Some Blackstone LaunchPad Founders Circle members visit Brevitē HQ in Brooklyn this week, staying connected as SU alumni and peer mentors
While SU alum Josh Aviv was pitching for a million dollars this week on the stage of the sold-out 3,000 seat Shea’s Buffalo Theater, he had a SU alum fan club watching around the country and the world. Blackstone LaunchPad alumni were watching as a group after visiting the new Brevitē HQ in Brooklyn, with Dylan Kim who is launching his new backpack line — another venture started at SU. LaunchPad alumni were also cheering on from Techstars Atlanta, and from as far away as startups from California, to the Netherlands and Nepal — and of course, Syracuse. The evening was not just a celebration of Spark Charge’s victory, but the power of building a creative, collaborative innovation community.
Within seconds of Josh’s win, his peers were celebrating with him, with congratulatory messages coming in from SU alumni startups around the country. Among the first, were his fellow NYS Business Plan Competition winners, AJ Damiano, founder of PowerSpike, Jack Phillips, founder of Madog IIID fabrication, and the Thrive Team, based in Rochester, New Jersey and Nepal. And celebrating together were Kate Beckman, founder of FreshU, Julia Haber, founder of WAYV, Quentin Rosso, founder of Radar Set, and Giorgio Parlato and Thuy Bich Nguyen, co-founders of Miraku.
LaunchPad alumni not only built a connected community while on campus. They continued it well after graduation, and into their professional lives. They continue to peer-mentor each other, and have all reached back to peer-mentor current SU student innovators.
That makes us especially proud. Read more about Blackstone LaunchPad alumni, and where they are now, in an upcoming special “Orange Central” edition of Startup Thinking.
Read more about the Founders Circle, chaired by Quentin Rosso ’18, here, and read more about the founders here: https://launchpad.syr.edu/founders/
https://launchpad.syr.edu/founders/