SLULaunch is a student-driven incubator at the Chaifetz Center for Entrepreneurship at Saint Louis University, dedicated to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in the geospatial and biomedical fields. This program is a collaborative effort involving multiple schools at SLU, including the Chaifetz School of Business, the School of Science and Engineering, the Taylor Geospatial Institute, the SLU School of Medicine, the School of Law, and the College for Public Health and Social Justice.
Participants in SLULaunch work in interdisciplinary teams, guided by mentors from various fields, to develop creative solutions to critical challenges. SLULaunch addresses a broad range of issues, including applying geospatial insights to tackle food and water security, climate change, economic development, and inequity, as well as driving innovations in healthcare, such as surgical devices, health information technology, and medical diagnostics. SLULaunch maintains its mission to improve industry standards through the engineering and design of creative solutions while also fostering a community of entrepreneurship and collaboration at Saint Louis University and other organizations in the greater St. Louis area.
Problem Bank
The industry problem bank for SLULaunch helps identify issues affecting both the healthcare and geospatial industries. After receiving a problem and/or research opportunity, the SLULaunch executive team and CCE staff will evaluate the problem based on criteria including, but not limited to, solution feasibility, development timeline, potential legal complications, affected population size and marketability. Based on the results of this evaluation, the problem may be made available for selection by SLULaunch teams that express interest in developing a solution.
Teams
SLULaunch is rooted in an innovative, student-led, interdisciplinary approach to solving problems in both the health care and geospatial industries. Team leads are selected based on their leadership, teamwork, management, time management and interpersonal communication skills. Successful teams include students from all University campuses, encouraging collaboration between STEM and non-STEM students on a wide range of impactful projects.
Team leads are the heads of SLULaunch projects. They are responsible for selecting a problem to pursue, recruiting team members, and leading the execution of deliverables for the cohort year. Team leads are typically upperclassmen who have participated in SLULaunch previously as team members but neither of those things are required to become a team lead.
SLULaunch seeks the best and brightest students from all disciplines and levels. Students are encouraged to sign up to be considered for a team and invited to participate in Launch Day to meet with team leads to see if a project/lead seems like the right fit for their interests and skill sets.
SLU eMentors
SLULaunch eMentors are the heart of the program. eMentors are SLU faculty, researchers, stakeholders and industry professionals keen to mentor teams to navigate the program year. By leveraging their unique experiences, skill sets and networks, successful advisors have helped many teams overcome individual obstacles. Our mentors are dedicated to supporting great ideas and solutions.
Some responsibilities of eMentors include:
- Participating in monthly design reviews to provide feedback to team leads on their project updates
- Attending SLULaunch events, such as Launch Day and Demo Day
- Host workshops on specific topics such as engineering and prototyping, how to develop a pitch deck and business forecasting
Kirti Madhu, president
Joel Hwang, vice president of recruitment and clinical outreach
Harshith Gorla, vice president of curriculum
Andy Hayden - 2015-2016
Tom Malone - 2016-2017
Greg Weissler - 2017-2018
Alexander Smith - 2018-2019
Daniel Cancilla - 2019-2020
Justin Dulay - 2020-2021
Dhvanii Raval - 2021-2022
Aakash Nagarapu - 2022-2023
Ether Dharmesh - 2023-2024 (MEDLaunch)
Xholino Xhaferri - 2023-2024 (GEOLaunch)
Andy Hayden
Anthony Grzeda
Jake Laktas
Daniel Pike
Rusdeep Mundae
Mia Harton
Greg Place
Brooke Asemota
For more information, please contact us at ecenter@slu.edu.