Farley Center 2015-2016 Year in Review

A self-piloting electric air vehicle. A hydration tracker. A food delivery service – without the delivery fees. These are just a few of the ideas that came out of Farley Center classes this year. The Farley Center engaged with hundreds of students, alumni, and faculty members throughout a year that was packed with classes and events.

Over 400 students came through Farley Center classes in the 2015-2016 academic year. Almost 60% of those students were undergraduates, and the entire Farley Center cohort came from nine different schools across both the Evanston and Chicago campuses.

NUvention Medical is the Farley Center’s longest standing interdisciplinary, experiential course, drawing students from McCormick, Feinberg, Pritzker, and Kellogg. NUvention Medical 2016 alum, OxyGenie, competed as a finalist in this year’s NU Venture Challenge. OxyGenie is an automated oxygen weaning device that can shorten hospital stays for patients and decrease nursing workload.

Another NUvention Medical alum, HydroTrack, developed a wearable device that tracks hydration and alerts the wearer when she needs to drink water. The team’s work was featured in McCormick’s new website, Ideas at the Intersection.

NUvention Energy alum, Amper, has already raised $25,000 for their smart circuit breaker, and was selected to participate in the world’s largest hardware accelerator program in China. Meanwhile, Kitty Hawk promises to revolutionize personal transportation. Their NUvention Energy concept, a self-piloting electric air vehicle, turned heads at the final presentations. The team was selected to participate the The Garage’s summer Wildfire Accelerator program.

NUvention Web’s Foodrop team garnered interest across campus with their innovative take on the food delivery service. The team’s concept eliminates delivery fees by pooling orders to a particular restaurant and centralizing a drop off point for customers to pick up their food. The team intends to launch their business on the Northwestern campus this fall.

The Farley Center’s events this year brought a variety of voices to campus to discuss recent topics and trends in entrepreneurship, and to engage with students. The center hosted Dan Olsen, author of Lean Product Playbook, who spoke to a crowd at the garage about what it takes to build a great product. This spring, Don Parsons joined us as our Entrepreneur-in-Residence, spending an afternoon talking with students about their startups and offering advice and connections. And this spring our NUvention networking event drew nearly 70 students to learn about upcoming NUvention courses, and to meet and talk to each other and alumni about their ideas.

Looking forward to the 2016-2017 academic year, the Farley Center has a lot of new programming on deck. Be sure to check out our new NUvention offerings - Transportation and Therapeutics, as well as our new courses – Startup Accounting and Growing and Monetizing your Fanbase.