Meet a few of the entrepreneurs and innovators who also happen to be graduating this spring from Washington University in St. Louis. All of these students have launched businesses and developed innovative technologies that are improving human health, addressing global issues and helping investors achieve their goals.
Mary-Brent Brown
B.S. Healthcare management, Olin Business School
Co-founder, Bear-y Sweet Shoppe and Kids Wanna Help
Responding to pent-up student demand for gummy worms, Brown co-founded the South 40 candy store Bear-y Sweet Shoppe with fellow Olin seniors Jessica Landzberg and Shea Gouldd, and Kailey Dreyfus, who graduated in 2016. Brown also is still active in Kids Wanna Help, the nonprofit she started at age 12 to promote fundraising among young people.
Elizabeth Bowman
B.S., Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering & Applied Science
COO: Project Starfish
Bowman and her team at Project Starfish are developing a biomedical device to reduce catheter-associated urinary tract infections, the most frequent healthcare infection today.
The startup recently attended the RBPC (Rice Business Plan Competition), the largest and richest graduate-level business plan competition in the world.
Markey Culver
MBA, Olin Business School
Founder: The Women’s Bakery
Through her social enterprise, The Women’s Bakery, Culver has created economic opportunities for women in Rwanda and Tanzania by training them to build, operate, manage and sustain their own bakeries.
Avi Felman
B.S., Chemical Engineering and Computer Science, School of Engineering & Applied Science
Co-founder of Bear Studios, Founder of VentureFocus
Felman helped launch Bear Studios, Washington University’s first student-run accelerator.
A second enterprise, VentureFocus, helps start-ups find venture capital, private equity investors.
Ari Gao
B.A. Biology, Arts & Sciences
Founder: Heart for the Homeless
Gao founded the nonprofit Heart for the Homeless to improve the health of homeless individuals in St. Louis. Heart for the Homeless organizes health fairs at major homeless shelters across St. Louis and trains undergraduate volunteers to provide basic screening, serve as medical literacy educators and connect homeless individuals to primary care.
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Andrew Glantz
B.A., Leadership and Strategic Management, Olin Business School
Founder & CEO: GiftAMeal
Glantz founded mobile app GiftAMeal in 2014 as a way to fight hunger and promote St. Louis restaurants. GiftAMeal has since expanded to Chicago and Detroit and has provided 50,000 meals to those in need. Users simply snap and post of photo of their meal, and GiftAMeal funds a meal through a partner food bank.
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