Fostering Student Entrepreneurship and AI Innovation
interviewed members of the College of Engineering and Computing Sciences on the growing number of young entrepreneurs launching AI-based startups. In addition to highlighting the new AI minor, the article features insight from Dean , and undergraduate computer science major Jaan Malik. As also recently featured in , Malik is the founder of Kreativio, an AI-driven app allowing users to easily design and ship 3-D prints directly to the consumer. In addition, he was among the first students to participate in NESTS, a new experiential learning course helping student entrepreneurs launch startups.
Beheshti attributes the growing interest in entrepreneurship to several factors, including more stories about successful startups circulating on social media, a 鈥渟trong appeal in the idea of building something from the ground up,鈥� the creativity and flexibility that comes with owning a company, and a lower barrier to entry. Regarding this last factor, he notes, 鈥淲ith very little initial investment, young people can now come up with a product鈥攚hether it is purely software, or software and hardware鈥攁nd deploy it.鈥