Update 6/15/20:Brilliant Biome and Ethos Mask both received funding!
Brilliant Biome finished second out of all 30 teams and was awarded a total of $10,500 in funding, including $3,000 as the winner of the Qualcomm Wireless Impact Reach Award.
Ethos Mask was awarded $1,000 as the COVID-19 Innovation Award winner.
Throughout the past academic year, student teams from diverse academic disciplines put forth their ideas for sustainable social innovation and participated in the Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge. This challenge promotes hands-on experience and provides student entrepreneurs the opportunity to develop an idea that aligns with the mission of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
As part of UC San Diego’s commitment as a Changemaker Campus, Rady’s Center for Social Innovation and Impact (CSII) facilitated a virtual information session for interested students throughout the university, and hosted an art of the pitch workshop by StartR accelerators co-director Kim Davis King. The CSII then selected a group of social impact experts to judge the pitch competition of five UC San Diego finalists.
Now, two teams with Rady students will represent UC San Diego in the virtual global finals on June 13, 2020. Finalists from seventeen countries representing thirty universities will pitch for up to $50,000 in seed funding.
Ethos Mask created a supply chain to manufacture 3D printed facemasks and distribute them to local healthcare facilities in need. Two full-time MBA 2021 students, (left to right) Amir Hassan and Nick DiGirolamo, and FlexWeekend MBA 2021 student, orthopedic surgeon Mark Schultzel, M.D., came together shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic struck the U.S. to quickly produce and supply these reusable masks.
Brilliant Biome offers a personalized microbiome approach to drug addiction and recovery. This team participated in the Spring 2020 cohort of StartR, and is comprised of scientists (from left to right) Sierra Simpson, Ph.D.; Gregory Peters, M.S., Ph.D.; and clinical project manager and FlexEvening MBA 2021 student Carrie Herbert.
RSVP here to attend the virtual Global Finals on Saturday, June 13 at 5 p.m.!
Rady Students Among Finalists in Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge was last modified: June 15th, 2020 by Rady School
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! As the holidays approach, however, you may find yourself with a to-do list longer than Santa’s Nice List—and that’s why we’re here to help! Below you’ll find innovative gifts for your loved ones, all of which were created by companies founded by Rady alumni. We hope this guide helps make your holiday season bright, and we wish you all the best in the New Year!
Last Christmas, you gave kids new clothes and the very next day … they outgrew them! Skip the store and save by shopping “pre-loved” finds, delivered to your door.
Treat someone you love (or yourself) to some pampering—haircuts, manicures, beard trims and more—at the mobile salon that’s easily accessible to busy professionals.
Take something off your loved one’s to-do list and book an oil change on their behalf! These automotive experts bring their services to office parks and businesses across San Diego for a quick and convenient change during the work day.
For the friend whose New Year’s Resolution is (always) to drink less caffeine, try Cascaraa, an antioxidant rich tea made from coffee fruit that contains about one third the caffeine of your average cup of joe.
No holiday season is complete without snow … shaved snow, that is! Get the family together for a creamy frozen dessert that would satisfy even Santa’s sweet tooth.
Robert Yang MBA ’11
These Companies Founded by Rady Alumni Can Make Your Holiday Shopping Easier was last modified: December 10th, 2019 by Camille Cannon
“As a marine, the reality is, ‘I’m going to war. I’m going to battle. I’m going to defend this country and if I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die. And then you die of a disease that you could do nothing about.”
In 2010, Clay Treska (MBA ’19) was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He had served since 1998 in the U.S. Marine Corps, most of that time spent as a counter intelligence agent. Treska’s propensity to ask questions and seek answers led him to challenge his diagnosis, research his options, and ultimately save his life. His experience surviving the disease—and witnessing it take his father’s life and the life of fellow marines—led him to co-found Family Proud, an app with a mission to connect patients to healthcare resources, and to foster a network of support so that no patient feels like they’re battling illness alone.
