About Summer with Skandy This blog is part of the Summer with Skandy series, highlighting the experiences of participants in the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s summer programs at Washington University in St. Louis. Throughout the summer, Launchpad founders, Launchpad interns, and Skandalaris Internship Program (SkIP) participants work alongside startups, innovators, and entrepreneurs across the St. Louis…
Netty’s Juicery: Closing the Nutrition Gap Through Wellness Innovation Authors: Rahul Sharma & Hansini Mahajan Ninety percent of people in the United States struggle with meeting their daily recommended intake of fresh fruits and vegetables. Although cold-pressed juice helps with daily intake requirements, by-hand juicing methods and juice bars require excess time and energy for…
About Summer with Skandy This blog is part of the Summer with Skandy series, highlighting the experiences of participants in the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s summer programs at Washington University in St. Louis. Throughout the summer, Launchpad founders, Launchpad interns, and Skandalaris Internship Program (SkIP) participants work alongside startups, innovators, and entrepreneurs across the St. Louis…
As part of the Summer with Skandy professional development series, Launchpad founders and Skandalaris Internship Program (SkIP) participants stepped beyond the classroom and into the heart of St. Louis’ innovation ecosystem with a visit to Cortex Commons. The afternoon combined a guided tour of the district with a candid panel discussion featuring entrepreneurs building companies…
The Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship is proud to celebrate Lilly Ortiz (BA ’27), who earned Second Place at DePaul University’s 9th Annual University Pitch Madness, a premier collegiate startup competition that brings together student entrepreneurs from universities across the Midwest. Hosted by DePaul’s Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, University Pitch Madness provides undergraduate founders…
About Summer with Skandy This blog is part of the Summer with Skandy series, highlighting the experiences of participants in the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s summer programs at Washington University in St. Louis. Throughout the summer, Launchpad founders, Launchpad interns, and Skandalaris Internship Program (SkIP) participants work alongside startups, innovators, and entrepreneurs across the St. Louis…
About Summer with Skandy This blog is part of the Summer with Skandy series, highlighting the experiences of participants in the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s summer programs at Washington University in St. Louis. Throughout the summer, Launchpad founders, Launchpad interns, and Skandalaris Internship Program (SkIP) participants work alongside startups, innovators, and entrepreneurs across…
Successful businesses don’t start with perfect products—they start with a deep understanding of the problem they’re trying to solve. As part of the Skandalaris Center’s summer programming, interns and founders heard from entrepreneur and social worker Talia Goldfarb, founder of Myself Belts, who shared practical lessons on product-market fit, customer discovery and the realities of…
Several Washington University in St. Louis-affiliated startups represented the university at the 2026 Midwest Deep Tech Demo Day in San Francisco, joining 40 ventures from leading research institutions across the Midwest to showcase breakthrough technologies to investors, industry leaders, and venture capital firms. The event, held during San Francisco’s Deep Tech Week, highlighted startups working…
On June 17, students and founders participating in the Skandalaris Center’s summer programming came together for an afternoon of collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving during the Summer Hackathon. Unlike traditional hackathons that focus on hypothetical scenarios, this year’s event challenged participants to develop solutions for real issues facing startups and organizations within the Skandalaris ecosystem. Prior…
What began as a WashU research project has grown into a rapidly expanding agtech venture with the potential to reshape how fresh food reaches communities across the St. Louis region. Tova Feinberg, founder and CEO of VertiGreens and a Startup Associate at the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship, is on a mission to…
Building a successful career often starts with building meaningful relationships. As part of the Skandalaris Center’s summer programming, students participated in The Fundamentals of Effective Business Networking, led by entrepreneur, connector and business development professional Chris Ruzicka. The session challenged interns to rethink networking—not as a transactional activity, but as an opportunity to create genuine…
