Innovators and makers

Student-run Meantime Coffee Company is leading the way on sustainable business practices, professional development and community reinvestment.

Not your traditional student organization, the Product Management Club gives student-innovators and entrepreneurs real-world experience with product management, while developing exciting new features for local tech startups.

Founded in fall 2019, the club aims to build a product culture within UNC-Chapel Hill’s Department of Computer Science and ultimately at the University as a whole. The club attracts students interested in entrepreneurship, user experience design, software engineering at startups and those interested in product management roles.

After spending the early days of the pandemic working out in her living room, Anna Shuford channeled her frustrations with virtual workout programs into market research and came up with a solution that improved the experience for everyone.

Her company, BOOMROOM, is an online fitness platform that helps simplify the process for fitness instructors teaching live virtual workouts. It provides scheduling, booking and payment tools for trainers, plus analytics, direct communication channels with their clients and integration with Spotify.

Carolina alumnus and second-year UNC School of Medicine student Nehemiah Stewart is empowering the next generation of leaders through his startup, Level the Playing Field.

The organization works with faculty, staff, alumni and corporate partners across the nation to recruit minority students from HBCU‘s and other institutions, train them in professional development skills and place them into influential internships at some of the top corporations in the nation.

The Carolina Scholarship attracted senior Sherrod Crum to UNC-Chapel Hill and has helped him focus on his passion for social entrepreneurship that serves underrepresented communities.

He founded the Black Entrepreneurship Initiative after he saw that there were no Black students participating in the Carolina Challenge, UNC-Chapel Hill’s largest business pitching competition. The organization hosts seminars on grant applications and investor pitches, as well as pop-up shopping events for vendors.

For a child born without a hand or fingers, a prosthetic hand can be a lifeline, providing independence and the foundation for them to simply be like any other kid. But those devices typically come with a hefty price tag.

To alleviate families of that financial burden and still give children a life-altering tool, the Tar Heels behind the Helping Hand Project are designing and constructing customized prosthetic limbs for children free of charge using 3D printers.