25-26
Dialysis-X
Cashless aims to make 3-day transactions happen in real-time and at half the cost of current solutions in Algeria. Currently, there are no existing solutions that cater to inter-bank payments.
Ceremony
The Diva Docs Black Women MD Network
Only 2.6% of all active physicians are Black wom en, and only 2.3% of Black women doctors are US medical school faculty. The DD BWMD Network is a professional and social net working platform that con nects Black women doctors directly to a diverse nation al network of sponsors for advancing opportunities.
10
At the end of the program, the teams used this wealth of infor mation to put together a new and improved pitch for a panel of experts’ feedback.
Lead by Director of Venture Pro grams Tom Samph, an impressive lineup of BUild Lab staff and indus try experts from outside the Uni versity covered topics ranging from the customer discovery process, building up a team, revenue mod els, and so much more.
Special thanks to coaches Ian Mashiter, Greg Stoller, Patrick Abouchalache, Pat Hambrick, Misty Pennington, Peter Marton, and Babak Kia.
Fatima Zohra Bouladjoul | Venture: Cashless
Summer Accelerator
In the summer of 2022, 10 stu dent-lead teams gathered in the BUild Lab IDG Capital Student Innovation Center for 10 weeks of intensive learning as part of the Summer Accelerator.
“The Summer Accelerator helped us with the structure and taught very clear guidance on how to talk to your customers, prepare the interview, document all your customer journeys, and use the outcome to identify the best market fit.”
Locale is the first dating app to connect singles within the same physical loca tion. We partner with local venues such as bars and nightclubs to provide fun, safe places for hybridized interaction.
Our company is an innovative online marketplace and interactive cultural com munity for secondhand clothes shoppers and store owners to engage and to share their passion for sustainable fashion.
PurpleSpace
ASHTAP
TokenSpace
Ollie
Cashless
A toy doll series that addresses differ ent situation kids go through that may affect their self-esteem and later dimin ished the confidence in school, relation ships, and even career choice in life.
TokenSpace facilitates corporate gifting where companies gift NFTs (digital art work) and xNFTs (personalized experi ences) to their employees and clients.
Imagine Upp Bio as a “Biochemistry Discovery as a service” company.
Online MarketplaceSecondhand&Community
Amor Plantae is developing the business concept for a wellness & rehabilitation center that utilizes: 1) psilocybin, adap togenic mushrooms & non-THC can nabinoids 2) group/individual fitness coaching [mental, physical & nutritional] 3) Psychedelic Assisted Therapy [PAT].
Upp Bio
PurpleSpace strives to provide a solu tion to our renewable energy require ments by getting energy from the vehicles passing on the roads.
Locale
The 2022 Summer Accelerator Cohort
Idori
Dollars & $ense
Improving access to smart homes and other assistive technologies for people with disabilities.
A free mobile money application for the unbanked and tech-savvy population in Algeria that will allow them to access financial services (financial inclusion).
$120k in support
11 12 Teams
Edtech platform that teaches financial liter acy concepts to elementary school students through their behavior management system.
Filia lets single-location restaurants track their sales and inventory, cen tralize their orders, decrease costs and optimize time/waste management.
Idori seeks to provide educational resources to 4-9 year olds that teach them about the environment and building sustainable habits.
Filia
Amor Plantae
First-Year Innovation Fellowship
All FYIF students were given special workshops and seed grants to help them launch projects including My Sister’s Keeper, a program to uplift and equip young girls of color with skills to excel in higher education and communities, and Sea Green Co., which tovidingtaltheirstudentsempowerstoreduceenvironmenimpactbyproeasyaccessgreenproducts.
“I joined the First-Year Innovation Fellowship for mentorship from the BUild Lab team. Having access to mentors and like-minded individuals helped me grow as a person and as an innovator!” N.J. Umoh (CAS’23)
The First-Year Innovation Fellowship is a special cohort program for firstyear students to begin work on a pas sion project or venture.
In the 2021–22 academic year, 12 students wrapped up one cohort in the fall, and 15 more kicked off a new cohort in January 2022.