“I was able to beat my terminal diagnosis and I wanted to understand why that was. I wanted to be able to share that with other people,” Treska says. The same year he was diagnosed, he graduated from San Diego State University with the intention of becoming a physical therapist. After volunteering and interning with UC San Diego Health, where he helped advise cancer patients and counsel mourning families after loss, he decided that he wanted to pursue a different kind of career in healthcare.
“I saw that the amount of good that you can do from an executive perspective in healthcare is just so far sweeping. It takes one meeting and one decision and you can impact tens of thousands of people and the future of healthcare. I realized that getting an MBA and learning about business was the path that I wanted to take,” he says.
Treska researched graduate business programs across California including those at Stanford, USC, University of San Diego and San Diego State University. “All of the [other] programs that I saw were missing those key components towards helping my own business,” he says. Rady’s emphasis on entrepreneurship and innovation appealed to him. “I made the decision that I need to go to Rady if I want to not only excel in the healthcare environment, but also have the opportunity to start up a company.”
Treska enrolled in Rady’s FlexWeekend MBA program and
continued working full-time in healthcare. He met classmate and Family Proud CEO
and co-founder Jaden Risner, and the two of them developed the business plan
for Family Proud through Rady’s Lab-to-Market course sequence.
“[At
Rady], you’re not just getting education from the class itself and from the
course material, but you’re getting education from your peers. One of the
greatest aspects of the program is how you realize that you can’t
possibly know everything there is to know about business. But that’s not the
point. The point is to understand it enough to be able to have conversations
with people, find those people that are smarter than you in these specific
disciplines and have them help you work on those aspects.”
As a young company with limited resources, only about a third of the Family Proud team are currently full-time employees. The rest are volunteers who give their time because they believe in the product, says Treska. “Everybody on this team, or someone close to them, has dealt with some type of an ailment or a struggle and thought that this is a service that would have helped them,” he says. “We’re all growing through our own challenges.”
Ultimately, Treska says that the goal for Family Proud is to help make high quality healthcare accessible to anyone. “Everybody should receive the highest quality medicine, the highest quality care, regardless of who you are, regardless of what type of insurance you have, what your pedigree is, what your job is, where you came from or who you know. This is our way of being able to make sure that everybody receives the highest quality care, inside and outside of their provider.”
It’s
Treska’s desire to help other patients that motivates him to keep building the
business.
“What more could you possibly ask from a program?” he says. “To take something from it that you can continue to grow and prosper, something other than the degree itself. That’s the most valuable thing that Rady gave me: to take a dream and turn it into a reality.”
Cancer Survivor Clay Treska Co-Founded an App to Help Patients Get the Support They Need was last modified: December 4th, 2019 by Camille Cannon
If you’ve ever seen Shark
Tank, you’ve gotten a glimpse of the nerve, expertise and determination it
takes to pitch to potential investors. You must absolutely know what you’re
doing, where you’re headed and what you can offer.
Through Rady School’s StartR Accelerator, a 100%
philanthropy-supported, six-month program, teams comprised of at least one Rady
or UC San Diego student or alumnus are provided with mentoring, workshops,
co-working space, and connections to funding sources. At the end of the
program, StartR Demo Day is the teams’ Shark
Tank moment.
On October 2nd, six startups from the Fall 2019 StartR cohort: FlexAir, Athlete Initiative, DeepFlow, SurfUp, Project: Pangolin and FreeGen Technologies showcased their companies in five-minute presentations in front of San Diego’s entrepreneurial community, including several successful StartR alums. If you weren’t one of the 160+ attendees at this Demo Day, here’s what you missed:
How Far We’ve Come: StartR accelerator was founded in 2013 by none other than Rady School students, and since then, it’s served a whole lot of them. Dr. Lada Rasochova, executive director of Rady’s California Institute for Innovation and Development (CIID), and Kim Davis King, co-director, shared that 152 startup teams have participated in StartR and raised a remarkable $85.9 million under the guidance of CIID and more than 50 mentors. Not only that, but twelve StartR companies have been accepted into business incubators, five teams went on to found a second startup, two received investment from the Rady Venture Fund and two exited to larger companies.
