A program to help undergraduate and graduate students from Babson College launch businesses gives them professional and semi-private workspaces where they can share ideas among themselves as well as with faculty and established entrepreneurs. In return, the student businesses are encouraged to contribute a chunk of their equity position to Babson.
Here’s a quick look at the ventures, of which there is quite the variety:
Graduate Students
· DARTdrones (Abby Speicher M’15) – provides the highest quality training, certification, and continued support for the drone pilots of fire and police stations.
· Date My Wardrobe (Izi Aviyente M’15) – a fashionable marketplace that allows women to rent high-end wardrobe items from other fashionistas in their city.
· GivItForward (Cody Gordh M’14) – allows people to create chains of giving with their friends and family, while giving back to those who are less fortunate.
· SubSea Energy North America (Hans Olson M’14) – develops hydrokinetic technologies that harness power from ocean and river currents on an environmentally responsible basis.
Undergraduate Students
· Instabuy (Christos Katsouris ’14) – an app that allows consumer to make purchases directly at any store by scanning the item’s barcode.
· Social Conch (Ronald Diep ’14) – provides nonprofits with an efficient human resources management system and their volunteers and donors with greater clarity, choice, and certification of deeds achieved.
· ThinkBoard (Hanson Grant ’16) – a clear adhesive that turns any wall, desk, door or other smooth surface into a dry-erase whiteboard. ThinkBoard is raising funds on KickStarter.