For our second annual Community Impact Challenge, we asked students to develop innovative ideas on campus or in their community that directly address emotional, social, and physical wellbeing. Eleven teams were chosen as finalists and were each giv en a $500 seed grant to help them launch projects that included a wellness center using psychedelic plant-based medicines and free professional clothing for students.
Amor Plantae, winners of the Wellbeing Challenge
Micaelah Morrill gives her testimony at the Hunger Summit
» Campus Hunger Challenge
“If I can speak on behalf of all the judges, you gave us hope and joy for the future.”
James Morton, President and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Boston
During the finale event on April 12, Congressman Jim McGovern (MA-2) provided a keynote address and our Founding Executive Director Gerry Fine handed out the first-prize award of $10,000. The winning team, Food@ BU, proposed creating a guide with information on local food pantries and federal food access programs. They also plan to partner with Student Wellbeing and become the one-stop shop on campus to find information about SNAP, leftover food alerts, the Wheelock Community Cares food pantry, and more.
Congressman Jim McGovern
Together with the YMCA of Greater Boston, Innovate@ BU sought innovative ideas from BU students and alumni to help ensure no 19- to 26-year-olds in the Boston area miss a meal.
13
» The Wellbeing Challenge
Winners of the Campus Hunger Challange
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley thanked her for her insights, noting how the idea of the hungry college student has become normalized in our society, making the issue that much more insidious.
Campus Challenges
On Monday, July 11, 2022, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) and Project Bread joined community members, advocates, and local leaders in East Boston for a district convening on food insecurity. The convening comes ahead of the White House Conference on Hun ger later this year, the first conference of its kind in more than 50 years. Innovate@BU’s Director of External Rela tions Micaelah Morrill gave her testimony as part of the panel dedicated to advocates and academics. She spoke on behalf of BU regarding her work on the 2022 Campus Hunger Challenge and the enormous issue of hunger on our college campuses.
Jim Morton, YMCA
» Workshop: How to Pitch & Fundraise as an Underrepresented Entrepreneur with Allison Byers
Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
» BU Alumni Women Founders Talk & Speed Networking
» Fireside Chat with Founder Suzanne Sinatra
» Workshop: How to Tackle Imposter Syndrome for Women Entrepreneurs
» Founder Stories and Networking with Women of Color in Boston
2021-2022 Events:
» Changemaking within Existing Systems with Jonathan Allen
and championing Diver sity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a core value for both Innovate@BU and for the BUild Lab. Understanding that entrepreneurs from tradition ally underrepresented backgrounds (women, people of color, LGBTQ+, immigrants, and more) face unique challenges in their entrepreneurship journey or even just in getting started, we launched an Inclusive Innovation Event Series this year to address this important topic and provide more targeted support, ranging from fea turing underrepresented founders sharing their entrepreneurship jour neys and advice, to tackling imposter syndrome, to pitching and fundraising as underrepresented entrepreneurs. We recognize the complexity and challenges to moving the needle on this important issue, and we commit to continue learning from students, best practices, and our program outcomes, and continue iterating on our approach. We are continuing to expand this event series and our sup port to underrepresented entrepre neurs in this coming year.
14Modeling
Makeeba McCreary, Jonathan Allen, and Segun Idowu
» Workshop: How to Tackle Imposter Syndrome for 1st-Generation Immigrants
Allison Byers
15 Innovate@BU by the Numbers 12 Student-led companies or nonprofits in the 2022 Summer Accelerator 130+ BUild Lab–sponsored events 400+ In-person and virtual attendees for the 2022 IDEA Conference 287 Students enrolled in the Innovation & Entrepreneur ship Minor core class, SI250: Ideas2IMpact 276 Teams in the Innova tion Pathway and Idea Incubator programs $206,430 Awarded in competitions and funding 17 All 17 BU schools and colleges represent ed at our programs 6,929 Total visitors to the BUild Lab
After an initial written evaluation, 27 teams (15 in the general track and 12 in the social impact track) moved on to the semifinals, where they present ed 10-minute pitches to judges made up of Boston-area entrepreneurs and business leaders.