Accomplished Alums: If those figures weren’t enough to demonstrate StartR’s impact, at Demo Day, we got to hear it first-hand from StartR alumni.
Demo Day emcee Ashley Van Zeeland, Ph.D (Rady MBA ’12, co-founder and former CEO of Cypher Genomics, which she sold to Human Longevity) is now the VP of Product Development Business Operations at Illumina. “I can say with 100% confidence that I would not be where I am today without the support, the backing and the constant encouragement from the Rady School and the StartR program,” she said.
Ana Morena, StartR Inclusion alumna and CEO and founder of Navega Therapeutics, shared that the business has raised nearly $1 million from investors. Martyn Gross (Rady MBA ’15), StartR Rady alum, founder of Clarify Medical and President of Stratify Genomics said, “I can’t express my gratitude enough.” His thanks were echoed by Julio de Unamuno IV, (Rady MBA ’14) StartR Rady alum and CEO of lab software startup LabFellows, which has garnered 2,300 customers, more than $3 million in funding and a recent write-up in Xconomy. “This started here with Rady,” he said. “You guys were here before anyone else was.”
Six Talented Teams:
Former Navy pilot and FlexAir CEO Paul Wynns (Rady MBA ’20) presented “the flight school training tomorrow’s flight leaders.”
Athlete Initiative co-founders Robbie Beyer (Rady MSBA ’20) and Amy Kame pitched their sexual violence prevention program for collegiate athletic departments. “We ask that everyone join us in creating a safer campus community today,” they said.
Takuya Onda and Yusaku Nakamura (both Rady MBA ’20) of Deep Flow offered insight into their cloud-based, large-scale simulation software.
Chris Hissom and Natalie Moazzez (both Rady MBA ’19) shared their “Bird scooter of surfboards,” SurfUp, an automated surf rental station and smartphone app. Unlike Bird scooters, the team said, because SurfUp houses the rental boards at a station, you won’t find them scattered “everywhere.”
Ayush Sapra and Ana Dasgupta presented Project: Pangolin, an initiative to recycle plastic waste in Myanmar to produce an alternative construction material. To demonstrate the material’s strength, Sapra stood on a recycled footstool during the presentation.
Casey Fitzpatrick of FreeGen Technologies told us about the SeaSkimmer, their autonomous, machine marine drone that tracks and collects trash in ports and harbors. In other words, he said, it’s the “Roomba of the ocean.”
And the Awards Go to:
After the company pitches, two StartR teams were recognized with a $250 prize
each. Deep Flow was selected for the Excellence Award by the judges, and SurfUp
was voted Audience Choice. Additionally, Derrick Oien, CEO and founder of
ScoreStream was recognized with the Guru Award for his mentorship, and Karen
Anderson, partner at Cooley LLP was recognized with the Spark Award in
appreciation of her sponsorship.
The next round of StartR began this month, with new teams
under the wings of CIID and community mentors. Be on the lookout for the next
Demo Day in Spring 2020!
Cloud-Based Simulations, a Surfboard Rental Station and More Highlights from Demo Day Fall 2019 was last modified: October 21st, 2019 by Camille Cannon
Career Fair Day – A day full of new opportunities, insightful conversations, and potential job offers on the horizon. Here at the Rady School of Management, there have been dozens of doors open for students at career fairs; from internships, to long-term jobs for the graduate students who have participated in Rady’s career fairs.
Each career fair typically consists of employers from corporate companies that have 250 employees or more. This one, however, consisted of not only large corporate companies but also smaller startups. This was an exciting, unique event for Rady because it is the first career day to ever have startups verses only corporations.
The Rady School of Management not only champions, but raises up entrepreneurs, so having startups present was an encouraging factor for the students who attended the career fair. Some of the startups that came to the career fair included founders from Rady School of Management such as LabFellows.
