This summer, the Dingman Center will be conducting interviews with the fifteen student startups who are participating in our Terp Startup summer accelerator at the College Park WeWork. Participating student entrepreneurs received a stipend up to $5,000 that would enable them to work exclusively on their startups over eight weeks in the summer.

The DMV Come Up

Founder & CEO: Sadia Alao ’20, Marketing & Theater Double Major

DC: Tell us about your startup. What problem are you solving and for whom?

Alao: The DMV Come Up is a nonprofit, college-age run, DMV-based creative multimedia production collective for people of color that produces imaginative and original content. Young minority creatives are currently inaccurately and stereotypically represented in the media industry from the angry black woman, the welfare queen to the latino high school dropout and impoverished Native American. I also know firsthand that many of us in the DMV don’t have the resources, network, or support system to nurture our creative talents. We’re aiming to empower young underrepresented creatives in the multimedia industry to create the content they want to see in the world and understand that it does not have to be done alone. 

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This summer, the Dingman Center will be conducting interviews with the fifteen student startups who are participating in our Terp Startup summer accelerator at the College Park WeWork. Participating student entrepreneurs received a stipend up to $5,000 that would enable them to work exclusively on their startups over eight weeks in the summer.

BraceLint

Founder & CEO: Daniel Raithel ’20, Economics major

Preorder a BraceLint here!

DC: Tell us about your startup. What problem are you solving and for whom?

Raithel: My startup, BraceLint, is a consumer convenience product based around the simple idea of a lint roller. During the year there are many occasions where we have to look or dress our best and present ourselves with confidence. whether it be an interview, meeting, or a date, feeling good about your appearance is one of the best ways to get over these sometimes-uncomfortable hurdles. After leaving the house you can fix your hair or makeup, but your clothes are kind of stuck the way they are. Lint rollers are bulky, often covered in hair, and are not designed to be brought out of the house. This is where the BraceLint comes in! BraceLint is an easy single-use version of a lint roller that fits flat into your pocket or bag until being propped open and used in “emergency” pet hair/lint situations. To understand how it works, think of a paper bracelet that fits over your wrist and slides the same way a lint roller would. After you’re done you can discard it, using the same or even less of the paper you would with a lint roller (after taking off the notoriously gross first sheet of a lint roller). This a product meant for the prepared fully unprepared like me who refuses not to pet animals or avoid situations just because they are forced to dress up!

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This summer, the Dingman Center will be conducting interviews with the fifteen student startups who are participating in our Terp Startup summer accelerator at the College Park WeWork. Participating student entrepreneurs received a stipend up to $5,000 that would enable them to work exclusively on their startups over eight weeks in the summer.

Huizhen Li,  Mario Martinez, William Sherman, Hang Yang, Wei Zhang

Pendulum Analytics, Inc.

Founder & CEO: William Sherman, MBA ’19, MBA & Master of Finance

Summer Associate and Corporate Development: Mario Martinez ’19, MBA & Master of Finance

Summer Associate and Corporate Development: Wei Zhang, Post Doc, Animal Science, & UMD Tech Transfer SME

Summer Associate, Product Development, and Data Science: Huizhen Li ’19, Master of Finance 

Summer Associate, Product Development, and Data Science: Hang Yang ’20, Master of Quantitative Finance

DC: Tell us about your startup. What problem are you solving and for whom?

Sherman: While we are a technology and analytics company, the aim of Pendulum Analytics is to help maintain a healthy global financial sector by strengthening the overall core business posture of individual financial service firms. We believe the benefits of a healthy financial sector will permeate through to other key stakeholders of the global economy. Stakeholders, such as individuals like you and I. 

As the opportunities within the financial services domain are so vast, you may ask, what is our starting point? Mitigating the risk of transaction failures across the world. Members of our team have been subjected to the fire storm that comes with a high dollar transaction failures. The immediate and downstream impacts can be detrimental to a financial institution in a number of ways. 

We endeavor to build our firm while using our strengths in technology and analytics. In addition to our strengths, we want to leverage some of the cutting edge innovations that are being created here at the University of Maryland. Mainly in effort to build and integrate a risk management center of excellence for each of our member banks. 

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This summer, the Dingman Center will be conducting interviews with the fifteen student startups who are participating in our Terp Startup summer accelerator at the College Park WeWork. Participating student entrepreneurs received a stipend up to $5,000 that would enable them to work exclusively on their startups over eight weeks in the summer.

OpenPoll

Founder and CEO: Zachary Wynegar ’20, Computer Science Major

DC: Tell us about your startup. What problem are you solving and for whom?

Wynegar: Most Americans can relate to answering fewer, if any, unknown phone calls due to the large amount of spam. However, this hasn’t always been the case. The American public opinion research and political polling industries have become reliant on telephone calls to gauge public opinion, and due to Americans refusing to answer the phone to unknown numbers, these industries are suffering from lesser accuracy and skyrocketing costs. OpenPoll relieves this pain point by allowing these organizations to gather accurate public opinion data from the public using digital means including social media, text messaging, and email. We are specifically operating in the niche political polling industry which has specialized needs currently unfulfilled in the market.

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This summer, the Dingman Center will be conducting interviews with the fifteen student startups who are participating in our Terp Startup summer accelerator at the College Park WeWork. Participating student entrepreneurs received a stipend up to $5,000 that would enable them to work exclusively on their startups over eight weeks in the summer.

Kirsten Newman and Steven Jettoo

NuroSTREAM

Co-Founder and CEO/President: Steven D. Jettoo ’20, Computer Science major with a Data Science Focus
Co-Founder and COO/CMO: Kirsten “Sage” Newman ’15, Physics major, Math minor

DC: Tell us about your startup. What problem are you solving and for whom?

Jettoo & Newman: NuroSTREAM is an education tech company that aims to enhance high school and college students’ learning curve by streamlining educational content, easing access to efficient learning tools, and captivating minds. Issues in the education system such as limited one-on-one interaction, impersonal material, and lack of perspective cause students to fall behind. We address these issues by using brain-targeted techniques and innovative learning models.

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