» 1st Place ($18,000) – MetNet MetNet provides a suite of chemin formatics tools that aid in analysis of drug candidate toxicity and reduction in R&D costs associated with the drug development process.
New Venture Competition
» 2nd Place ($8,000) – Airflow Seating System Technologies Airflow Seating System Technologies is solving the problems presented by the prevention and treatment of pres sure injuries for people with limited mobility by creating a medical cush ioning system that moves pressure based on sensor inputs.
For the first time in 3 years, the 12 New Venture Competition finalist teams were able to give their pitches to more than 200 enthusiastic in-per son attendees at Innovate@BU’s annual Innovators Night. The teams spent the afternoon pitch ing to judges comprised of innovation and entrepreneurship experts before heading to the top floor of BU’s Pho
16 tonics Center to give spirited 2-min ute versions to the public. Before the competition prizes were announced, Innovate@BU’s Interim Executive Director Ian Mashiter pre sented the Henry Morgan Award to Former Executive Director Gerry Fine for his years of leadership within the department, and Program Director Tom Samph presented the Innovate@BU Student Innovator of the Year to fellow emcee Glo Robinson (COM’22) who has partici pated in a variety of Innovate@BU programs—including NVC—during her time at BU.
The New Venture Competition (NVC) is Innovate@BU’s largest annual competition that awards $64,000 to early-stage BU entrepreneurs and helps them transform their ideas into something real.
Venture Track
» 3rd Place ($6,000) – CompSciLib CompSciLib is an all-in-one EdTech web app that uses technology to enhance technological calculations,
For for-profit ventures focused on creating value for a large market with a scalable model.
Venture Track Finalists and Winner, MetNet Glo Robinson (COM’22) and Tom Samph
Dollars & Sense is an EdTech plat form that provides a fun, easy-to-use behavior management system for K-6th grade that exposes students to financial literacy concepts. The lessons are aligned with their state standards to provide repetitive and consistent reinforcement of financial literacy concepts over the years.
ferent situation kids go through that may affect their self-esteem and later diminished the confidence in school, relationships, and even career choice in life. The doll has recording of dif ferent affirmations (to target different things children go through) that allow the child to repeat them and even lis ten as they fall asleep.
For nonprofits, for-profit or hybrid venture whose main objective is social value (intentionally positive economic, social, cultural, or environ mental change) that has large-scale potential.
» 3rd Place ($6,000) – Hutch Hutch is on a mission to facilitate homeowners in making energy effi
ciency and electrification upgrades to their home, eliminating 20% of this country’s carbon pollution in the process. Hatch’s platform combines multiple dimensions of data about a customer’s home with advanced mar keting analytics capabilities to serve as a trusted advisor that conveniently shepherds homeowners through the complicated process of of electrifying and decarbonizing their home, what ever their motivation to do so.
Social Impact Track Finalists and Winner, Ollie
CrewLab created an app that makes it fun and addicting to be an athlete while enabling wholesale, widespread sports data collection. Teams then hire the CrewLAB platform as an assistant coach to automate tedious record keeping and provide unprec edented insight into athlete perfor mance and engagement.
Social Impact Track
A toy doll series that addresses dif
» 2nd Place ($8,000) – Daily Living Daily Living Recovery House will open its doors and increase the availabili ty of affordable and substance-free housing in Massachusetts. We are uniquely focused on equity. As a Black-founded and -led recovery house, our priority is to provide Black people who are reentering citizens and/or are frequently unhoused with an affordable, safe, healthy, and inclu sive environment promoting recovery.
» Audience Choice Award ($500) –Dollars & $ense
» Audience Choice Award ($500) –CrewLab
17 contribute professional explanations, and revolutionize the learning experi ence for students and professionals.
» 1st Place ($18,000) – Ollie
5th Annual Cannabis Competition
18 and cofounder of Atomos Space (pictured above), a 22-employee start-up formed in 2018 that focuses on getting spacecraft where they need to be in space, and Steve Fredette, president and cofounder of Toast, Inc. , a restaurant technology vendor in Boston that provides
This year’s winner was Annaboto (pictured above), a company founded in 2019 by Carl Palme (ENG’04, Questrom’12) that allows users to grow cannabis at home in a compact, hydroponic device.
