Makes Entrepreneurs

Transcript

Most of us would be lost without our phones, right? We do everything with them. Hail rides, restaurant reservations, banking, and booking flights, you name it, we do it with our phones. The tech and finance that happens behind the scenes to make all that possible, is intense. So how does it all work? Let’s find out about it by meeting someone who launched a FinTech startup all while still a student right here at NJIT. Samir, please take it away.

– I appreciate the intro Alex. Hey there everyone. How are you doing? In high school, I had developed my first app. It was used to help the faculty log where students would enter in specific parts of the building. Accomplishing this, I knew I needed a great tech school on my radar. I chose NGIT for the great focus in STEM. Not only do they have amazing resources, but the amount of help that we received from here is tremendous. We have great professors with very relevant industry experience, small class sizes, and not to mention New York City is right across the pond. Outside of the classroom we have an amazing student base where everybody shoots to do great things in their careers. This is where I met my few closest friends in which we had started our own startup. This was a domain that I had no prior experience in whatsoever. But with the help of NJIT and each other, we have come very far. Our startup glide is an online ordering platform to help restaurants make their ordering process much more seamless. NJIT has increased its focus on entrepreneurship with its business incubator VentureLink. We were the first student startup here and got access to office, lab and coworking space. NJIT is also now a top 50 university for entrepreneurship and the only one in New Jersey to accomplish such a feat. Eventually link is also now home to over 50 established companies. With the help and support of NJIT, the City of Newark Glyde has launched its online ordering platform called OrderNewark to help support the local restaurants. We have also learned how to fundraise, with our first round of investment successfully completed and our second round of investment on route to come soon. Glyde hopes to give back to the community by offering both the students and faculty, a way to connect with these local businesses and support them. In this light, also these local restaurants will be able to save time and money. Well, that was my NJIT startup story. Let’s start up the next portion of the tour. Take it away, Alex.

– Okay. Hold on a sec, Samir. I’m downloading Glyde to check out some of those dinner spots. Amazing app back to the show, everyone. Thanks so much Samir. You leveraging all that you have available here at NJIT to not only study, but to also found a startup, gives a clear path for many other students who will be following your lead. That was fantastic. Take care of Samir.