My summer was a little different than that of my classmates. My goal was to set up shop in Austin and network around the entrepreneurial community, and that I did.
I was lucky to get an internship at the Austin Technology Incubator working in their Clean Energy Incubator (CEI), which was great. Mitch Jacobson, the CEI Co-Director, lined me up with some great projects and introduced me to some helpful people. Also, Randall Crowder, the Director of the Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN), was amazingly helpful at connecting me within the community. And, I was able to set aside some time to explore start-up ideas and other personal interests.
I spent some time working for a promising lithium-ion battery start-up called ActaCell that was brewed from the research of UT Austin’s accomplished Arumugam Manthiram, Ph.D. My work at ActaCell involved analyzing the cathode and anode chemistries that currently exist or are being developed across the li-ion industry. There are tons of players vying for that optimal balance of high power and energy with low volume and mass, and it was interesting to see which chemistries were leading the charge! ;)
Another project that I worked on was based at another Austin incubator, Tech Ranch Austin. I developed an outline for a web-based contest, called the Pecan Commons, that will bring together homeowners and clean energy entrepreneurs to provide a community for sharing solutions and allow each group to benefit from the other. Now they are moving forward to build the website and get the contest rolling.
Beyond those projects and working with prospective companies for the incubator, I was able to meet with several knowledgeable entrepreneurs and investors. One meeting even ended with a joyride in a Tesla Roadster! It was especially great to meet some members of the MIT community in Austin, and even better to see the continued willingness to advise and connect with a current student.
As for the time exploring my own interests, that has been incredible. I’ve explored start-up ideas across the spectrum, and spent a lot of time working on photography and researching online photo sharing. I even registered for a fall course called Computational Photography at the MIT MediaLab. Here are a few of my images that are rated highly by Flickr’s mysterious “interestingness” algorithm:
All in all, it has been an outstanding summer. I
accomplished what I set out to do, and I’m excited to get back to learning and exploring new ventures at
MIT!
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