Sponsored by Denver-based business strategy firm Green Lion Partners, and founded by Jeff Zucker (Questrom’10) and Mike Bologna (Ques trom’10), the Cannabis Competition provides BU students and alumni a chance to win $10,000 in funding to support their cannabis-related startups.
Create. Level Up. Connect. IDEA Conference 2022
19
“Innovation and entrepre neurship can seem like things that other people do. We want to make them accessible to all students.”
Anj Fayemi, CEO of Rivet
Maria Vasco, Founder of Uvida Shop
IGNITE Speakers
Kevin Tang, Co-Founder & CEO of Cleana
IDEA Con strategic director Avital Shira (CFA’20)
na, a BU and MIT startup company manufacturing innovative toilet seats designed to improve sanitation and cleanliness in public restrooms.
The wereworkshopsday’soffered in partnership with the Der by Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts University and the Peter T. Paul Entrepreneurship Center at UNH.
Ameera Hammouda, CEO & Founder of Ameera
Kendra Bostick, CEO & Co-founder of Kikori
“I always thought entrepreneurship was very interesting, but I didn’t think that I had enough knowledge to become an entrepreneur. In this program, I learned more about the working environment in the US, how nonprofits work, and the process to build a venture. Because of this knowledge, I am very interested in becoming an entrepreneur. I am joining the Innovation Pathway program to further develop my venture. I think I’ve found my passion and I real ly hope to launch my program in the future to make an impact in our community ” Xiaoya (Teresa) Wei, Enlight Participant
» Hewitt Pathfinder Start-up Internship Fund
This year’s participating organizations were the Lead ership Brainery, which addresses inequitable access to master’s and doctoral degrees and workforce leader ship opportunities for underrepresented talent, and the YMCA of Greater Boston.
Enlight Program participants and staff
» Enlight Social Entrepreneurship Summer Internship
Innovation skills and the entrepreneurial mindset are most effectively built when students can apply the conceptu al lessons they learn in the classroom to the real world.
20 assignments, coachings, and workshops at the BUild Lab, and gained practical professional experience through a 30-hour/week internship placement.
Support for Internship Opportunities
The positions available this year included a marketing internship with Boundless Robotics, an artificial intelli gence and robotics company that’s creating a new catego ry of cannabis home-grow systems, and a marketing and social media internship at AdaViv, in innovative agricul ture technology company specializing in greenhouse and indoor farming.
The Enlight Social Entrepreneurship Summer Internship program allows current BU students interested in social entrepreneurship to get paid a $5,500 stipend while working at an otherwise unpaid internship within a Boston nonprofit or social venture for 8 weeks. The 7 selected participants learned the process of ide ating and developing a social venture through weekly
That’s why we are proud to offer two internship programs that allow select students to get paid for what would oth erwise be an unpaid internship.
The Hewitt Pathfinder Start-up Internship Fund makes it possible for current BU undergraduate students to accept unpaid internships at start-ups and growing companies through an $8,000 stipend. The internship opportuntities must be full-time (40 hours per week) and last between 8–12 weeks.
Intern Track participants
21 staff
tracks. In the intern ship track, students worked with a local startup where they experienced invaluable hands-on learning. In the researchers track, students worked on their startup plans that were already underway before coming to
In June of 2022, 38 students from the Norwegian School of Entrepreneur ship and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology crossed the Atlantic to study entrepreneurship and innovation here in Boston. Host ed by Innovate@BU for the first time in its 22-year history, the 10-week pro gram is run areTheStoller.memberaffiliateMashitertiveInterimInnovate@BU’sbyExecuDirectorIanandbyfacultyGregstudentsononeof2
Norway Entrepreneurship Summer ProgramtheU.S.
They learned about the U.S. market, talked to potential custom ers, and staked out the competition. When they weren’t working or in the classroom, students soaked up American culture and explored New England through sailing 0n the Cape, attending Red Sox games at Fenway, and by learning a sur prising amount of line HermannofresearchencehisReflectingdancing.onexperiwiththetracktheprogram,Peter
Schips (pictured bottom right) said, “The reason why I enjoyed this program so much is that you guys told me exactly how I can be myself and still succeeed with my venture. Thank you for that.”
