At The coIN Loft, we worked with the University of Delaware to develop USEED. It's essentially a white label KickStarter for University alumni engagement. The project went live in October and raised several thousand dollars by Dec. 31st.
We also work with 8-10 interns throughout the year. Students are required to cross training with all of the companies in the space, as well as worked on ventures of their own. Steve and I are regular judges of the business plan competitions, and guest speak in many of the entrepreneurship and marketing classes. Right now we're working through a program for student entrepreneurs to "accelerate" at coIN once they graduate. The goal isn't to help them quickly grow a business, but anchor their ambition to a problem worth solving. It's usually not the first idea they come up with, so they need space and time to try a few things out. We believe a Coworking community is the best place to do that. I'd like to pitch an idea to you all - I've used the coworking visa a bunch of times. I can't tell you how valuable its been. Many of our members have used it too. However, as a startup focused space, we often travel to get plugged in to other startup scenes. It would be great to 1) know who the other startup focused spaces are, and 2) create a coworking catalyst program that helps startups from other spaces more easily connect to the resources that city has to offer. We invited an education startup to Delaware in November because they were having trouble gaining traction in Chicago. They worked at coIN for a week. We introduced them to the secretary of education and two school superintendents - as a result they are now beta-testing in two of our largest school districts. They'll most likely have somewhere near 4,000 users by the end of the year. Once their beta period is over they'll move back to Chicago, and everyone will be happy. We'd like to see Coworking spaces work like this. Thoughts? On Jan 13, 4:51 pm, Alex Hillman <dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com> wrote: > Awesome stuff so far - thanks everybody. > > Part of what I'm trying to get a read on is how dependent the relationship > is on the university itself, and for what parts of the arrangements? > > -Alex > > /ah > indyhall.org > coworking in philadelphia > > On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 4:46 PM, Derek Neighbors <de...@gangplankhq.com>wrote: > > > > > > > > > Alex, > > > We have strong relationships with the local university. We regularly have > > student interns work for Gangplank or companies in Gangplank. > > Additionally, we have helped them facilitate a number of capstone projects > > in architecture, business and social entrepreneurship. We have done some > > pop up space events and are scheduling a wide variety of programming around > > startups. We are looking to open a Gangplank adjacent to one of the > > university campuses in the next year that will have a very strong > > partnership with the university on a number of levels. We have also > > partnered with both University and Community Colleges for grants. > > > -- > > Derek Neighbors > > Gangplank > > > On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 2:20 PM, Alex Hillman < > > dangerouslyawes...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> I know of more than a handful of coworking spaces that have developed > >> partnerships with local universities. Have any worked directly with the > >> student population? Success/failure stories to share? > > >> -Alex > > >> /ah > >> indyhall.org > >> coworking in philadelphia > > >> -- > >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > >> "Coworking" group. > >> To post to this group, send email to coworking@googlegroups.com. > >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > >> coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > >> For more options, visit this group at > >>http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en. > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "Coworking" group. > > To post to this group, send email to coworking@googlegroups.com. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to coworking@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to coworking+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en.
