Guest writer Ally Merwitz is a junior in QUEST Cohort 33 studying Operations Management and Business Analytics and Mathematics. She is also the current co-lead of the QUEST Corporate student committee.
Over the course of a mere 1.5 years of QUEST, I cannot count the number of times I have changed my mind about what I plan to do with my life after graduation. I would like to think I am alone in this, but I have talked to enough of my peers to know that so many others have the same indecisive mindset that I do. Through it all, my number one supporters have been the one and only Jess Roffe (QUEST Assistant Director) and the QUEST directory. As much as I could talk to Jess all day, her time is limited. The QUEST directory is a great starting place to find a contact without having to reach out to her or anyone else in the Guild first.
Cohort 35 student Ijeoma Asonye – known by her author name “E. Ozie” – will release her first novel this April.
Many college students have picked up hobbies during quarantine, but how many can say that they’ve used quarantine to write a book? Cohort 35 student Ijeoma Asonye – known as E. Ozie – can! A sophomore mechanical engineering major, E. Ozie combined her passions for STEM and writing with her upcoming novel, The Beautiful Math of Coral. Focused on students Coral and Fernando navigating school and pursuing arts and science, The Beautiful Math of Coral is slated to be published this April. I was fortunate enough to talk to Ijeoma about her inspiration behind the book, writing process, next steps, and advice for fellow QUESTees.
Technica is the only all-women and non-binary hackathon at UMD and now the largest hackathon at the university.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of everyone this year, the University of Maryland and QUEST communities have risen above these obstacles and continually achieved impressive feats. One instance of this resilience is the immense success of Technica, the only all-women and non-binary hackathon at UMD, and now the largest hackathon at the university.
You might be thinking, “Class of 2020 is over with. We’ve moved on to Class of 2021.” But let’s not forget about the elite, underdog class that is winter graduates. Okay, perhaps I am biased because I am a part of said group. But nonetheless, I wanted to take a second to shoutout the underrated Class of Winter 2020, and more specifically the incredible group of QUEST students that will be leaving the University of Maryland after this semester to pursue life outside of undergraduate school, whatever that life may be.
We can all agree that the University of Maryland looks a bit different this semester, and it’s been a long time since most QUESTees have seen each other in-person. Despite no longer being able to see each other at events in the QUEST Lab or around campus, QUEST Social and QUEST Creative have been hard at work to keep the QUEST community engaged!
QUEST students go on to create incredible impact in their professional and personal lives. Some of them start early and are able to work on projects that are deeply meaningful while still at UMD. Natalie Wolfe, a Mechanical Engineering student and junior in Cohort 33, is one of them. Natalie is the Innovation Team Lead for the Engineering World Health (EWH) Chapter at UMD. The EWH Chapter at UMD is a part of a global community seeking to inspire and mobilize biomedical engineering to improve the quality of health care in vulnerable communities.
When describing the QUEST Honors Program, the first word that comes to many minds is interdisciplinary. Though only in his first semester with QUEST, Cohort 35 Materials Science and Engineering QUESTee Vincent Lan has taken “interdisciplinary” into action with his new organization, Flower STEM. When asked about what inspired him to create Flower STEM, Vincent explained that “it felt like current STEM classes are set up in a way where students learn concepts, formulas, and topics with limited application opportunities. Even when we do get to apply our work, it’s often very technical, without room for creativity. In the real world, creativity is what sets technology apart, and I want UMD students to get exposure to this concept while still in college.” After formulating the vision behind Flower STEM late one night, Vincent knew he had to pursue it. He formed a group of officers that were also interested in the interaction of creative and technical studies, began the SORC (Student Organization Resource Center) application, and even had a logo designed. From there, Flower STEM’s seeds began to blossom.
Vincent Lan (Cohort 35)
The goal of Flower STEM is to promote and showcase creativity within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Through impactful workshops and captivating guest speakers, Flower STEM aims to show that STEM is interconnected with arts, entrepreneurship, and all other fields that demand creativity. Their guest speaker lineup includes figures like Anouk Wipprecht, a Dutch-based hi-tech fashion designer and entrepreneur. She is working in the emerging field of FashionTech, a rare combination of fashion design combined with STEM and UX design. Examples of projects include creating Intel-Edison based ‘Spider Dress’ where sensors and moveable arms on the dress help to create “a more defined boundary of personal space while employing a fierce style.” Through figures like this and more, Flower STEM members can get a first-hand look at how technology can be applied to more artistic industries.