Presented by UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, the Venture Capital Investment Competition is the world’s largest venture capital competition with over 120 univer sity and graduate school teams competing from around the globe. VCIC is the only place where students get to be VCs for the day and startups get an accelerator for the fundraising process, and is a unique opportunity for Ques trom undergraduate and graduate student to truly learn about venture capital investment strategies and practice through a full academic year, experiential program. In recent years, the team from BU’s Questrom School of Business under program director Greg Stoller has placed as high as 3rd place globally, beating out multiple regional rounds of competition. Teams are coached by Innovate@ BU affiliated faculty member Greg Stoller, executive direc tor Ian Mashiter, and Questrom faculty members.
» Catalyst Program
» Venture Capital Investment Competition
Greg Stoller, BU’s VCIC Program Director & Inno vate@BU affiliate faculty member (below)
22
Affiliated Faculty Highlights
“Over nearly a decade, many of our teams have regularly won their regional VCIC competitions in addition to placing in the top 3 in the Global Finals. Also important, a number of our students have parlayed their experiences into successful careers in venture capital, private equity, strategy consulting, and entrepreneurship.”
Catalyst is a joint Office of Technology Transfer (OTD) & Innovate@BU program designed to assist BU Principal Investigators in exploring the market viability of their ideas and to ultimately commercialize technologies developed within BU, and is sponsored by Innovate@BU’s Director of Faculty Entrepreneurship Rana Gupta . The program walks MBA and PhD students through the rigorous process of early-stage commercialization where in PIs find problems experienced by actual potential cus tomers for which their active tech research can be applied. In the past year, a team applied the customer discovery process to Dr. Michael Albro’s research on a light-based probe that can assist medical professionals in determin ing composition of cells (malignant or normal) and deteri oration of cartilage. In addition to exploring needs of can cer specialists and orthopedists, they discovered that this technology could potentially apply to solar panel manu facturers who use perovskite and are searching for ways to test its stability–a potentially huge market to explore.
“As the inaugural Innovator-in-Residence, I’m extremely proud of what we were able to accomplish by introducing BU’s diverse community of innovators to Boston’s dynamic leaders and entrepreneurs of color across various industries. I’m very excited for another year to build upon what we’ve started!”
» Mentorship Network
» Office Hours
Students are still learning how to build their ideas, teams, and support sys tems. That’s why it’s crucial to con nect students to mentors, allowing them to build relationships, develop their own networks, gain important feedback, and be better prepared for the world beyond Boston University. With over 300 outside experts willing to give their time as coaches, judges, and more, Innovate@BU has been able to broaden its reach across the Northeast’s innovation community and provide students with unrivaled access to individuals who are invest
» Innovator-in-Residence Program
Launched in 2021, the Innovator-in-Residence program gives students access to influential and skilled individuals with whom they otherwise might never inter act. Students have an opportunity to see firsthand how changemakers operate and learn about different ways to measure—and strive for—success. Innovators-in-Residence host monthly open office hours for any member of the BU community, and are available to work with other groups on campus. Our inaugural Innovator in Residence was Jonathan L. Allen, J.D., M.T.S first-generation college student and a recipient of a JD from Boston University School of Law, Jonathan is a champion for equity and recognized as a social engineer and advocate. He is Co-founder and Director of Development for The Leadership Brainery, a Bos ton-based nonprofit fostering equity by providing college-enrolled diverse young leaders, who are working for the greater good, with opportunities to advance their education, build inclusive net works, and gain access to impactful and high-wage careers.
Expert Mentorship
ed in their success.
Weekly office hours complement the robust programming at the BUild Lab IDG Capital Student Innovation Center by providing students with a chance to have a one-on-one expe rience with a wide range of experts, including BUild Lab staff. Nearly 30 experts hosted office hours virtually and in-person to discuss a huge range of topics.
Jonathan Allen
23
