News-Letter

Media Credit: Sammy Saltzman [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Laura Bitner Hopkins Student Enterprises: Gabe Plumer, Max Dement, Amanuel Alemu, Alex Nischenko. [Click to enlarge]

Have you ever needed something desperately that the campus just doesn't offer? Summer storage for your 15 pound Biochem textbooks that you just can't seem to part with perhaps? Well Hopkins Student Enterprises is here to help you solve that dilemma for yourself.

The Center for Leadership Education (CLE) had been throwing the idea of a student-run business program for a few years which finally came into fruition in 2006. CLE looked at other schools like Harvard and Stanford that had already developed their own enterprise agencies and built up from there. They wanted it to be entirely student-run and they saw Max Dement -- a junior with the idea of starting an advertising agency at Hopkins -- as just the candidate to do it.

Students interested in founding their own businesses through HSE must first approach the Board of Directors with a detailed business plan, complete with finance requirements. From there the plans undergo a rigorous three-month approval process. Dement, HSE's President offers this advice to budding entrepreneurs interested in running their own enterprise: "If you have and idea really sit down and think it through. Talk to potential customers, work out a financial plan and budget your expenses, think about how you want to market this. When you come to us with an idea we want to see that you are committed and have explored your idea thoroughly. Talk to professors in the Entrepreneurship department."

Since starting up HSE has launched three student businesses including Hopkins Storage, Action!, and Hopkins Technology Commercialization Agency (HTCA). Freshman Gabe Plumer was recruited to head Hopkins Storage which he says is a "fast and reliable service for students wishing to store their personal items over summer break. It will definitely cut down on the costs for individual students and will certainly reduce the stress of moving as we offer door-to-door service."

Senior Alex Nisichenko founded HTCA which excels in a type of business consulting called Intellectual-Asset Management. "Our job," Nisichenko said, "is to help our clients realize the greatest possible value for the Intellectual Property (IP) that they own. To do this, we create what are called Technology Commercialization Reports, in which we outline the best and most profitable path towards commercializing a particular technology."

HSE's newest Enterprise is Action!. Junior Amanuel Alemu started Action! as "an affordable opportunity to use video as a way of archiving their events and performances as well as a way to promote and advertise their group." The initial response to this newly founded enterprise has been positive, and Alemu hopes to extend the services to other campuses like Peabody and even the medical center.

Hopkins Student Enterprise and its groundbreaking initiative are finally giving Hopkins students the chance to stop complaining about what the University lacks and do something about it for themselves. For more information, check out the HSE Web site at http://www.hopkinsstudententerprises.org and the individual business Web sites: www.hopkinsstorage.com and www.jhu.edu/htca

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