This article was written by Riya Shrestha and Joseph Ames.
Stevens has a reputation for being an innovative university; every student who walks through the gates onto campus has a burning desire to build, create, and innovate integrated into their soul. From creative thinking to programming code, students at Stevens are constantly pushed to the next level through their coursework. This, for many students, is an avenue towards their future success, and for some, it is even the inspiration behind entrepreneurial projects.
SecureMeetings
When the world shut down in March 2020, there was a significant change brought to the workforce: working from home. Prior to the outbreak of COVID, according to the Pew Research Center, only around 20% of employees were working remotely. However, this figure quickly ballooned to 71% in October 2020.
With a new emphasis on interactive workspaces came increased threats for security. The most popular platform to emerge in the virtual meeting industry, Zoom, suffered from numerous bugs and cybersecurity problems, especially around the beginning of its widespread implementation.
The issue of data security has long been of concern in the tech industry, so it should come as no surprise to see potential solutions to security breaches pop up. Most noteworthy, however, is that one such solution comes from our very own backyard. Through the Launchpad@Stevens program, Stevens students Bryan Kyritz ‘22 and Marcos Salazar ‘23 along with other founders teamed up to create SecureMeetings, a virtual world best described by Salazar as “a fusion of video conferencing and the meta-versa.”
What sets SecureMeetings apart from its competitors is that it is focused on, as Kyritz put it, “breaking the monopoly on big-businesses using data-sales as a product.” To SecureMeetings, a user’s data is their own to do with which they please. Since its inception, SecureMeetings has been predicated on being an open-source community with extra-emphasis on community. “We want users to offer solutions to problems or things they think can be done better,” said Salazar.
The team worked tirelessly on their product, often putting in eight to twelve hours a day six days a week in order to see their visions come to fruition. While they certainly had help from notable Launchpad faculty and staff along the way, SecureMeetings features all student-designed code. The company is a product of careful market observation, strategic planning, and a desire to execute a difficult but necessary task.
Quae
When Brendon Probst ‘23 and Samuel Schmitt ‘23 teamed up to develop the Quae App, they started with just an idea: to create a decentralized community. Their journey towards this app began while they were still in high school, where both students were budding members of their respective communities. Despite their increased desire to become involved, they both quickly became disillusioned with the system they found themselves to be restricted by. Fast forward to January 2021 and the development of Quae had begun.
After beginning development both Probst and Schmitt sacrificed time, effort, and yes, sleep, in order to fulfill their desire. Despite this, Probst insisted that it didn’t feel like work.. Their hard work — often upwards of 40 hours in the blistering heat of summer — paid off in June 2021 when the duo successfully filed for Incorporation. When asked about the incorporation efforts, they described the process as “not daunting but a lot of paperwork and dealing with IRS and taxes.” It was something that neither of them had ever thought about doing before but they did not let fear stop them from reaching their goals.
Next was the soft launch, which came with its own set of challenges. “There were a ton of things wrong during the soft launch…but that was good,” said Probst. The pair were able to rebound and have since been involved in numerous efforts to increase the scale of their app both in the Stevens environment and the Hoboken community. When asked to describe Quae, the pair explained that the app is predicated on “community engagement, not just voting…Quae enables individuals to feel as though they have a voice in the community they are a part of”. In layman’s terms, Quae presents information that then can be voted on to provide community feedback. This information can range from small-scale such as the best coffee on campus all the way to a more macro-level with concerns in and around Hoboken.
In the future, the pair hopes to partner with The City Council of Hoboken in order to increase community involvement and optimize the constituent-representative feedback process. In addition to this, Schmitt and Probst have set the bar high: they want their product to become a staple in college communities around the nation. With high character, intelligence, and drive — as well as the Stevens community behind them in support — they hope their lofty goals are soon to become a reality.
SquareOneJobs
For many students, when they leave for college, they expect their reality to shift. Some imagine this in the form of meeting new people from new backgrounds and bringing new ideas and perspectives to the room. For Greg LaVersa ‘22 and Nate Renner ‘22, their small-town perspectives quickly gave way to the realization that poverty and significant financial hardship were much more prevalent than they previously thought. As LaVersa admitted, “we knew that there was obviously poverty, but we had no idea how large it was considering that we were coming from small towns.”
Their innate concerns for the well-being of others created a desire for a solution to the multi-billion dollar question plaguing our economy to date: how can we re-introduce individuals with convictions, addictions, and other preventative factors to the workforce?
They found their solution with the help of Launchpad@Stevens, run by Professor Mukund Lyengar. Since their acceptance into the program during their freshman year, they were challenged to utilize their ingenuity in order to solve complex problems. Through the combination of their innate desire to help others and their newly-refined skills, the pair started to work on creating what is now SquareOneJobs.
In addition to the Launchpad resources, LaVersa and Renner enlisted the help of Stevens alumnus, Howard Oringer ‘62, and his wife, Jan, both of whom are key figures in pushing for criminal justice reform. The two worked diligently on their product, with Renner admitting that they put “more time into their product than they did into their school work.”
LaVersa and Renner were able to file for incorporation in November 2019 with the help of students at the Cardozo Law School in New York City.
Their product — while intended to help bring marginalized people back into the workforce — will also serve as an aid to businesses. As LaVersa and Renner put it, “studies have shown that previously convicted felons are no more likely to be poor workers. In many cases, they have been shown to be more loyal to their companies. Employee turnover is one of the biggest problems plaguing small to medium-sized businesses now, so by creating a direct link between these businesses and potential employees, we are able to help revitalize two parts of the economy.”
By no means is the entrepreneurial spirit of Stevens limited to these three companies. Throughout the years, Stevens has earned its moniker as the Innovation University as students think in new and challenging ways, all the while working towards their professional and personal endeavors. Countless other students have passed through these halls and come out as successful entrepreneurs, as will countless others in the future.
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