Some of the startup companies who attended were:
Leadcrunch
– B2B Sales and Marketing
Sendlane
– An intelligence-driven email automation service
LabFellows
– An integrated lab management platform
Offer1
GoSite
– A web platform for businesses
Launch
Factory – A creative co working space
The list of new companies who attended were:
Booz
Allen Hamilton – Strategy, technology, and engineering
AT&T
– Communications, media, entertainment, and technology
Tealium
— A universal data hub
Some of the other companies that were present included, Trust&will, Artevist and Prudential.
Here at Rady, we are happy to host career fairs and have found them to be very successful for students looking for job leads and internships.
Rady’s First Ever StartUp Career Day was last modified: June 10th, 2019 by Rady School
StartR, founded by a group of Rady students in 2013, is a non-profit six-month accelerator program homed on the Rady campus. The program includes a workshop, mentoring, advice and access to other resources for early-stage companies. StartR has been highly successful and currently has one hundred and thirty-seven teams who have gone through the program. Eight of these teams have also been accepted into EvoNexus. There are fifty-five unduplicated companies that are active, and $63.8 million has been raised so far.
Along with the 6-month accelerator program, StartR also
encourages students to partake in the StartR demo day, where entrepreneurs pitch
their business ideas to students,
faculty, investors, and professors. Nine companies chose to participate this
year in the StartR DemoDay. In the past, the only StartR group to partake in
the demo day are Rady MBA students and alumni, but this year was a little
different. This is the first Demo Day event where teams from multiple StartRPrograms were invited, rather
than only MBA students. All of the teams under StartR Accelerator include Rady, Inclusion, Impact, Veteran, and Teen.
This was a monumental step, and highlights Rady’s commitment to champion
and spotlight entrepreneurs of all styles!
At Demo Day, the teams dressed in slacks,
polished shoes, and newly pressed blazers, lined up one by one, while they
anticipated putting their best foot forward in hopes to win a prize, or attract
the attention of a potential investor or partner. As they shared their pitch,
they stood in front of the audience with refined power points, apps, and even a
real, live business prop itself, including a sleeping pod! The audience
listened to each hopeful entrepreneur, all while cheering on their family and
friends.
The StartR programs
spotlighted this year, and the ones highlighted below with their company
pitches, include: StartR Rady, Inclusion,
and Impact.
StartR Rady – The premier StartR accelerator, the Rady track is exclusively
for our MBA students and alums. The
teams who presented are as follows:
AngioX: – AngioX Therapeutics is an early stage biopharmaceutical company that develops novel therapies for patients with rare Cerebral Cavernous Malformations (CCMs).
Freightracker: – This Company is bringing IOT solutions to the transportation industry in order to streamline operations and reduce costs bycreating a device which allows users to track their freight anywhere in the world.
SurfUp – An automated surfboard rental station that is paired with a smartphone application to make the surfboard rental process convenient for beginner surfers and tourists on the beach, in-front of stores, resorts, restaurants, and much more.
bou: Bou is a small device that can save, transfer, and emit
smells instantly in various circumstances to enhance consumers’ daily
experiences in different settings including while watching movies, playing
video games, shopping, online shopping, relaxing, etc.
Virtual Sleep Environment: A virtual sleeping pod which increases human performance, entraining a natural sleep-wake circadian rhythm. This makes it easy to sleep anywhere, at any time!
Visionful: An app that provides fully automated parking guidance and enforcement,
making parking simpler than ever before.V
Inclusion:Open to students
across UC San Diego and designed to highlight diversity, teams must have at least one leader from a
traditionally underrepresented population.
Felicity
CBT – Aims
to better the mental well-being of users by providing cognitive behavioral
therapy at the convenience of a mobile application.
Impact:The StartR Impact accelerator is open to startups and ideas
from across campus aiming to make a societal impact. The teams from Impact, that performed at demo day
included:
Athlete Initiative: A sexual violence prevention program and app for college student-athletes, helping to prevent sexual violence on campuses, where one in five students are currently affected.
