Category Archives: Senior Send-Off

May 19 2020
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Senior Send-Off, student entrepreneur, Terp Startup

Senior Send-Off: Nadia Edet of BlessedBraids

In our Senior Send-Off series, the Dingman Center celebrates the student founders who are part of the graduating class of spring 2020. We are so pleased to have had the chance to get to know each of these talented entrepreneurs through our programs. 

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Nadia Edet – BlessedBraids

Nadia Edet ’20, a Maryland Smith International Business major, is the founder of BlessedBraids, a hair braiding business she has been operating full steam for four years. Last summer, she was accepted into our Terp Startup summer accelerator and achieved her goal of opening her first braiding shop. We look forward to staying connected with Nadia to hear how BlessedBraids continues to grow.

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May 19 2020
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Senior Send-Off, student entrepreneur, Terp Startup

Senior Send-Off: Jonathan Schneider, COO of ENLY

In our Senior Send-Off series, the Dingman Center celebrates the student founders who are part of the graduating class of spring 2020. We are so pleased to have had the chance to get to know each of these talented entrepreneurs through our programs. 

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Jonathan Schneider – ENLY

Jonathan (Jonny) Schneider ’20, a senior finance and information systems double major, first connected with the Dingman Center as the chief operations officer of ENLY, a fashion tech app to allow fashion customers to try on and buy designer clothing in a virtual marketplace. ENLY’s founder and CEO, finance major Tom Savransky ’20, participated in the 2019 Terp Startup Accelerator, and later graduated to our pilot of the Terp Startup Fellows program, which provides additional seed funding up to $20K and co-working space for Terp Startup alumni who have demonstrated a strong commitment to their venture. Tom moved in and brought Jonny with him, where they proceeded to work on ENLY for 10 hours each week at the Dingman Center. Through Terp Startup Fellows they were able to attend strategic fashion shows and forge connections with retailers and investors to help refine their business model. They also completed development of their app and redesigned their website. It has been a pleasure for our staff to get to know Jonny during this time, and we look forward to staying connected with him and ENLY after graduation.

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May 12 2020
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Ladies First, Senior Send-Off, student entrepreneur

Senior Send-Off: Ladies First Founders

In our Senior Send-Off series, the Dingman Center celebrates the student founders who are part of the graduating class of spring 2020. We are so pleased to have had the chance to get to know each of these talented entrepreneurs through our programs. 

Ladies First headshots

From left: Jessica Rosenthal, Monica Pizzo, Hannah Shraim, Lucy Bedewi, Dana Hashem

Ladies First Founders

Lucy Bedewi ’20 (Cohort 3), Marketing major, founder of Wanderlust Wardrobe
Dana Hashem ’20 (Cohort 2), Neuroscience major, founder of Care for a Terp
Monica Pizzo ’20 (Cohort 3), Chinese Language major, founder of LUMXN
Jessica Rosenthal ’20 (Cohort 1), Mechanical engineering major, founder of Good Stuff Good Works
Hannah Shraim ’20 (Cohort 3), Business management major, founder of Libre Looks

Today is the final day of classes for cohort 3 of Ladies First Founders, our course for female and non-binary founders to gain the necessary business skills and soft skills to successfully launch a startup. We sat down with some past and present cohort members who are graduating this spring to touch base on their ventures, their post-graduation plans and learn more about how they grew during and after the course.

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May 08 2020
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Hult@UMD, New Venture Practicum, Senior Send-Off, Terp Startup

Senior Send-Off: Jacques Marais, Founder of Munch

In our Senior Send-Off series, the Dingman Center celebrates the student founders who are part of the graduating class of spring 2020. We are so pleased to have had the chance to get to know each of these talented entrepreneurs through our programs. 

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Jacques Marais – Munch

Jacques Marais ’20 is an architecture major who in his last year at University of Maryland has become increasingly involved with the Dingman Center for his startup, Munch, a company offering a portable grow-it-yourself kit for customers to produce three pounds of microgreens per week in their own kitchens. Jacques pitched Munch during our regional round of The Hult Prize in November, and in the spring joined our New Venture Practicum class. Last week, Jacques went on to win the 2020 AgEnterprise Challenge launched by the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. In partnership with F³Tech accelerator, Munch will gain access to $30,000 in seed funding for commercialization through the competition. To cap off a strong year of entrepreneurship for Jacques, Munch was accepted into our virtual Terp Startup accelerator this summer, which provides a $5,000 stipend, access to workshops and ongoing advising. We hope to see Munch the company grow as prodigiously as its microgreens.

