BY: Chelsea Bassett
It’s no secret that top companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and Google make millions of dollars a year; however, these companies share more than just fat paychecks. Every single one of these companies were started by college students. Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft in 1975 and Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in 1998. It seems that other college students have followed suit by exploring their entrepreneurial side. The following is a list of five companies that were recently founded by college students.
1. Karina Pikhart—Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Class of 2009
Pikhart is the founder of 6 Dot, a braille keyboard and labeling kit. 6 Dot was originally a prototype that Pikhart had created during an engineering course she took at MIT; however, it did not take long for it to turn into a successful business once it was created.
2. Jack McDermott—Tufts University, Class of 2014
A stutterer himself, McDermott wanted to help others that would benefit from speech therapy, so he created Balbus Speech. McDermott is the CEO of a company that creates apps that try to improve speech therapy and make it more accessible for others.
3. Carolyn Yarina—University of Michigan, Class of 2013
Yarina is the CEO and a co-founder of CentriCycle which is a company that created a manually powered and sustainable centrifuge that gives health care workers the ability to prepare bodily fluids for diagnostic tests which makes it possible to run medical tests in third-world countries that are not able to operate an electric centrifuge.
4. Kenny Nguyen—Lousiana State University, Class of 2013
Nguyen founded Big Fish Presentations which is a company that helps companies create better and more interactive presentations. The company will put these presentations together and also lead strategy workshops. Big Fish Presentations has even worked with listed Fortune 500 company, Entergy.
5. Gabrielle Palermo—Arizona State University, Class of 2013
Working alongside her classmates with similar projects, Palermo founded G3Box which is a company that creates cost-effective medical clinics out of recycled shipping containers. These clinics are also made with wheels so that they can be transported to more rural areas that do not always have medical clinics close by.
It’s never too early to start exploring your entrepreneurial side. The majority of these companies got started because a college student saw a problem that needed to be fixed; whether it was creating a braille label maker to improve the lives of blind individuals or an app that made speech therapy more accessible to others. These students made their mark by helping the world become a little bit better of a place than it was before. How will you make your mark?
Information provided by:
https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/10-famous-companies-that-were-founded-college-students.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/best-college-startups-2013-2#daniel-mishin-founded-a-chain-of-hostels-in-russia-that-look-like-college-dorms-6