Student Stories

Amid a pandemic, entrepreneurial students Andre Gruber and Rafaelo Infante rise to the challenge by launching a small-scale bakery, Ferment.

Meet Andre Gruber, a senior studying Creative Technology & Design with a minor in Computer Science and the CEO of Ferment, an artisanal bakery in Boulder, CO, that emerged during the pandemic.

Meet Ben Bailet, a rising CU Boulder senior studying Management and Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business and a sales and business development intern at a Saber Astronautics.

PufferBot is the brainchild of graduate student Hooman Hedayati and his colleagues at the ATLAS Institute at CU Boulder. It’s a skittish machine: This hovering quadcopter drone comes complete with a plastic shield that can expand in size at a moment’s notice—forming a robotic airbag that could prevent dangerous collisions between people and machines.

The CU Boulder undergrad has been an entrepreneur since 2011, founding and running a variety of businesses to profit. He founded Exchanging303, a premium clothing reseller, and Flippers, a business buying, fixing and reselling cracked iPhones. He has interned at Northwestern Mutual and Boulder’s Boomtown Accelerators and is now a venture intern at Denver’s Stout Street Capital.

For MBA students looking for an unconventional internship alternative, Entrepreneurial Solutions (ES) provides students at Leeds School of Business with the opportunity to start their own consulting business.

Each team was given $1,500 to launch their ideas, allowing them to turn their plans into reality.

Meet Daniela Withaar, a senior studying Business Administration and Environmental Studies with a Entrepreneurial Studies Certificate through the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship! As the Project's Chief Marketing Officer, Daniela manages their social media and is responsible for email marketing, graphic design, and web development. By cultivating a community that is excited about alternative proteins, the club aims to make Boulder an even bigger hub for the innovation and commercialization of alternative proteins.

Determined to make the most of her life and have an impact on the world, sophomore Areyana Proctor helped launch a video production company that produces legacy interviews to preserve families’ history and memories.

Meet Hailey Breaker, a rising senior and co-founder of theinbetween2020, a digital media platform for womxn, femmes, and non-binary POC. Hailey is pursuing a major in Environmental Studies and a minor in Leadership Studies.