BU Scholar Designs App for Venture Competition
Boston University (BU) Posse Scholar Juan Gallegos recently designed an app, Maeven, to enable students to identify peers and optimize learning and information retention with peer tutoring. The app’s slogan is “Seek Knowledge, Find Friends.”
“We are solving a huge problem,” Juan explains. “Faculty members regularly face the problem of getting students to come to office hours because of scheduling conflicts. Balancing school and work is strenuous for students!”
Through Innovate@BU’s Build Lab, a space where students can find the resources to turn ideas into actions that make an impact, Juan learned about the New Venture Competition, an annual student contest sponsored by Harvard Business School’s Rock Center for Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise Initiative. He entered the competition and placed among the highest in the pool for the first round.
“You can think of Maeven as a giant network of students with exceptional aptitudes,” Juan went on to say. “The idea is both scalable and unrivaled.”
While Juan and his team did not wind up victorious in the New Venture Competition over all, they did win a separate $10,000 Summer Accelerator grant. The 12-week program helps entrepreneurs as they launch start-ups, so Juan will stay in Boston over the summer to work on the concept.
“I was having a hard time managing my schedule while finding time to seek tutoring or go to office hours,” he says. “Maeven seems like a solution. We’re getting a lot of great feedback.”
As Juan finishes his first year on campus, he’s putting together big plans for the rest of his time at BU, including an intended major in mechanical engineering.