Family Proud – Connecting patients and families to the technological resources necessary to effectively maximize their quality of care.
It was a
competitive battle at Demo Day, and each entrepreneur deserved a prize, but,
there are only two awards—a judges choice, and an audience choice.
The team who presented the most polished, well thought out idea according to the judges this year, was Thomas Fontes from Freightracker. Thomas walked up to the stage with excitement, as he won a $1,000 prize towards his business. Thomas is working on creating a custom device with AT&T, in hopes to have a freight tracker on the market by 2020! Rady School is excited to see where Thomas’s business will take him in the future! You can contact Thomas at Thomas.fontes@rady.ucsd.edu.
The team who won the audience choice award was Robert Sweetman with Virtual Sleep Environment. Robert brought a real, live sleeping pod to his presentation that tracked the brain waves of the sleeper, revealing to the sleeper if their brain was active, calm, or busy. This would allow the sleeper to find peace and calmness and fall asleep at any time! Robert is working on getting the sleeping pod in airports, and creating stations for consumers to sleep anywhere, anytime, and especially before or after a long flight! You can contact Robert at Rob@existech.us for questions or thoughts.
Rady School
of Management is proud to house and educate students and alumni, who are
passionate about entrepreneurship. Building on the success of their startups, all of the teams
who presented will be continuing to pursue their business ideas in hopes to
continue to succeed in pioneering a new, innovative way to solve and better our
world!
StartR Demo-Day on a Whole New Level was last modified: April 10th, 2019 by Rady School
Join leaders from prominent technology companies, including
Amazon, Qualcomm and Illumina at the annual RadyX Conference – a conference
completely run by Rady School students.
Now in its fifth year, the RadyX Conference is committed to
bringing innovative and disruptive companies to campus to share the ways they
are shaking up their industries and changing the business landscape.
A keynote address will be delivered by Durga Malladi, Senior Vice
President and General Manager, of 4G/5G at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. His talk
will center on the development and implementation of 5G – the fastest high-data
transfer rate that will enhance broadband services and mobile networks.
In addition to Malladi’s address, speakers will focus on the
development of genomics, the direction of gaming services, self-driving robot
artificial intelligence and more.
RadyX is hosted by the Rady Tech Club. The conference brings
together a diverse community: faculty and students, the business and
engineering campuses, entrepreneurs, investors and corporate professionals. The
theme of the 2019 conference is “Trends in Tech,” which will explore
a number of topics ranging from subtle to prominent trends in technology.
“This event celebrates the
collaborative and innovative nature of the Rady School of Management, as well
as the strong ties we have to the local technology, biotechnology and
innovative businesses here in San Diego,” said Joey Talia, president of the
Rady Tech Club. “We are looking forward to introducing Rady students, the UC
San Diego and greater San Diego community to the exciting innovations happening
right here in our city.”
Event details
The conference is open to the public. Tickets
can be purchased here. The event will run from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on
April 12 at the Rady School of Management.
About Malladi
Durga
Malladi joined Qualcomm in 1998 as a Senior Engineer. Over the past 20 years,
he has worked on 3G and 4G technologies, and was the Project Engineer of 4G
LTE-Advanced in Qualcomm Research from 2008-15, responsible for features such
as mobile broadband, Carrier Aggregation, HetNets, Relays, Dual Connectivity,
Licensed Assisted Access (LAA), Internet of Things (eMTC, NB-IoT) and Cellular
V2X.
As
SVP & GM 4G/5G, he is responsible for cellular modem and location
businesses, baseband and transceiver modem technology roadmap, features,
software products, and infrastructure and operator commercial engagements.
He
is the recipient of Qualcomm’s IP Excellence Award, Qualcomm Distinguished
Contributor Award for Project Leadership and Upendra Patel Achievement Awards
for Outstanding Contributions to HSPA and LTE.
