Two and a half million U.S. adults are considered severe gambling addicts, and another 5-8 million are considered moderate gamblers, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling. 

Problem gambling, also referred to as “gambling addiction” or “gambling disorder” is a compulsive behavior that prevents victims from being able to control their urge to gamble despite negative consequences on finances, relationships and overall well-being. 

Meet Austin Hatfield and Diana Koralski, two young entrepreneurs from California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) actively working to decrease the above statistics with their startup, GamRewired.

GamRewired aims to help gambling addicts replace their addictions with healthy habits through cognitive behavioral therapy. It will also act as a tool for those who regularly attend therapy and want to see progress in the days between sessions. 

Hatfield, CEO and co-founder of GamRewired, found the current solutions for gambling addiction such as therapy to be insufficient. These solutions and recovery processes are best described as a yo-yo effect in which addicts experience highs during therapy sessions and lows in between sessions, Hatfield explained. 

“With GamRewired, you get to keep making strides and replace your addiction, which is the part I fell in love with,” said Hatfield. 

The idea for GamRewired originated from Hatfield’s interest in the field of psychology. He felt that options like therapy aren’t adequately meeting the needs of addicts and wanted to create something that enhances the effects of psychology to fully eliminate the inconsistent yo-yo effect. 

Hatfield met his co-founder and CTO Koralski, soon-to-be computer science and business administration graduate from Cal Poly, through the Hatchery. The Hatchery is an on-campus startup incubator that provides student entrepreneurs with the resources to launch a business idea. 

Koralski was looking for entrepreneurial opportunities through the Hatchery and was quickly introduced to Hatfield. Their partnership blossomed by leveraging their different, yet complimentary, skill sets, she said. 

The Hatchery helped develop GamRewired in two crucial ways: connecting Hatfield and Koralski as business partners and providing a third-party perspective, he said.

Both Hatfield and Koralski credit the Hatchery for connecting them with other like-minded entrepreneurs and peers navigating a startup journey for the first time as well. 

“When you’re working like 12, 14 hours a day, it feels like you’re missing out on the college experience. It feels like you’re missing out on life a lot of the time; but when you have someone else literally right next to you doing that, or even someone from another team doing that, it makes you feel like you’re not crazy in that sense, and it feels like you actually have a community,” said Hatfield. 

Koralski encourages other students to get involved with the Hatchery because of the direction it gave her when facing the uncertainty attached to college, graduating and career pursuits.

 “The Hatchery has provided a lot of guidance. I had an idea that I wanted to be a part of a tech startup or something like that, but I didn’t really know where to get started. The Hatchery has a really well-structured program with mentors who give feedback and open up a lot more opportunities,” Koralski said. 

GamRewired participated in Innovation Quest (iQ) and received the second-place award of $10,000. iQ is a high-stakes competition where Cal Poly students pitch their innovative business ideas to a panel of judges in the hopes of winning funding for their startups. 

“Winning iQ gave us the confidence that we are moving in the right direction. We got a lot of great feedback,” Koralski said. “It was really affirming of our idea and obviously, now we have some funding so we can start making the product come to life.” 

GamRewired has several goals in the near future, including participating in the  Summer Accelerator, an intensive 12-week program that provides Cal Poly students and recent graduates with the resources necessary to turn their innovative ideas into full-fledged startups. 

Hatfield and Koralski look forward to working with great mentors, building their team and gaining expertise in the fields of AI and cognitive behavioral therapy by working with in-field professionals through the Summer Accelerator, they said.

On a long-term scale, GamRewired hopes to combat more than just gambling addiction. A few years down the line, they aim to enter the field of therapy on a broader scale and expand from gambling addiction into other co-addictions.

Hatfield calls for a need to revolutionize the field of psychology, and believes GamRewired is “just the platform to do that.”

In a world where innovation is the key to progress, Anemo AI emerges as a beacon of hope for researchers in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) field. 

Anemo AI is accelerating the research process for STEM researchers, specifically for Computer Science (CS) statistics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). They plan to conduct Research and Development (R&D) focused on AI which helps increase the rate of innovation. R&D enables professionals to push the boundaries of possibilities and accelerate advancements in the field. 

