DubHacks Next: Fostering Student-Led Entrepreneurship at UW
We’re excited to announce DubHacks Next, a student-run tech startup incubator committed to educating and empowering the next generation of student founders and growing the entrepreneurial ecosystem at the University of Washington, Seattle.
In 2014, DubHacks was born from the idea that putting technology in the hands of students empowers creativity and sparks innovation. Since then, this ambition has driven our team to create and evolve our annual 24-hour DubHacks hackathon.
Building upon our storied successes, we are excited to announce DubHacks Next, the first student-run startup incubator at the University of Washington!
While hosting our hackathons, we have seen the creation of an astounding number of inspiring projects. From using AI to detect Parkinson’s disease to developing tools that help doctors properly diagnose patients, these projects blew us away with their ingenuity and thoughtful innovation. Yet, after each event, we kept hearing the same question: “I’m so proud of my project and I think this could be the start to something amazing — how do I get there?”
In other words, what’s next?
Just as hackathons come and go, hackathon projects often lose momentum as the weekend comes to an end.
Why? We’ve identified three primary reasons:
- Lack of direction
- Lack of accountability
- Lack of support
With DubHacks Next, we’re excited to tackle these challenges and prepare students looking to take their hustle to the next level (whether they started at our hackathons or not). To do so, the Next program operates two tracks that provide a valuable incubator experience for student entrepreneurs:
The Project Track connects student teams with entrepreneurs and industry experts through exclusive fireside chats, builds a community through social events with fellow student founders, and arms projects with resources that fit their needs.
Of course, there are also many bright student to-be-founders that haven’t found the right problem to solve. For those that are looking to explore, experiment, and create something incredible, we’ve introduced the Entrepreneur in Residence Track. In the EiR track, students join and contribute to a community of like-minded builders. Apart from ideating and working with other Entrepreneurs in Residence (EiRs) on personal projects, our EiRs regularly engage, interact, and learn from our Project teams, with the objective of transitioning to the Projects track when they’ve discovered their next big thing.
So, what’s next?
We are currently running Batch 0 of the Next program and will be welcoming our next cohort in Fall 2021 after implementing the valuable feedback we’ve collected. DubHacks Next’s goal is to increase the number of entrepreneurs at the University of Washington. We envision a future where starting your own company or joining a startup during/after college is just as common as the traditional corporate path. As we continue to iterate and grow our program, we hope you join us in building the future of student tech entrepreneurship here in Seattle.
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