Startups
Since returning home to China seven years ago, Bozhong Xue has revitalized the NU Club of Beijing, interviewed prospective students as a member of the Alumni Admission Council, recruited high school students to volunteer for the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra concert last spring and supported international student scholarships at the Bienen School of Music. For his efforts, Xue received the inaugural Northwestern Alumni Association President’s Award in September.
Hannah Chung ’12 hopes to make the treatment of childhood cancer a little more bearable. The co-founder of Sproutel, Chung works alongside CEO and co-founder Aaron Horowitz ’12 to design products that make a meaningful health impact on the lives of patients.
Marc Schulman, president of Eli’s Cheesecake, oversees an operation that produces 20,000 desserts daily and served cheesecake for the inaugurations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama ’06 H. Schulman is also an outspoken advocate for career and technical education.
Kristen Sanders built People6, a digital marketing agency that employs college students to create and execute holistic marketing solutions and research for businesses and entrepreneurs. People6 has hired more than 30 students to complete nearly 20 projects, ranging from research for New Founders PAC to a new website design and branding plan for Roycemore School, near the Evanston campus.
As Garry Cooper ’14 PhD prepared to throw out used equipment at a Feinberg School of Medicine lab in 2015, an idea hit him: Lightly used, expensive research equipment could be reused rather than trashed. “I kept seeing reports about the funding problems in scientific research — how really smart and innovative junior faculty members are leaving academia and going into industry because of the job and funding prospects,” says Cooper, who studied neuroscience.
Gail Becker ’88 MS managed communications for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, worked as an executive at Warner Bros., and spent more than a decade as a president at the global communications juggernaut Edelman.
A Northwestern student-led startup is commercializing a material that can treat contaminated wastewater from industrial processes more efficiently and effectively than market competitors. NUMiX Materials will provide industrial users with a platform of water treatment sorbent powders to remove toxic materials from their wastewater streams. Working with a patented ion exchange technology from the lab of Northwestern chemistry professor Mercouri Kanatzidis, the student startup is bringing to market a material that can capture an array of heavy metals from contaminated water.
Three Kellogg grads teamed up to launch Cariset, a startup that makes a high-fashion, high-function leather backpack for women.
When Tyler Kraemer ’93, ’97 JD and Tammy Henley Kraemer ’97 JD met as students at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, fragrance wasn’t the first thing on their minds. But in 2015, after balancing legal work and a successful essential oil wholesale operation, the couple decided to embrace their passion for perfume.
Each year, international travelers return stateside with an average of $34.82 in unused foreign cash — that is, if they haven’t already spent it on useless airport trinkets. The total discarded foreign currency in the United States amounts to an astounding $1.56 billion, with $96 million passing through the city of Chicago alone. What if someone collected all that money and put it to good use?