The idea for the startup originated during Ameer Arsala’s, co-founder and computer science junior, co-led research project. While conducting AI research, Arsala encountered numerous obstacles that slowed down their research process. For the first month, they performed a literature review when the research goal is to begin experimentation as quickly as possible, Arsala explained. They wanted to speed up the process. 

Ishan Meher, co-founder and computer science sophomore, met Amira through a Cal Poly Computer Science club where he was co-leading a different project. Miguel Flora, co-founder and computer science freshman, also participated in the same clubs. After casually talking about the idea for Anemo AI and recognizing their compatibility, they collectively decided to bring their idea to fruition. 

Last fall, Meher participated in the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Startup Launch Weekend, a 52 hour-long event where innovators create interdisciplinary teams and develop a business over the weekend. From there, Ishanna learned about more CIE programs, including the CIE Hatchery. Since the co-founders developed a plan and mission for their company, they thought it would be beneficial to join the Hatchery and receive help, Ishanna said.  

The CIE Hatchery is an on-campus startup incubator open to all Cal Poly students interested in learning how to take a business from an idea to launch. Student entrepreneurs are provided with resources like mentorship, coaching and weekly workshops. 

“As a non-business major, the Hatchery helped us get a second opinion on our approaches and our strategy,” Meher said. “As Computer Science majors, we are pretty dead set on the technical side of things and it’s good to have an outside view on how to run a business.” 

As student entrepreneurs, these cofounders value the Hatchery’s role in providing a safe space to fail, Arsala said. Failure is a part of the learning process and they appreciate the environment the Hatchery fosters for that purpose. They believe their opportunity to experiment and test themselves will help in the future to deliver when it truly matters, Arsala explained. 

Looking ahead, the co-founders want to use Animo AI as a tool for their own research. They hope to use their product to accelerate their research and STEM research as a whole. 

In the near future, the cofounders hope to join the CIE Summer Accelerator program and iteratively approve their product. The Summer Accelerator is a 12-week program that provides participants the funding, hands-on mentorship and resources to build a business. 

The co-founders of Anemo AI are excited to grow their business and grow as individuals with the contribution of CIE resources. 

“The Hatchery provides a space to be around like-minded entrepreneurs and it motivates you to work on your own business,” Meher said. “I get really inspired and riled up when I see a bunch of people working on their product or company. It inspires me to take our product to the next level.” 

Starting as a small clothing pop-up in one of their grandma’s front yard, four Cal Poly students transformed their hobby into a full enterprise, with their very own store in Downtown San Luis Obispo. 

Central Coast Vintage is a vintage clothing company that curates vintage clothing to provide college students with affordable fashion.

The idea for the startup originated after co-owners Nate Smidt, Beau Gamboni, Dominic Gamboni and Austen Hanner started buying their clothes at thrift shops to cut down on expenses. Soon after, they decided to sell their old clothes at a local pop-up event. After collectively making $1,000, they decided to host their own monthly pop-ups.  

Smidt and his partners started their pop-up events in Bakersfield. They eventually moved their pop-ups to San Luis Obispo, selling at the Downtown SLO Farmers’ Market and on Cal Poly’s Dexter Lawn.

Smidt later came in contact with a local landlord and made a deal to open a store in Downtown San Luis Obispo. Central Coast Vintage had its grand opening on February 18, 2023. 

“You couldn’t even walk through the store because everyone we knew from college was there,” Smidt said. “We made 15 times we had ever made before.” 

Following the grand opening, the co-founders joined the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery.

The CIE Hatchery is an on-campus startup incubator open to all Cal Poly students interested in learning how to take a business from an idea to launch. Student entrepreneurs are provided with resources like mentorship, coaching and weekly workshops.  

Students learn the skills critical to entrepreneurship. Smidt said one of the biggest skills he learned in the program is organization.  

He also explained that working around other driven student entrepreneurs motivates him. 

“You hear so many people that are like, ‘I want to work for myself,’ and it’s really inspiring to hear all of them talking,” he said.  

Smidt and his co-owners now plan on investing the capital raised through Central Coast Vintage into a different business venture. They are working to develop an app that will help students with college housing. Smidt pitched his idea in the Hatchery and was instantly put in contact with an app developer. 

The co-founders hope to start launching more community events where college students can come and re-sell their clothing. They also plan on coming out with their own Central Coast Vintage merchandise.

Central Coast Vintage is excited to grow even more as a business and leverage Hatchery resources.