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Apr 28 2020
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Pitch Dingman, Senior Send-Off, social entrepreneurship, Terp Startup

Senior Send-Off: The Synapto Team

In our Senior Send-Off series, the Dingman Center celebrates the student founders who are part of the graduating class of Spring 2020. We are so pleased to have had the chance to get to know each of these talented entrepreneurs through our programs. 

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From left: Chris Look, Anoop Patel, Megha Guggari, David Boegner, Dhruv Patel

SynaptoLogo on white_White BkgrdSynapto

Co-founder & CEO – Dhruv Patel ’20, Bioengineering major
Co-founder & CTO – Christopher Look ’20, Bioengineering major
Lead Systems Engineer – David Boegner ’20, Bioengineering major
Lead Software Engineer – Megha Guggari ’20, Bioengineering major
Lead R&D Engineer – Anoop Patel ’20, Bioengineering major

The Synapto team is made up of five University of Maryland bioengineering majors who are using a portable EEG and machine learning to provide doctors with a more efficient tool to diagnose Alzheimer’s. Having worked on this idea since 2017, the team has achieved many milestones along the way, including a prize from NIH, second place at the 2018 Do Good Challenge, and third place at the 2019 Pitch Dingman Competition Finals. The Dingman Center has had numerous opportunities to watch these founders grow: Chris Look enrolled in our Terp Startup accelerator for a different idea, Senvision, as a freshman; David Boegner and Anoop Patel represented Synapto in the 2018 Terp Startup cohort; and Megha Guggari was part of the first cohort of Ladies First Founders. The Synapto team took home our Rudy Award for Social Entrepreneurs of the Year in 2019, and we are excited to see how these impressive founders continue to shine post-graduation.

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Apr 21 2020
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Fearless Founders, Pitch Dingman, Senior Send-Off, student entrepreneur

Senior Send-Off: Dan Raithel, founder of BraceLint

In our Senior Send-Off series, the Dingman Center celebrates the student founders who are part of the graduating class of spring 2020. We are so pleased to have had the chance to get to know each of these talented entrepreneurs through our programs. 

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BraceLint_Brand-01Daniel Raithel – BraceLint

Dan Raithel ’20, a graduating senior and Economics major, had his first encounter with the Dingman Center at spark: Where Fearless Ideas Start in Fall 2018, but by then he had already been cooking up his idea for BraceLint, a flat and portable alternative to lint rollers. Dan eagerly enrolled in New Venture Practicum in Spring 2019, then was accepted into the Summer 2019 Terp Startup cohort. A veteran of the Marines, Dan proved himself to be a hardworking, focused entrepreneur, and built countless prototypes of his ideal BraceLint before he found one he was happy with. Now as a finalist in Pitch Dingman Competition, he’s ready to show that his hard work has paid off. Root for Dan at virtual Pitch Dingman Competition Finals tomorrow, April 22 from 4-6 p.m. live via Zoom. Don’t miss this last chance to support him!

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Apr 14 2020
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Events, Pitch Dingman, Senior Send-Off, student entrepreneur

Senior Send-Off: The Hydraze Team

In our Senior Send-Off series, the Dingman Center celebrates the student founders who are part of the graduating class of spring 2020. We are so pleased to have had the chance to get to know each of these talented entrepreneurs through our programs. 

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Charles Grody, Tuvia Rappaport and Jack Sturtevant of Hydraze with Public Policy Dean Robert Orr after winning the Hult@UMD Competition

hydraze_high_resHydraze

Founder & CEO – Charles Grody ’20, mechanical engineering major
CTO – Jack Sturtevant ’20, computer engineering major
Lead Engineer – Tuvia Rappaport ’20, aerospace engineering major

The Hydraze team, comprised of three QUEST Honors Program students, has taken University of Maryland by storm with their engineered solution to the “phantom flushes” caused by inefficient automatic flushing toilets. After piloting the Hydraze flushing mechanism in The Clarice, they won the 2019 Do Good Challenge, then Hult@UMD — our local edition of the global Hult Prize social entrepreneurship case competition — and now have made it to the final round of Pitch Dingman Competition. The team will be competing in the virtual Pitch Dingman Competition Finals next week, on April 22 from 4-6 p.m. live via Zoom. Don’t miss this last chance to support them!

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