Working with students is simply a great investment not to mention the greater good.
Since we started Spark, ’ve been talking to students ranging from high school, college and grad school about startups. (we have several entrepreneurs that are running great companies in our portfolio that never even went to college but I’ll leave that for another post :)
Scott Kirsner has a recurring theme on his blog that we need to do more for students. He starts with this line on a recent post:
“Let me be clear: I really hate students.
They don’t really add anything to our local economy, except for sometimes when they start companies upon graduation (like Microsoft, Akamai, Facebook, iRobot, MicroCHIPs, Harmonix Music Systems, Brontes Technologies, etc. etc.)”
Scott’s sacrasm is obvious and makes a good point. He wants to see more says we can all help & support students. Scott suggests that industry trade groups offer student discounts or make them free.
That is a good idea.
OpenCoffee Cambridge and WebInnovatorsGroup are great (and free). If you are a student I would highly recommend attending those.
I also did a quick search on MeetUp and found this list of local meetups that look good too.
But I think we need to find other ideas & ways to get students in front of entrepreneurs, angel investors and VCs.
And I’m all ears.