“If you are struggling to find money but you have the idea, go to the Hatchery,” Smidt said. “It is such a good way to start your business.” 

Peggy Thorp was a secretary at Rug Doctor, a carpet cleaning franchise.

Thorp was “the glue that held everything together,” said Ethan Beck, whose father owned the Rug Doctor where Thorp worked. She oversaw the logistics of the business, handling administrative work like appointment bookings and timekeeping.

When Thorp eventually retired, Beck’s father attempted to do the work that she had done. Administrative work began to consume his work days.

“He was spread so thin that he had no time at all,” Beck said.

Beck soon realized, however, that a lot of the work that Thorp had done throughout the 1990s could now be automated with software — so Beck, along with his sister Isabella, created PeggyAI, a software workflow solution that automates different business processes, such as timekeeping, equipment tracking and employee safety.

“It’s a software to automate what Peggy did,” Beck said. “Thus, PeggyAI.”

The software was originally intended to be used solely for the Becks’ family businesses, but once Beck saw how helpful it could be, he set out to bring PeggyAI to businesses everywhere.

“It’s something that everybody can benefit from,” Beck said. “Because it started with just us, we want to take that to everybody else and help as many people as we can.”

Currently, Beck’s target market is agriculture companies. Through its automated workflows, PeggyAI software allows business owners to focus on other aspects of their companies.

Beck said he wants to provide more freedom to business owners by building a platform that “gives them their time back.”

Beck, who graduated from Cal Poly in 2022 with a degree in business administration, joined the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery shortly before graduating. The Hatchery teaches Cal Poly students how to build a business by providing resources like mentors, guest speakers and workshops that teach the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. 

“The Hatchery offers so many different resources that you can tap into and really help wherever you need it,” Beck said.

Since joining the Hatchery, Beck has benefitted from coaching and mentorship that has taught him the best practices for pitching his product. He is now able to give an informative and impactful business pitch that has already attracted clients.

PeggyAI is a fully functional product that is currently serving two clients. Beck is now working to attract more users, and he said he eventually hopes to expand PeggyAI to be “the Excel of business processes.” 

PeggyAI was “made for founders,” Beck said, and he hopes to see his startup grant those founders more freedom to focus on the things that matter most.

Camille Boiteux prepared for high school track meets with water-proof mascara.

She wanted to be picture-ready for the photographers documenting the competition, and since regular mascara often smears when it comes into contact with sweat, Boiteux thought water-proof mascara was the obvious pick for sporting events.

The only issue was that water-proof mascara can be difficult to remove, even when the wearer is trying to remove it.

Boiteux struggled to effectively remove the water-proof mascara, but she didn’t blame the mascara — it was supposed to be long-lasting, after all. Instead, she identified ineffective makeup removal methods as the problem.

Two forms of makeup remover are currently on the market: cleansing pads (like makeup wipes) and oils (like micellar water). Both forms can be insufficient, leaving makeup behind and irritating the user’s eyes, Boiteux said.

So, Boiteux, now a business administration junior at Cal Poly, set out to develop a better, more effective makeup remover and founded Swish Lash.

Swish Lash is a startup developing a makeup removal product specifically for mascara. A sponge brush doused in a makeup remover solution is attached to a metal clamp so that users can swipe their eyelashes in the same motion used to apply to mascara.

Although Boiteux began workshopping the idea during high school, she didn’t begin developing Swish Lash as a business until 2022 at Startup Marathon.

Startup Marathon is a 54-hour event hosted by the Cal Poly Entrepreneurs Club during which student innovators work through the weekend to develop a startup idea. At the event, Boiteux and her co-founder, business administration sophomore Alyson Marzocco, developed the first iterations of the Swish Lash product. Their original prototype ideas included a “PacMan shaped sponge” as well as a clamp similar to an eyelash curler.

Boiteux also participated in the the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Elevator Pitch Competition (EPC), where Cal Poly students have 90 seconds to pitch their innovative ideas for the chance to win cash prizes. Swish Lash won the audience choice award of $500.

“I was so shocked [(when I won]) because I’d just heard so many great pitches,” Boiteux said. “I was literally on cloud nine.”

Boiteux is now working with a group of industrial manufacturing students to develop a working prototype of her product. She hopes to finish the prototype in time for Innovation Quest (iQ), an annual prototyping and business plan competition hosted by the CIE in April. 