Durga holds a B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and an M.S and Ph.D. from UCLA. His research interests include Signal Processing, Communication Theory and Artificial Intelligence. He is a member of IEEE and holds 420 U.S. patents.
RadyX Conference Brings Top Tech Talent to Campus was last modified: March 13th, 2019 by Hallie Jacobs
University
Avenue serves as an artery for San Diego proper, connecting more than 11 miles
of hyper-local and proud neighborhoods. From the affluent urban district of
Mission Hills to the sleepy family-friendly suburban La Mesa, the neighborhoods
scattered along University Avenue serve a diverse array of San Diego residents.
Smack dab in the middle of the thoroughfare sits City Heights, a longtime haven
for refugees from all across the globe.
The
community of City Heights is as bustling as it is diverse – a large number of
local businesses launched and supported by refugees from Middle Eastern, Northeast
African, Southeast Asian and Latin American origin. The community is proud of
its global roots, celebrating the varying backgrounds and cultures.
The
vitality and pride of the City Heights neighborhood inspired resident and Rady
School of Management graduate David Tran (MBA ’15) to create a hub for the
community to gather, while catering to the local interests and tastes. Along
with his wife Sterling Tran and colleague Lonny Cheuk, City Heights Coffee
House was born – a multi-cultural space for residents to gather over a cup of
coffee or tea sourced from the countries that make up the neighborhood.
City Heights Coffee House
sits right in the center of University Avenue surrounded by local businesses
and nonprofit organizations – from Vietnamese, Somali, and Ethiopian
restaurants to Lao, Mexican, and Ugandan community centers – all
interspersed – and just a stone’s throw away from organizations that assist
refugee resettlement and integration.
The
complex ecosystem comprised of low-income households, challenges with
affordable housing, gentrification, and a diverse population inspired Tran and
his partners to create a social enterprise that focuses on workforce
development. City Heights Coffee House offers jobs to opportunity
youth in San Diego, including refugee and justice-involved youth.
Opportunity youth are classified as youth between ages 16-24 who don’t have a
job and aren’t in school. A crucial element of the Life Development Program is
to provide on-the-job retail training, basic skills such as budgeting and
managing a schedule, conflict-resolution tools, and career development courses
such as resume and job-search prep.
“During
my time at Rady, I took Professor Ayelet Gneezy’s class that focused on social
entrepreneurship,” he said. “This class was pivotal for me because it exposed
me to a different entrepreneurial path – one that isn’t traditional and focused
solely on profit. One specific concept that she was teaching in the class was
around root cause analysis. When we see a problem in any community – globally,
nationally, or locally or regionally, anywhere or in the workplace -you have to
ask yourself, ‘What’s the problem, and what’s causing that problem? And what’s
the problem beneath that problem?’”
Over
41,000 youth in San Diego face barriers to employment opportunities (or lack
thereof) and lack support structures to identify and perform successfully in
education. The mission of City Heights Coffee House isn’t solely to provide a
quality cup of coffee – it extends a hand to the community, offering jobs to
underserved youth. Through job training and providing career and personal
development opportunities, Tran and his team are dedicated to paving the way
for their youth to succeed.
A space to serve
A
longtime resident of City Heights, Tran was inspired to create a space after
noticing a need in the community.
“The
inspiration for City Heights Coffee House came from my experience a few years
ago volunteering for a nonprofit organization called Bridge of Hope here
in City Heights,” he said. “We were delivering clothes, donations, furniture
and food to refugee families and I remember meeting this Afghani family that
had just moved here to San Diego. When I met them, I realized that they were
given all this food, but didn’t even have a fridge or a kitchen table. Moreover,
they didn’t have jobs and were expected to assimilate into American society
with limited help and support.”
With an
idea in place, Tran decided to attend the Rady School to gain the business
acumen to create and launch his dream – a community hub that helped local
refugees and at-risk residents obtain marketable skills and knowledge to
succeed in the workplace and community.
