Public and private schools in the state will share a common goal when Providence College hosts Startup Weekend this month to give students from six colleges and universities the chance to work together on creating commercial and social enterprises in Rhode Island.
Students from Providence College, Brown University, Bryant University, Johnson & Wales University, Rhode Island School of Design and the University of Rhode Island will gather on the PC campus the weekend of Oct. 21-23 to brainstorm and generate ideas that could lead to tomorrow’s blockbuster business phenomenon.
Matthew Eriksen, chairman of the management department at the PC School of Business, said the impetus for the weekend comes from a group of professors and other interested parties who meet informally from time to time at the Rhode Island Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Davol Square in Providence.
“We are trying to generate excitement about creating enterprises in Rhode Island,” Eriksen told Providence Business News, “and we’re trying to get cross-collaboration of students in Rhode Island through entrepreneurship.” The intention is, he said, to hold the event annually and rotate it from school to school.
Bryant University held the first startup weekend in the spring, organized by M. Cary Collins, associate professor and trustee professor of entrepreneurship in the school’s Department of Finance. It was an event that Eriksen noted was put together quickly but was still successful with 18 teams of students from the six colleges taking part.
“The key is being able to blend those students from across the campuses,” Collins said. “I had no idea when I did this if the students could interact. But my fears were completely unjustified and it worked wonderfully. The students don’t come in wearing their university jerseys. They are there because they want to be part of a team and offer their ideas.”
Two of the spring’s 18 teams are still together, Collins said, working on plans to establish enterprises that, in one case, would create stackable lunch units to better transport food and, in the other, would produce GPS systems for college campuses.
Such startup weekends, Collins said, can be of special value to “those independent souls who someday may create their own teams and run their own businesses.”
The setup is similar to, but not as sophisticated as, the system that Betaspring uses to field candidates for its startup-accelerator program, Eriksen said. That comes as no surprise since one of the key organizers of the Startup Weekend is Allan Tear, founder and managing partner of Betaspring, a Providence-based enterprise specializing in helping new design and technology businesses get off the ground.
Others involved in organizing the event include Brendan McNally, director of RI-CIE, and Andy Cutler, head of Cutler & Company, a Providence-based communications firm that specializes in innovative businesses and programs. Eriksen noted that the most promising ideas coming out of Startup Weekend could well end up moving up to Betaspring for more consideration.
Each college or university taking part has been asked to donate $1,000 each to cover expenses for the weekend, Eriksen said, and students will be charged a “minimal fee.” Collins, meanwhile, is in the process of contacting at least two more colleges to see if they want to become involved in future Startup Weekends, a move that would increase participation from six to eight schools.
Mentors and speakers will be part of the weekend. Speakers will include: Ted McNamara, 1986 PC graduate and chief financial officer of Rue La La, an invitation-only online boutique shopping service; and Eric Anderson, a 2008 MBA graduate from Bryant who is a three-time PBN 40 Under Forty recipient and whose company, EnviroClean, was a 2010 PBN Business Excellence Award winner.
This is the first time that PC, a private, liberal arts, Catholic college, has hosted Startup Weekend, but the college’s School of Business will probably become a more visible player in the state’s ongoing push to encourage innovative businesses, Eriksen said. •