“We’ve been on a positive streak from Startup Marathon to Elevator Pitch, so now we really want to compete in Innovation Quest and figure out where we go from there,” Boiteux said.

She is also working with the CIE’s on-campus Hatchery, which provides Cal Poly students with the resources needed to build a business. The program allows students to attend workshops that teach the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and connects them with seasoned entrepreneurs and mentors.

Boiteux said the mentorship she has received through the Hatchery has been “truly invaluable.”

“There’s nothing like the Hatchery that can truly offer free help,” she said. “The Hatchery, as a whole, is a great network and a great community of motivated people.”

With the help of the Hatchery, Boiteux sees Swish Lash releasing an early prototype and beginning to collect customer feedback within the next year.

Eventually, she sees Swish Lash as the one product on drug store shelves that can effortlessly and effectively remove mascara.

“I just really want to see a product that genuinely makes a difference in taking off mascara for everyone that wears it,” Boiteux said.

Kyle Burton received a cease and desist letter from Wizards of the Coast in 2022 — a letter that prompted the eventual growth of his startup, Card Conjurer.

While in high school, Burton built a website that allowed him to make custom cards for “Magic: The Gathering,” a popular collectable card game. The website grew as Burton continued to add and improve different customization features — until it grew large enough to catch the attention of Wizards of the Coast, the game’s publisher. 

Burton, now a Cal Poly software engineering major, received an email from a Wizards of the Coast representative during Fall Quarter of his junior year. The representative ordered the company’s intellectual property to be removed from Burton’s website.

“It was extremely stressful,” Burton said, “and I immediately came to the Hatchery to find some help.”

The Hatchery is a Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) program that teaches Cal Poly students the fundamentals of building a startup. The program provides students with resources that best fit their needs, including intensive workshops, mentorship and, in Burton’s case, legal counsel. The Hatchery connected Burton with an attorney who provided some insight into intellectual property law and reviewed how Burton could address the cease and desist.

In the end, Burton found that he had two options: remove the parts of the website that included Wizards of the Coast’s intellectual property or take down the website in its entirety.

“And because the site was 99% property owned by Wizards of the Coast, I took it down,” Burton said.

But the website didn’t stay down for long. Luckily, Burton already happened to be working on a remake of the website when he received the cease and desist letter.

He launched a new version of his website within the next month.

Card Conjurer is no longer a “Magic: The Gathering” card customizer — it’s a website where users can craft their own custom game cards.

“It’s very generalized,” Burton said. “It’s not a ‘Pokémon’ card maker or a ‘Magic: The Gathering’ card maker… It’s for someone who wants to design their own card game or make something fun, like throwing their pet into their own custom game card.”

The Card Conjurer website allows users to select a template, then start customizing. They can upload their own images; change the colors of the cards; or edit the style, spacing and size of the text. 

The website is fully functional, but Burton is using the connections he’s built in the Hatchery to turn Card Conjurer into a sustainable business. 

“The Hatchery has helped me grow as an entrepreneur, primarily by forming connections and being a really great place to network,” Burton said. “I’ve been able to get some really great advice from the mentors at the Hatchery regarding monetization.”

The Card Conjurer website is currently free and runs entirely on donations. Burton’s advisors at the Hatchery are helping him identify the best method of monetization for the website. He is currently leaning towards “the freemium route,” which would allow users to continue accessing the website for free and unlock additional features for a small fee.

Burton said he is starting to integrate those paid features into the website. Once the website is fully updated, he said he intends to focus on advertising, leveraging social media and influencer partnerships to drive users to Card Conjurer.

He said he intends to put in the work necessary to make Card Conjurer the new standard for game card customization by scaling the website to include all of the features needed to make a complete card game, then promoting the finished website.

“I want Card Conjurer to be the name that people think of whenever they want to start designing a custom card game,” he said.

Thomas Telles first learned about the concept of reverse logistics from a podcast.

Reverse logistics is a supply chain process, sometimes referred to as an “aftermarket supply chain.” Currently, retailers throw away about a quarter of their returns, according to NPR. Reverse logistics would reduce that waste, as retailers would repair, refurbish or recycle returned products for resale.

The concept intrigued Telles, an environmental earth and soil sciences junior at Cal Poly, and became the inspiration for his startup, Returney.

