I’d say that the highlight of my internship at Venture Café (https://venturecafestl.org/) is both pretty simple and tremendously important: I may be able to work outside of academia and be a solid asset. As I desired and hoped for, my humanistic knowledge created value in this new setting. I was able to use the skills that I’ve honed throughout my journey through higher education both as a teacher and a student and expand them in a new business and innovation centered setting.

Working alongside and under the tutelage of Tyler Mathews, I found innovative ways to channel disruptive energy that comes from challenging conventional notions in culture, politics, and identity into the startup world and use it to mold the changes that constantly redefine our experience as global citizens and cultural agents. He treated me as a collaborator, picked my brain for decisions and approached to issues of great significance for the company and the possible paths it would take. We would talk for hours and let that conversation go to any and all places it could, finding then, in its most curious corners, serendipitous ideas that provided solutions or innovative approaches to whatever roadblock we were facing.

I was constantly challenged by the dynamic and ever-changing work environment. I learned how to accommodate last minute drastic changes and how to navigate critical situations that needed quick and effective problem solving. Most of this in reaction to the emergence and rapid tremendous transmission rate of the Coronavirus Delta Variant in the United States broadly, and, specially, in St. Louis. The events and plans to re-launch and re-brand Venture Café by the end of the summer where completely derailed.

The first part of my internship was focused mostly on planning and structuring a re-imagined version of the ‘Thursday Gatherings’, unfortunately we had to set that back indefinitely and take a completely different approach focused on how to curate the best online experience for our members to connect and solve problems together. That was the mission of Venture Café at its core: bring inquisitive, smart, talented people together and facilitate them supporting and collaborating with one another. This was part of possibly the most pleasant and meaningful surprise of my internship at Venture Café, that everything that happened in in that space was to serve the community. What we wanted was to listen to what the community of entrepreneurs – from artists, to techies, business people, educators, caretakers, developers– and consequently the St. Louis community at large, needed to try to foster connections and relationships that would assess that need. This consolidated my deeply held belief that exposure to knowledge is always an act of discovery, which modifies our conception of the world and our own role in society.

Santiago Rozo Sanchez is a Ph.D. student in Hispanic studies, Arts and Sciences at Washington University who wrote this blog as part of his Pivot 314 Fellowship.