Example of FashionTech by Anouk Wipprecht
Though the organization is still very new, many students have shown interest in Flower STEM’s vision and ideals. Aside from just professional development, Flower STEM aims to create a social community of interdisciplinary students on campus. Though aimed at STEM students, the club is open to all majors, encouraging diversity of perspective and background. Flower STEM also hopes to create a Big-Little Program, nicknamed “Flower Buds.” Additionally, the club has an active Discord, making it easier for members to bond and remain connected, even during the virtual semester. With a large group of passionate and creative individuals, it’s inevitable that Flower STEM members will inspire others and create innovative projects in the future.
A recent Flower STEM meeting on Zoom
The QUEST community can’t wait to see Flower STEM blossom into a thriving organization! If you’re interested in learning more about Flower STEM, you can follow them on Instagram at @flowerstemus. Best wishes to Vincent and the rest of Flower STEM for a great organization kickoff and rest of the semester!
Although his journey in QUEST has just begun, David Molot (Cohort 35) has already exemplified principles of design thinking with his startup hotglue. hotglue first started off as a project by Hassan Syyid, and David joined the team this past March as his co-founder. At a high level, hotglue is a data integration tool to get customer data into business to business (B2B) apps.
David is a sophomore Marketing and Information Systems major, and Hassan is a sophomore studying Math and Computer Science. The two met through University of Maryland’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program (EIP) and became closer through mutual friends. When speaking with Hassan and David, their cohesive dynamic was apparent. David explained that his role is more so developing hotglue’s strategy and business vision, while Hassan is focused on technical development. However, David emphasized that it’s important to receive Hassan’s input while making business-focused decisions. Similarly, Hassan values David’s insight on technical development decisions.
As for hotglue’s technology, Hassan described it as “a tool for developers built on the Python ecosystem, which provides a data pipeline without worrying about maintenance.” Hotglue started off as a tool that users download and maintain themselves, but has since shifted into a more seamless experience where the backend is managed for users. The inspiration for hotglue first came in the summer of 2019, when Hassan was collaborating with the developer of an accounting software startup and identifying solutions. Following, he took over the startup, transforming it as his own and later asked David to become his co-founder.
There is a lot of promise regarding hotglue’s future, and the two are willing to do the work necessary for success. While managing being full-time students and both having summer internships, they still put consistent hours into its growth each week. Hotglue has been recently accepted to be debuted on AppSumo, which is a company that partners with tech companies and provides deals on their products. Because of AppSumo’s popularity, David and Hassan are anticipating to receive a lot more customers, and in turn, invest more of their time into hotglue. A dream for the pair is to have hotglue become a full-time job in the future. They are hoping to get accepted to Y Combinator down the road, a tech incubator in California known for funding companies such as Dropbox, DoorDash, and Airbnb. This additional funding would be a large step in making David and Hassan’s dream a reality.
The QUEST community proudly recognizes David’s accomplishments as a part of hotglue and will be here to support him through its continued development. Check out hotglue’s website here,and be on the look out for their release on AppSumo!
The Black Lives Matter movement has sparked conversations within corporations and universities about systematic racism. While these conversations serve as a starting point, how can communities grow toward productive activism in a sustainable way? This summer, Advaith Bantval (Cohort 34) participated in the Shell Makeathon to address this issue. His team’s project, Verse, won first place in the Social Impact category.
Over the course of three weeks, Advaith’s team designed and developed a prototype for their project. “We built the basic framework for a service called Verse,” Advaith said. “We weren’t expecting to win, but the competition was motivation to work on a cool project we were passionate about. The goal is to facilitate better dialogue between people of different backgrounds, primarily placing an emphasis on minority voices that may not be heard in a professional or university setting.”
Verse has three pillars: learn, serve, and engage. The Learn tab would be populated by experts and professors from the point of view of those in communities. The Serve tab shows users opportunities to support community organizations through donations or volunteering. The Engage tab allows users to interact with each other and have conversations.
The inspiration for Verse came from conversations about diversity occurring throughout UMD. “We were inspired at the time by the town halls being facilitated by university departments,” Advaith explained. The team reached out to stakeholders, such as UMD’s Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion, to gain insight into what could be drastically improved about D&I in the workplace. “This really gave us a basic grounding of what we needed to do in our service as a whole.”
