Four years ago, Georgia Tech alumnus Chris Klaus had a vision of what a true startup culture could look like at Georgia Tech. As an entrepreneur himself and Atlanta business leader, Klaus felt that enabling students to run their own businesses would be the most instructive way to encourage entrepreneurship. For years, he pitched his concept for a startup program, hoping to create a formalized group at Tech for students. Klaus talked to the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) in Tech Square and worked with Flashpoint, a program that combines training and mentorship in startup engineering concepts and techniques, to bring his vision to life. But neither organization focused specifically on students. Finally, Klaus met with Ravi Bellamkonda, former chair of the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, who agreed that a startup accelerator for students was necessary for Tech, and they had the idea to use the summer co-op internship program to enable students to create their own businesses and “intern at their own company.”

“Startup accelerators have been successful elsewhere, but Georgia Tech is the first and only university in the world that supports a startup accelerator exclusively for students,” Klaus said. “The accelerator sits inside the academic side of the university, so that all students are touched by it.”

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