Returney is localizing returns in order to reduce unnecessary waste. When a consumer returns a product, that product often travels cross-country to get back to the manufacturer, according to Telles. Returney would implement local return centers, reducing travel costs and pollution.

With Returney, products would no longer be returned to the manufacturer. They would go to one of the startup’s localized return centers, which would function similarly to consignment or thrift stores.

Telles began developing the startup in 2022 and brought the idea to the Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery. The Hatchery is an on-campus program that teaches student entrepreneurs how to develop their startup ideas.

For Telles, the program served as a crash course in entrepreneurship. The Hatchery broke down the startup process into steps that were easily digestible for students with minimal entrepreneurship experience, like Telles.

“The Hatchery is willing to take care of you so you’re not overwhelmed with all the details of starting a business,” Telles said.

The program also helped Telles refine his startup idea. When he first started in the Hatchery, Returney was an abstract concept. With the help of mentors in the Hatchery, called Entrepreneurs in Residence, Telles was able to simplify his idea, making it more feasible. 

“It’s kind of a complicated field, so my idea has shifted completely since I began,” Telles explained. “When I began, it was a very convoluted idea. Now, it’s a pretty simple one, and one that I hope to bring to market sooner rather than later.”

Telles is currently in the market research stages. He is contacting apparel companies to learn about their return processes, as well as consignment and thrift stores to gain insight into the secondhand item market, which Telles said “is skyrocketing”.

By the end of the academic year, Telles hopes to have sufficient industry insight — enough to join the CIE’s Summer Accelerator, an intensive 12-week program that provides Cal Poly students and recent graduates with the resources needed to turn their startup ideas into real, scalable businesses, including $10,000 in seed funding.

Telles said he looks forward to growing Returney and normalizing a more sustainable return process, which he said could benefit the environment.

“Reverse logistics is inherently a sustainable model, and so if we (can implement it), then I think that would be very ideal,” Telles said.

Thomas Soares was “talking trash” when inspiration struck. 

Soares wasn’t “talking trash” in the traditional sense. He was discussing the recycling industry and learning which materials are and are not recyclable. That is when he had the idea for Clear Bin.

Clear Bin is a mobile application working to reduce contamination rates for curbside recycling across the United States.

Curbside recycling is considered contaminated when a recycling collection contains materials “not accepted into residents’ curbside program” or acceptable materials with “unacceptable amounts of residue,” according to the Recycling Partnership’s 2020 State of Curbside Recycling Report. More than 30 percent of residential recycling is considered contaminated, according to the same report.

One contributing factor to this high contamination rate is residents not knowing which materials are and are not recyclable, Soares said. Clear Bin is attempting to resolve that issue. 

Clear Bin users can take a picture of an item, and the app will inform them whether the material is recyclable or not. It also informs users whether the item is of acceptable quality, and if it needs to be cleaned, dried or otherwise altered before it can be recycled.

Soares, an architectural engineering senior, is working with computer science seniors Ruhi Prasad and Jack Fales, to build the Clear Bin app.

Soares is also working with the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery, an on-campus resource designed to help Cal Poly students develop their startup ideas. The Hatchery connected Soares to the resources needed for both Clear Bin’s development and his own professional development.

“The Hatchery has definitely given me a lot of confidence to be able to put myself out there,” he said. 

Students do not need any prior business or entrepreneurship experience before joining the Hatchery. The program provides plenty of opportunities for students like Soares, who started Clear Bin with no formal business education or experience, to learn about entrepreneurship in ways that appeal to them.

“The Hatchery has done a great job of making this more about problem solving,” Soares said. “From an engineering perspective, I love the rational, practical thought, and the Hatchery has been able to break down entrepreneurship like this, in a way that I enjoy.”

The Clear Bin team is currently focusing on app development and working towards launching a program. Soares hopes to eventually help communities throughout the United States reduce their waste.

“There is a big divide with the understanding of what is and is not recyclable,” Soares said. “If we’re able to communicate and work with people and haulers and recycling companies across the United States, that’s when I’ll be able to sleep at night.”

Zander Sheffield spent his high school years purchasing shoes at department and wholesale stores, then reselling them online for a profit. He would then use his profits to buy more shoes.

“I was kind of like a shoe hoarder at one point,” he said.

