Khoury News
How the Roux Institute plays matchmaker for its master’s students and incubator startups
Northeastern's Maine campus was founded with tech entrepreneurship at its core. So for Khoury College's Portland-based master's students, the startups in the Roux's three incubator programs are a natural co-op destination.
Anusha Devanga, a master’s student in computer science at Northeastern’s Roux Institute, wasn’t sure at first whether she wanted to do a co-op. But after many conversations with her advisors — and, at a tight-knit campus like Roux, personal guidance — she was connected to a small startup that turned out to be the perfect fit.
“It was really cool. Because it was a startup, I was given a lot of creative freedom, and they really heard me out when I had ideas,” Devanga said.
The Roux Institute, located in Portland, Maine, was founded with experiences like Devanga’s in mind. By both educating students and supporting companies in Maine and around the world in their early stages, the institute fosters mutually beneficial relationships.
“We’re a university; we’re training students, which is training talent,” said Santiago Zindel Mundet Cruz, director of the Roux’s Founder Residency, one of the programs startups can enroll in. “We want to support the creation of companies — which is how the entrepreneurship programs came about — so that there will be companies that can hire the talent we train in the school.”
The Institute offers three entrepreneurship programs for startups: the Founder Residency, the Future of Healthcare Founder Residency, and the ClimateTech Incubator. Each caters to different industries and company needs, providing startups with educational programming, access to Northeastern’s global network, and in-house legal, business, and design resources. But all three emphasize using student talent for success, and the startups, which are often short-staffed and on tight budgets, benefit greatly from Northeastern’s co-ops.
“They get less expensive talent, test students out, and if it works, hire them afterwards,” Zindel said.
For students, entrepreneurial co-ops offer a glimpse into what starting a business is really like. Such was the case for Devanga, who jumped straight from her undergraduate studies to a master’s degree and wanted a taste of work experience. An advisor connected her to the Blue Latitudes Foundation, an ocean conservation company that is in the Roux Institute’s ClimateTech Incubator and that was looking for a computer scientist and game engineer.
“They had a very specific role that fit exactly what I was looking for,” she said.
During her six months on the job, Devanga designed and developed a video game to help Blue Latitudes explain its “Rigs-to-Reefs” initiative, which repurposes decommissioned offshore oil and gas rigs into artificial reefs. The game, which Blue Latitudes uses in its presentations at schools, allows players to assemble a submarine, then dive into the ocean to explore different depths and learn about marine life.
“This was good insight into what the industry looks like for the field I want to go into,” Devanga said. “It was nice to see the niche that I had figured out for myself wasn’t as narrow as I thought, and I could potentially reach out to other fields.”
Yasha Chaurasia, also a computer science master’s student at the Roux, had a transformative experience co-oping for ReMo, a company which developed a web application to support school students and educators, including librarians, in monitoring and improving their reading progress. She first met the company’s founder while working on a class project, an opportunity possible because of the Roux’s small, tight-knit community.
While taking a course in natural language processing, Chaurasia helped build a recommendation system for ReMo that can, in the future, buoy students’ educational journey by suggesting which book they should read next. When she learned the company was hiring a computer scientist, she was immediately interested.
“This was the very first opportunity that came into my hands, and I really took it,” she said. “I knew the founder, really liked the project for its mission, and thought ‘Why not?’”
During her six-month co-op, Chaurasia worked on the app’s programming interface, corrected data discrepancies and inaccuracies, and optimized the database schema. As the company’s only backend developer co-op, she often had to figure out how to troubleshoot issues and see project deliverables through from start to finish.
“I had the unique opportunity to work closely and communicate directly with the company’s CTO and founder, an experience rarely possible in mid- to large-tier firms,” she said. “The insights and mentorship I gained from them throughout my time there have been invaluable to my growth and learning.”
For employers, too, having student talent is essential.
“Startups talk about these co-ops as a lifeline that really moves the needle for them and is critical to the work they do,” Zindel said. “Startups are willing to give these students important work that is going to make a difference in their companies.”
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