Fostering Student Entrepreneurship and AI Innovation

Newsday interviewed members of the College of Engineering and Computing Sciences on the growing number of young entrepreneurs launching AI-based startups. In addition to highlighting the new AI minor, the article features insight from Dean Babak D. Beheshti, Ph.D., and undergraduate computer science major Jaan Malik. As also recently featured in Long Island Press, Malik is the founder of Kreativio, an AI-driven app allowing users to easily design and ship 3-D prints directly to the consumer. In addition, he was among the first students to participate in NESTS, a new experiential learning course helping student entrepreneurs launch startups.

Beheshti attributes the growing interest in entrepreneurship to several factors, including more stories about successful startups circulating on social media, a “strong appeal in the idea of building something from the ground up,” the creativity and flexibility that comes with owning a company, and a lower barrier to entry. Regarding this last factor, he notes, “With very little initial investment, young people can now come up with a product—whether it is purely software, or software and hardware—and deploy it.”