Blackstone LaunchPad Road Trip
I attended the Blackstone LaunchPad Road Trip, where students, faculty, and alumni had the opportunity to go to various startups around the Philadelphia area! Stops included:
- Amalgam Coffee and Coffeehouse
- We ate breakfast and had a question and answer session with the founder, a Temple Fox Alumni
- Keystone Minigolf
- We toured the facility and had a question and answer session about co-founding a business
- NextFab Studios
- We toured the studio, which offers classes and helps incubate start-up ideas. We saw prototyping demos using digital innovations with woodworking, metalworking, and 3D printing.
- Independence Live Health Care Innovation Studio
- We listened to a presentation on the design process by a Temple Professor of SGM 3580 and participated in a design thinking exercise
- WeWork, Philadelphia
- We toured the shared workspace facilities and had a question and answer session with a WeWork employee
The road trip gave me insight into local business owners with experience in the start-up life and entrepreneurship! We learned about local innovation and co-working experiences at an enterprise business level. I gain exposure to a network of established start-up ventures in the area, Temple Alumni who are now successful entrepreneurs, and connected with Temple students from various majors interested in startups. I was able to relate my knowledge from basic business classes, such as inventory management and accounting, to the first two ventures. I also saw how my more advanced coursework in MIS could be applied to help start-up ventures digitally innovate and market their ideas to fruition!