{"id":98,"date":"2023-10-19T16:06:44","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T20:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2023\/?page_id=98"},"modified":"2023-12-05T01:42:06","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T06:42:06","slug":"student-disruptors","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2023\/student-disruptors\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Disruptors"},"content":{"rendered":"

NO-HOLDS-BARRED THINKING (AND DOING)<\/h3>\n

Preparing young minds to investigate the world around us and contribute to the betterment of society is our reason for being.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

However, the mission goes well beyond the classroom.<\/span><\/p>\n

With the help of <\/b>INNOVATE@BU<\/b><\/a>, a University-wide innovation initiative, we\u2019ve nourished a culture of invention, entrepreneurship, and no-holds-barred thinking on campus, encouraging students to spread their wings and take flight in all directions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Caspian
Caspian Chaharom and Maria Gorskikh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
<\/div>\n

BUILDING A BUSINESS BY REMOVING BARRIERS<\/span><\/h3>\n

Take MARIA GORSKIKH<\/b>\u00a0(Questrom\u201923), for example. Innovate@BU named her 2023\u2019s Student of the Year. She is a podcast host and cofounder of multiple start-ups, and her brainchild, DREAM Venture Labs, won the 2023 BU REFUGEE CHALLENGE<\/b>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Gorskikh\u2019s nonprofit empowers refugees and immigrants<\/a> to start and grow their own businesses. The approach pairs immigrant entrepreneurs with student-volunteers who speak their partner\u2019s native language. Starting a business in the US is challenging enough, Gorskikh says, and it\u2019s even more daunting when you are not fluent in English, unfamiliar with the market, or lack resources.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs an immigrant myself, I know that many people in my community possess an entrepreneurial drive and aspire to establish their own businesses upon arriving in the US,\u201d she says. \u201cOur plan is to accept 20 businesses and more than 200 student-volunteers into our program and help develop and refine immigrant-founded ventures.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

PEERING INTO THE VERY DISTANT PAST<\/span><\/h3>\n

Another Innovate@BU alum is physics major CASPIAN CHAHAROM<\/b>\u00a0(CAS\u201923), who interned last year at CERN<\/a> (Conseil Europ\u00e9en pour la Recherche Nucl\u00e9aire), an international physics research center outside Geneva, Switzerland. He worked alongside the world\u2019s leading physicists at the forefront of unraveling the origins of our universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chaharom helped develop software to create, detect, and measure heavy particles such as the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle considered a crucial component in understanding the foundations of nature. He also designed a component for the timing receiver circuit to measure a particle\u2019s position as it speeds along the beam in the Large Hadron Collider, the world\u2019s most powerful particle accelerator. At BU, he started a company to simplify circuit board building and was a finalist in Innovate@BU\u2019s NEW VENTURE COMPETITION<\/b>. In fact, Chaharom\u2019s design for the new circuit at CERN was reviewed and approved by the center\u2019s engineering team and is now in production. Perhaps what made the biggest impression on him was the diversity of the research community, which comprises 23 member countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[At CERN], I have met more students and researchers from a wider variety of countries than I have in my whole life,\u201d Chaharom says.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NO-HOLDS-BARRED THINKING (AND DOING) Preparing young minds to investigate the world around us and contribute […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12906,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":11,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"bu-landing","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12906"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":764,"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/98\/revisions\/764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ar.bu.edu\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}