NEXPO’18 By The Numbers
Over the past few years, NEXPO has been the culmination of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) here at Northeastern University, and this year was no exception. NEXPO is IDEA’s annual venture showcase event where we invite ventures in the Ready, Set, and Go Stages in hopes of getting the word out about their product or service. This is our largest event of the year and the most public-facing too; planning starts months in advance, as early as the Summer before. Since the event is now over and the management team has had time to resume normal activities, we decided to provide a recap of NEXPO by the numbers.
332 — The number of attendees at NEXPO
Even though this number is slightly lower than the total attendance at NEXPO last year, we still consider this a great success. This year specifically, our neighbors at Wentworth and Brandeis were hosting similar venture-showcase events the same evening. We can only assume some of the Greater Boston Area attendees from last year decided to look into entrepreneurship at another school this time around.
15 — The number of IDEA ventures at NEXPO
Our recruitment method for NEXPO’s IDEA ventures was a bit different this year; we decided to offer an equal opportunity to all founders by setting up a short application process to table at NEXPO. In the end, most of our ventures this year were part of the Go Stage, and a few in the Set stage.
7 — The number of NSF I-Corps projects presented
Although we call NEXPO “IDEA’s venture-showcase event”, we encourage all things entrepreneurship, including the NSF I-Corps program, to attend and table at NEXPO. NSF I-Corps is a national program that prepares scientists and engineers to extend their focus beyond the university laboratory to commercialization of research-based projects in the development of scalable businesses.
7 — The number of IDEA India ventures at NEXPO
Brand new this year, we were delighted to have some ventures all the way from India table at NEXPO. These ventures are developing their businesses through partnerships between IDEA and a number of universities in India to bring the IDEA stage-gate process to a broader audience.
4 — The number of Husky Startup Challenge winners at NEXPO
In most recent years, Demo Day (planned and hosted by The Entrepreneurs Club) has taken place the day before NEXPO, which makes it a bit complicated to invite the winners in a timely manner. However, this year we were excited to host all four winners (1st, 2nd, 3rd and Crowd Favorite) at NEXPO.
3 — The number of IDEA ventures in the NEXPO speaker series
With the precious help of the speaker coaches at TEDxNortheasternU, we were thrilled to offer this first-ever speaker series during NEXPO, in which three of our ventures discussed what it means to be an entrepreneur. The stories they shared were very different from the usual business pitch, and instead created an emotional connection with the public by sharing personal anecdotes about their journey.
The IDEA team would like to thank those who attended NEXPO this year and who support entrepreneurship on Northeastern’s campus. We want to give a shout-out to all the student-led organizations on campus who continually support our ventures and our major events through the year. Very special thanks to the NUCEE office for continually supporting us year-long.
