The Student Startup Center’s Cultural Connections Empower Inclusive Innovation
At the Student Startup Center, located in the Diane Bryant Engineering Student Design Center at the University of California, Davis, opportunities abound for students to learn about how to turn an idea into a viable business.
Entrepreneurship can be tough to break into and recognizing that some groups of people have additional barriers to entry, students have developed four initiatives under the center’s Cultural Connections: Build Black, ElevateHer, Accessible Startups and InnovAmigis. This series aims to offer a space for members of these communities to discuss their big ideas, access resources and learn about the challenges facing each group.
"Our mission is to help students launch, grow and sustain startups that solve really important problems,” said Aaron Anderson, director of the Student Startup Center. “But if students, especially those from our underrecognized communities, don't believe entrepreneurship is a viable career path, then the problems their communities face are also going unsolved. We want to make sure startups are focused on the problems that matter most and our students have a front-row seat to some of those challenges.”
Build Black
As the first Cultural Connection, Build Black was launched in 2023 by Dawn McGee, then an administrator at the Student Startup Center, and several students, including Elijah Yeboah, then a third-year student in African American/African studies to increase Black student success.
Initially, the program set out to understand what Black students need and how to ensure access to those resources, which included interviews with over 30 students. Today, Yeboah, now in his fourth year, helms the program, steering it toward professional development and building the Black community at UC Davis.
“What I've been trying to do this fall quarter is understand what need Build Black can fill within the Black community in terms of business and entrepreneurship,” said Yeboah. “It’s more focused on professional development, whereas before, it was trying to figure out problems to solve.”
Yeboah has taken more of a marketing strategy to reach more people, utilizing resources like his fraternity Phi Beta Sigma and events that are already occurring like career fairs. He’s seen an uptick in attendance at events like Pitches and Pizza and speaker appearances like UC Davis alumni Lois Goss, who runs a small business, and Darryl Goss, an acquisition and investment consultant for companies in the health care and technology industries. The pair received the 2024 UC Davis Medal for their philanthropic efforts to help UC Davis students.
“They’re examples of Black excellence who graduated from UC Davis and made a name for themselves in industry,” said Yeboah. “Black students might not have as much access to what this life looks like outside, so having these examples of Black excellence can really help in the journey.”
Yeboah is excited to continue to adapt Build Black to the community’s needs and wants. For instance, he has an idea for a Build Black Book Club where students would gather to discuss books on finance and business.
“I want to continue iterating on it to develop more creative ways that we can get our community engaged with learning more and gaining more access to opportunities,” he said.
ElevateHer
When Olivia Bates, a third-year managerial economics major, was 14 years old, she launched a baking business called Gluten-Free Galore. In the startup world, she encountered “The Cupcake Challenge,” a phrase that Forbes describes as “the challenge many female entrepreneurs face when they are trying to sell a ‘cute’ consumer business idea to funders.” The experience inspired her to drive change and fueled her to search for ways to solve the problems businesswomen face.
But then, Bates joined the M&T Bank Center for Women in Business program, which offered resources and funding for her business and boosted her confidence that other organizations and programs were also interested in solving these issues.
After enrolling at UC Davis and joining Davis Women in Business, she took the “Launching a Company” class at the Student Startup Center. Bates soon got involved with outreach for the Student Startup Center and noticed that women founders were experiencing the same “cupcaking” that she was in high school.
“I wanted to bridge that gap with the inequities female founders face in funding,” said Bates.
She launched ElevateHer this winter quarter to create a space for anyone to come and get educated on the issues that women face in entrepreneurship. At ElevateHer events, which occur biweekly on Tuesday afternoons, attendees can hear from people in tech and finance companies, like Kim Emerson, who mentors at the Student Startup Center and is an angel investor in a venture capital firm. Other topics include marketing, health and event planning. These events also offer an opportunity to connect with others and build a network.
“I really wanted to make sure I am creating a space that is women-led, women-run and targeted toward women’s resources,” said Bates. “But it’s also open to anyone from any background and identity to come and get educated on the issues women face because I believe that’s essential to bridging these large gaps.”
Accessible Startups
Similar to ElevateHer, Bates launched Accessible Startups, which targets people with accessibility needs, out of her own personal experience.
“I struggled with a lot of noise sensitivities growing up, and I required very high levels of accommodations to be able to focus,” said Bates.
For Accessible Startups events, which also occur biweekly on Tuesdays (alternating with ElevateHer), Bates has emphasized hosting speakers who work in disability and accessibility recruitment and employment in areas like mobility and transportation and accessible event planning.
Bates points out that, according to the Centers for Disease Control, one in four people in the U.S. have some type of disability, and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a little over 20% of those with disabilities are employed. It can be especially hard in the startup world, where a person wanting to start a business has an accommodation need and may not know how to meet their own need.
“If you go work for a company, you oftentimes have the opportunity to ask them for accommodations,” said Bates. “When you have your own personal venture, it can be really difficult to get accommodated because you’re advocating for creating those accommodations for yourself.”
InnovAmigis
When Jorge Diaz, a third-year political science and public service major, walked into the Student Startup Center looking for a place to charge his laptop, he didn’t know he would get pulled into a new program for Latinx students.
“There was an investor talking, and I just kept coming to the events,” said Diaz.
A transfer from Cerritos College in Southern California, Diaz was involved in creating and promoting events, so when he took over InnovAmigis, he wasn’t afraid of the hard work. The hard part is getting Latinx students to know and trust the Student Startup Center with their ideas.
“Being hustlers is in our blood,” said Diaz. “We have our own businesses — my coworker does party favors, my cousin sells flowers — it's in our nature. The Student Startup Center is a great place for them to develop their idea and take it to a whole other level.”
Diaz sees the need for Latinx students to have a place to feel comfortable and like they are in community with each other; a place where they can find support and spark innovation within each other, create new ideas and develop those ideas.
In addition to building community, InnovAmigis will host Latinx entrepreneurs and other events, like a collaboration with the Undocumented Student Resource Center, on a free photoshoot and resume-building workshop.
Diaz hopes more of his Latinx peers will follow in his footsteps.
“If you're not sure where to go, what to do, just wander into our space,” he said. “You'll find something, or you'll be inspired.”
