Show-Me State Times

The SLULaunch program at Saint Louis University has expanded its scope to include a wider range of business ideas, as announced by Lewis Sheats, the executive director of the Chaifetz Center for Entrepreneurship. This decision was made to accommodate students whose ideas did not fit into the existing MEDLaunch or GEOLaunch categories.

"We added GEOLaunch last year, but what we noticed was that we had students with ideas that didn’t fit neatly into the MEDLaunch or GEOLaunch mold," Sheats explained. "We were leaving students out and we wanted to open it up to everyone."

SLULaunch participants work in interdisciplinary teams with guidance from mentors across various fields. These teams form at the start of the academic year and present their projects during a Demo Day in spring.

The program is led by an executive student board consisting of Kirti Madhu as president, Joel Hwang as vice president of recruitment and clinical outreach, and Harshith Gorla as vice president of curriculum. Madhu expressed enthusiasm about expanding opportunities beyond medical sciences: "I think this model will serve us better," she said. "This structure allows everyone to work together more and not feel limited by a category."

Among the current projects is one led by Will Laub and Luke Diehl from the School of Business, focusing on scaling up their high-protein ice cream recipe for mass production. "We’ve been working on it all summer to get the texture right," Diehl noted.

Another project, F Brain, led by junior Fernanda Bucio, aims to increase female participation in research through an open-source collaborative focused on women's health.

Other SLULaunch initiatives include Campus Insider, Nutrinex AI, Med Reveal, and Talk Tales—each addressing unique challenges ranging from aiding international students to enhancing nutritional tracking and healthcare transparency.

Achyuth Kumar leads Nutrinex AI with hopes that his app will help users make informed dietary decisions: "We hope to help vegans and meat eaters alike improve their nutritional intake and their overall health," he stated.

SLULaunch follows in the footsteps of MEDLaunch—a non-profit incubator initiated in 2015—which continues to foster innovation across healthcare and consumer goods sectors while promoting entrepreneurship within Saint Louis University and St. Louis communities.