Advaith believes Verse’s achievement can be attributed to incorporating the voice of the customer into the design. “I think one of the reasons why we were successful is because we didn’t dive right into the development of the product based on the first idea that came into our minds. We wanted to understand the perspectives of the people this product would be rolled out to. Before I had taken [QUEST course] 190H, I wouldn’t have thought to interview different people or send out surveys to understand the voice of the customer.”
After the successful development of Verse during the makeathon, the team plans to officially launch by the end of this semester. “We want to deploy Verse as a pilot to see how it would work in an actual setting. We want to have people populate the website to see the impact,” Advaith said. “Hopefully, we will run it through a university department, maybe a living and learning community. We’ve been meeting consistently over the last few weeks to get on track and hopefully roll it out by the end of the year.”
Visit verse.umd.edu to check out the prototype for Verse!
A global pandemic disrupting normal life obviously isn’t ideal, but Hrithik Bansal from Cohort 34 was able to use the disruption as an opportunity to make a difference. He set up a business-to-business mask manufacturing venture called All Time Protection (https://alltimeprotection.com) in India this summer. All Time Protection has supplied over 3,500 masks to businesses around New Delhi since its inception in summer of 2020. They offer 100% cotton-based fabric masks, which are sustainable thanks to their ability to withstand multiple washes and be used. They are not only good for the environment but are far more comfortable to wear than the commonly available non-woven surgical masks.
Hrithik Bansal (Cohort 34)
All of this started in May, when Hrithik had to go home to New Delhi, India during the initial coronavirus outbreak. His internship plans had fallen through, unfortunately, because of the pandemic. He decided to start this venture as a way to get some experience. Initially, the motivation for him was to start an entrepreneurial venture that would help him sharpen his skills, specifically in the real-world business environment. However, as he explained, “When I started narrowing down the niche I was going to be focusing on, i.e. masks, and the way I was going to be doing it, i.e. empowering rural women, it became more than just a business opportunity. The biggest incentive for me became the fact that the work I was doing was actually benefiting a community of society, a community which is largely underrepresented, not only in India but also all over the world.”
Given the pandemic was at a peak, and the market validation for masks was positively present, he decided to dive into the world of masks. Initially, the idea was to produce reusable masks and sell directly to consumers. However, after briefly entering the retail space, Hrithik realized it would take a significant investment of time and resources to break through the noise and compete with the pre-established name brands. He instead decided to go with a B2B model, where he would offer customized and reusable cotton masks to businesses directly. The unique value proposition is that instead of having a big manufacturing unit that would take excess amount of monetary resources to set up, his team outsourced it to small units with a handful of tailors all over the national capital region of New Delhi, India.
To actually bring this into execution, he tapped into his network and found a connection who was involved with setting up cottage industries, specifically independent women tailors working from their homes in remote areas to support their families. This gave him access to a spread out web of ‘mini-manufacturing’ plants, or ‘captive-units,’ to get masks manufactured on a per piece basis.
Some of the masks created by All Time Protection
There were a fair share of challenging moments. Initially, due to excess supply in the market, getting through all the noise and actually establishing a name in the market was tough. The competition was fierce as Hrithik was “competing with other industry leaders who were able to offer rock-bottom prices, with their large, independently owned manufacturing units.” Another challenge he faced was educating the customer about the masks as well as dealing with myths and misconceptions about their effectiveness, as there was a lot of misinformation circulating about them.
Hrithik has had a lot of fun being able to “learn by doing” this summer, as he’s dived into dealing with a lot of people, managing resources, and empathizing with clients. In his own words, “Realizing that what I’m doing is not only helping society by providing sustainable masks, but also empowering a community of people who may have been hit financially by the pandemic the most, gives me a sense of great pleasure and expresses my gratitude towards the hard working humans of society.”
Hrithik was able to leverage the skills he picked up in QUEST course 190H effectively. The class gave him a host of tools which proved very useful as he went about the planning of this venture. Market and financial analysis helped him gauge the market, identify the potential target demographic, and see whether it would actually be financially viable. The presentation tips also helped him a great deal in making the pitch decks of his masks for potential clients.
As for the future, Hrithik thinks this business wouldn’t be feasible for longer than a couple of months until a brand established its majority presence in the market. While there is an opportunity for All Time Protection to do that, Hrithik himself wouldn’t be as heavily involved due to his academic obligations. He’s handed over control to his associates for now. As he says, “For the future, although I don’t see myself manufacturing masks specifically, I’m always happy to keep my options open and welcome any opportunities that may come my way!”
