Industrial and interaction design majors Alec Gillinder ’20 and Quinn King ’20 of the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ School of Design have been named Rubin Family Innovation Mentors for the 2019-20 academic year.
Todd Rubin ’04 (School of Architecture), minister of evolution and president of The Republic of Tea, established a grant through the Rubin Family Foundation for the 2019-2020 academic year for five Rubin Family Innovation Mentors at Blackstone LaunchPad powered by Techstars at Syracuse University Libraries (LaunchPad). The grant will fund part-time employment of current Syracuse University students who are successful LaunchPad entrepreneurs to support student startup efforts.
“The Republic of Tea’s Charter states: ‘As an organization and as individuals, we must continually learn, grow and innovate in order to progress, succeed and accomplish our goals.’ We are excited as a family to support not only Syracuse University, but these inspiring students. These talented leaders will learn the critical life-skills while being a part of the University’s ecosystem by giving back to their peers through entrepreneurial mentorship. I am proud that this continuous shared learning will help each student be successful in achieving their dreams and goals,” says Rubin.
The mentors will provide multi-disciplinary skill sets to help student startups develop business model roadmaps and connect student innovators to the university’s robust network of entrepreneurial resources. Developing a peer learning community will greatly expand the LaunchPad’s capacity to serve even more students.
“As part of Syracuse University, the LaunchPad provides students with experiential learning opportunities. Each of these Innovation Mentors have successfully brought a concept to commercialization and have experience competing and winning University-wide, state and/or national competitions. LaunchPad students will greatly benefit from learning the ropes from a peer entrepreneur with similar recent experiences,” says David Seaman, dean of libraries, University Librarian, and interim dean of School of Information Studies.