“My
time at Rady was invaluable to the development and execution of the City
Heights Coffee House,” Tran said. “The Lab to Market class in the second year
of my MBA program taught me to take a concept and transform it into an actual
business plan. I conducted market research and it taught me how to think — how
to take a social enterprise concept that was going to solve problems for our
community and transform it into an actual plan that we could work with and had
action steps to it.”
Taking
an idea and transforming it into a functioning business is no easy undertaking,
but with the skills and tools Tran developed during his MBA, he was able to
create a functioning business prototype before crossing the Commencement stage.
“Through
countless hours of brainstorming, primary and secondary research and feedback
from classmates and alumni, City Heights Coffee House was able to incorporate
in April 2015,” he said. “Shortly after in August 2015 with a stroke of divine
favor, we received our 501(c)3 status.”
A growing venture
Since
2015, City Heights Coffee House has continued to grow, moving from a Farmers
Market stand to a small cart behind a thrift store to now a storefront on one
on San Diego’s most popular streets. The new space has been conducive to
providing a hub for the community to gather, hosting mental health discussions,
cultural celebrations, art shows, open mics, and local council meetings.
“It’s
so exciting to see how far we’ve come – our social venture has grown so much
and we’re continuing to grow,” Tran said. “We want to continue to expand so we
can provide more career opportunities for youth who want a hand-up, not a
handout. We’re in the mission of second chances.”
Sitting
in the shop with a cup of coffee (sourced from Ethiopia – a large population of
Ethiopian residents reside in City Heights), the energy is palpable. Local
residents filter in and out throughout our conversation, admiring the local art
on the wall while waiting for coffee prepared by college students who live in
the area. One barista, Betel Mulugheta from Eritrea, is eager to share how City
Heights Coffee House has helped her in her career.
“My
time at City Heights Coffee House has been extremely helpful for my career,”
she said. “I work as a manager and barista, so I have experience with both
making drinks and running operations behind the scenes. It’s given me the
opportunity to learn more about business and I feel confident in my abilities.”
Mulugheta’s
testimony brings a smile to Tran’s face – seeing his team’s goals for the
business and community materialize in real time only reinforces why City
Heights Coffee House was created in the first place.
“I’m so thankful for my
time at Rady, because without Rady this wouldn’t have been possible,” he said.
“I hope other MBA students realize that social ventures and enterprises can be
profitable while changing the world for the better.”
Building Communities through Entrepreneurship was last modified: March 7th, 2019 by Hallie Jacobs
A healthy beverage startup company found at the Rady School of Management placed first in the Ignite UC San Diego startup pitch battle, earning a cash prize of $5,000 and being named best product.
The company, headed by CEO Kabir Gambhir (MBA ’10), produces the drink Cascaraa, made from the sun dried coffee fruit of the same name, which hopes to provide a healthy alternative to naturally caffeinated beverages for younger audiences. Gambhir said he was inspired to create the drink after facing health problems with traditional caffeine, and applied his past experience within the medical field in creating the drink.
“Discovery was a big part of maintaining health and wellness,” Gambhir said. “ It’s something that I’ve really been inspired to share with as many people as possible.”
The restructured Ignite Startup battle format
now features a rap battle as a part of its competition, incentivizing companies
to find a creative alternative in pitching their ideas.
Gambhir, alongside fellow team member Renan Iwayama (MBA ’19) and a few members of the company, did just that, showcasing their rapping skills with their original song, “Drink Cascaraa,” a parody of Snoop Dog’s iconic, “Drop it Like it’s Hot.”
“It was a fun and
amazing way to challenge ourselves in writing the lyrics for the song from a
pitch standpoint,” Iwayama said, “I’d definitely approve of them doing
something like this again next year.”
Gambhir says he plans to
use the prize money in reinforcing the company’s marketing strategies by
partnering with Hello Advisor, a promotions and marketing firm, in order to
continue expanding their product across San Diego, with the eventual goal of
reaching all of California.
“We’re thrilled to be
working with them, and in using their guidance in looking for new strategies
and expand,” Gambhir said.
