#UnConCollege

Posted by paulhlatky on October 28, 2011 · 7 Comments 

I’m a Senior at BU interested in jumping into the Boston start up scene along with hundreds of other students in this city. This panel  at the Mass TLC Unconference comprised of people looking to increase that number to thousands as soon as possible.

Karl Buttner of Mass Challenge began the conversation asking everyone to introduce themselves and talk to the students in the room. What are the problems students face breaking into the scene and most importantly what can we do to fix it?

We determined the problem to be that students don’t understand the value of a start up life. Then even if they do they have no clue how to get involved. Even if they find great sources like Start Up Digest and Greenhorn Connect students need the validation from their peers and professors to seek out this culture. Our solution is to find local locations where people can create a buzz that even Silicon Valley can hear i.e. Venture Cafe. Then they should find the students on campus to be evangelists and promote entrepreneurship.

Peter Reinhardt of Segment io recommends the book Nudge. “If the default setting of the conference lunch is  meat sandwich people are going to eat the meat sandwich. If the default setting of the conference lunch was vegan- they would eat vegan.” We agreed that what we need to do is change that default setting from working at Google to working at a Google Venture backed company.

Interested in learning more? Connect with these people looking to make a difference today:

Mark Kasdorf, CEO of Intrepid Labs, is a recent graduate that is fresh out of the MassChallenge Accelerator program looking to do something very similar. His start up is a community working space near Kendall Square focused on companies with 5+ employees to work effectively without the price tag.

Chuck Pickelhaupt of Fidelity investments just wants to learn how he can help. He can help with funding, space, conversation- anything eager young people are in need of to connect in the space. Interested? chuck.pickelhaupt@fmr.com

Zach Tribbett and Paulina Mustafa of Start Labs are students from MIT cofounding a non profit focused on encouraging students around the country to get involved with start ups. They have two main goals: 1. Get students involved in start ups to learn the culture and engage in the community 2. Get those students to create their own companies and pay it forward providing  jobs to other students. They are hosting many events over the next few months they suggested students to attend.

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Filed under Conference Notes · Tagged with 2011, mass tlc, unconference