Startup Exchange Hosts Spring 2024 Kickoff

For entrepreneurial-minded students during this wave of emerging tech, there's never been a more exciting time to build startups, brands, or products. In order to garner success in such a cut-throat arena, it’s all about connecting and collaborating in an inspiring environment with other creators – and that’s exactly what Startup Exchange’s (SX) annual kickoff aimed to do.

Hosted once again at The Clubhouse, SX invited student entrepreneurs and the local community to learn more about their upcoming programs, events, hackathons, while highlighting attendees’ ability to talk about interesting trends and ideas and connect with individuals and investors on various projects throughout the evening.

The event kicked things off with the announcement of three programs for the spring semester – Genesis, ShipIt, and Fellowship – all of which will be held right in the heart of Tech Square. Additional information included the reveal of PitchRx, a healthcare pitch competition that's happening from February through April, and upcoming events with 1517 Fund (who co-founded the Thiel Fellowship with Peter Thiel), Techstars, and the City of Atlanta. And speaking of partnerships, the student group also brought in partners from Georgia State University's StartupGSU Fund and Emory's Hatchery to speak about their programs and ongoing collaborations with Startup Exchange. 

Next, participants enjoyed a Q&A session with AJ Piplica, Founder and CEO of Hermeus, an aerospace and defense technology company focused on radically accelerating air travel by delivering a hypersonic aircraft – and sooner than you think. As a highly technical Founder, AJ shared that he’s recently needed to step away from the computer to assume a more managerial role. However, he often finds himself working on pet projects in Python because he still craves development work. 

What began as a club at Georgia Tech gathering makers, builders, and creatives in the library every week to discuss their most ambitious startup ideas, Startup Exchange now boasts the honor of producing a collective value of over $4.5B in startups from students over the past 10 years. Further proving that success in startups starts with SX.