Revisited: Harvard Start-Up Career Fair
Over the river and through the woods, you won’t find Grandma. Instead, you’ll hit the doors of the Harvard Innovation Lab, a $20 million project designed to “foster entrepreneurship in the Harvard and Boston community,” according to The Harvard Crimson. In line with its mission, the Lab recently played host to the Harvard Start-Up Fair organized by OCS. Over 80 unique organizations set up shop to welcome students across the University seeking exciting opportunities in technology and entrepreneurship.
To categorize the Fair participants uniformly under these two broad ideas, however, doesn’t do justice to the breadth of disciplines and industries represented in the collective. Indeed, students of all backgrounds – program developers and non-developers alike – could find work applicable to their studies and interests. For example, the tech start-up Breadcrumb intersects with the restaurant industry at the “point of sale,” namely, the point at which customers make purchases. Looking at the old model of business, the company decided they could do it better. Employees went on to design a program for iOS that enables subscribers to more efficiently and smartly track trends and make good decisions.
Those students with scientific inclinations could find several homes. NeuroScouting is combining technology and neuroscience to measure the performance of professional sports teams and individual athletes. They seek both developers and “sell-side” agents to aid their growing business. BioRaft is a web-based application used by universities and pharmaceutical companies across the country to help track safety hazards and thereby minimize lab risks. The start-up seeks both interns and full-time employers to help develop their web application. VoltDB is a MA-based start-up building a NewSQL database as a platform for clinical trials. The growing company seeks developer interns to help build the database that will increase efficiency, transparency, and safety.
Other start-ups engaged with the academic and business communities. Hadapt and Incentive Targeting both make use of “click-stream analysis” to supply retailers with better information about the habits of their customers and the practices that serve them. Pubget simplifies the search for scientific scholarship with a search engine that sorts through results according to where an article is found and whether or not the user can access it. Rock the Post pitches itself both as a “Craigslist for business people” and a better version of Kickstarter by not charging users to look for both money and services (time, skills, etc.) to aid a business venture.
Of course, these start-ups represent only a small fraction of the experiences and opportunities available to interested Harvard students. (The full list of organizations, along with other relevant information, can be found HERE.) Even if you missed the Fair, don’t hesitate to reach out to organizations that interest you! Judging by my pleasant and fun experience browsing the field, I’d say they’re happy to chat.
—Nicandro Iannacci, ’13
For more Start-Up Fair coverage, read Nicandro’s pre-fair blog entry.