#RadyMade Startup Wins Pitch Competition was last modified: March 8th, 2019 by Matthew Wu
The adage “Rome wasn’t built in a day” rings true in the
startup ecosystem. Ask any entrepreneur about their journey from idea to
flourishing company, and they’re sure to offer up a list of individuals who
helped them along the way.
The Rady School of Management startup community has been
developing a network of successful entrepreneurs for more than 15 years,
launching more than 180 student and alumni-led companies in its short lifespan.
Although the network has always been happy to help those looking to get their
companies up and running, the School recently created a new mentorship program
designed to connect budding entrepreneurs with seasoned industry experts to
foster creativity and provide the students with a strong support system
throughout the early stages of their startups.
Developing Rady Innovators and Entrepreneurs (DRIvE) is a
donor driven initiative born out of a gift from UC San Diego alumnus Mark
Waxman (B.A. Economics ’70). The program began last year by collecting a community
of both Rady and out-of-network professionals looking to share their skills and
knowledge of various industries. Then, students participating in the StartR Rady
accelerator were hand selected to join the mentorship program. Once the student
participants and mentors were chosen, pairs were formed based on mutual
interests and needs identified by the students.
“The mentors were extremely involved from the very beginning
– they wanted to get as much information they could about the students and
their companies to see how they could help,” said Karen Jensen, Entrepreneur
Advocate at the Rady School. “Their investment in our students has been crucial
to the continued development of several startups launched here at Rady.”
Once the matches are made, mentors and mentees stay in touch
by connecting in person or on the phone to stay involved with the entrepreneurs
throughout their journey. The DRIvE program also hosts quarterly Monday morning
events that facilitate in-person interactions between mentors and mentees
through workshops, pitch presentations and networking.
“We start by working with students to identify their needs
and interests, then we match them with mentors who have experience in those
fields,” Jensen said. “Each student can
have up to three mentors with expertise in fields, such as finance, marketing
and product development so the students have a strong network.”
The benefits of
mentorship
The expectation for the program is for mentors to stay
engaged for at least six months, but several mentor/mentee pairs have continued
to stay involved after the official program is complete.
Mridu Sinha, co-founder of MelioLabs, participated in the
initial cohort of the DRIvE program to take her microbial identification
startup to the next level. MelioLabs created a microbial identification system
that screens for newborns at risk for infection, making it easier to identify
newborns who are at risk of sepsis – a condition that can be fatal for infants.
Sinha connected with June Chocheles, President of the
Chocheles Consulting Group and Athena Foundation Board Member, who helped her
learn the ropes of fundraising, marketing, branding and business scaling.
Due to the value of the program, she remains in contact with
her mentor to this day. She credits the rapid success of her company to her
mentor who has continued to support her throughout the development of her
company.
“June has a lot of experience starting and running
companies, so it has been a wonderful experience working with her,” she said. “
While the StartR Inclusion accelerator – formerly known as mystartupXX
–helped initially launch MelioLabs, the DRIvE mentorship program has helped
sustain and grow the startup.
“If you’re looking to take your company to the next level,
the DRIvE program is a great way to help,” she said. “The mentors are extremely
helpful and supportive and have the tools and experience you may not have yet.
The strong Rady network connects you to a number of professionals who are
willing and excited to help you.”
The next generation
of innovators
The success of DRIvE has created a vast network of
interested mentors eager to share their knowledge and skills with budding Rady
entrepreneurs. The mentor network continues to grow to include more Rady alumni
who know the potential Rady startup leaders have to offer.
“Entrepreneurship and innovation are essential aspects of
the Rady School experience, and we’re doing whatever we can to expose our
students to as many opportunities as possible,” Jensen said. “We’re so thrilled
that students and mentors have been so actively engaged in the first DRIvE
cohort, so we’re excited to continue to grow the program.”
Expert Mentors Guide Rady Students to Entrepreneurial Success was last modified: March 6th, 2019 by Hallie Jacobs