Now a third year industrial technology and packaging major at Cal Poly, Sheffield is using his knowledge of the footwear industry to pursue a new business endeavor and build his own startup, Yardy Shoes.

Yardy Shoes is providing greater longevity for children’s footwear with an extendable shoe system that can be adjusted to several different sizes. It’s a cost-effective solution for the 65% of children who wear ill-fitting shoes, Sheffield said.

Sheffield’s began developing Yardy Shoes in 2020, when he discovered the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery.

The Hatchery is an on-campus resource designed to help Cal Poly students develop their startup ideas. Sheffield stumbled across the Hatchery while looking through the Cal Poly website during quarantine.

“When COVID first broke out, we all got sent home, and I just didn’t know what to do with my time,” Sheffield said. “I was going through the Cal Poly website and found the Hatchery. I’d always had an idea for a shoe business, so I just thought, ‘Why not?’ and applied.”

The Hatchery introduced Sheffield to the basics of entrepreneurship and provided opportunities to learn and network.

Sheffield also found mentorship through the Hatchery program. CIE director of student innovation programs and Cal Poly Orfalea College of Business lecturer Jose Huitron connects Sheffield to resources that can help grow Yardy Shoes.

Other student entrepreneurs like Alexandra Joelson and Samuel Andrews, co-founders of Intego Technology, a startup creating the most durable and sustainable footwear on the market.

The Intego Technology team began participating in CIE programs in 2019, when Joelson won the CIE Elevator Pitch Competition (EPC). They joined the Hatchery shortly after their win at EPC. 

Now, the Intego Technology team is able to share their experience with new CIE entrepreneurs, like Sheffield.

“They’ve been a big help, especially when I first started out,” Sheffield said. “I had no idea what a patent was, I didn’t know the steps that were needed to make a shoe business. Sam and Alexandra have been a big help mentoring us.”

Sheffield’s team also includes computer science junior Arden Ozdere, general engineering junior Vincent Corella, entrepreneurship sophomore Erin Powers and materials engineering junior Chris Murray.

The startup team is currently working to generate prototype ideas and assess the viability of those ideas. Once their prototypes are completed, they plan to reach out to potential customers — parents whose children can wear the shoes and test the product.

The Yardy Shoes team hopes their product will eventually “change the world in a positive way,” Sheffield said. 

Shoes put, on average, 30 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to Sheffield. Yardy Shoe’s extendible shoe will reduce the overall number of shoes needed, and therefore reduce carbon output.

“Long term, I just want to create something that’s good for the world,” Sheffield said.

John Shaw’s interest in 3D-printing began when he got his first car.

Shaw drove a Nissan Altima, a model of car with a rubber strip that commonly loosens and disconnects from its place on the underside of the vehicle. The same problem happened to Shaw’s car, but when he approached a mechanic looking to repair the piece, he was told the auto repair shop did not keep those parts in-stock.

Shaw decided to literally create his own solution to the problem, and 3D-print a replacement part. The project was simple and successful and helped Shaw realize 3D-printing could help streamline engineering and manufacturing industries. 

Now a fifth-year aerospace engineering student at Cal Poly, Shaw is working to improve the capabilities of 3D-printing in order to accelerate innovation within the manufacturing industry.

Shaw is founder of Hedron Design, a startup digitizing the supply chain to transform manufacturing into a platform. This is accomplished “by integrating quality control, automation and things like distribution in enterprise resource planning into [manufacturer’s] workflow,” Shaw said.

Shaw later brought the startup to the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Hatchery, an on-campus resource designed to help Cal Poly students develop their startup ideas.

The Hatchery provided Shaw with an introduction into entrepreneurship — a very different discipline than engineering. 

“Being an engineer, everything is about the solution, and there’s usually only one set way to do things, and you’re expected to find a complete answer at the end,” Shaw said. “But with entrepreneurship, you can take so many different avenues and approaches to solving a problem.”

Shaw is also working alongside Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) student Adam Heymann to build Hedron Design.

The Hatchery connected Shaw and Heymann with mentors who can help them navigate the startup process. CIE director of student innovation programs and Cal Poly Orfalea College of Business lecturer Jose Huitron has been a valuable resource, Shaw said.

Huitron advises the Hedron Design team and “not only helps bounce ideas around, but validates that we’re doing the right things at the right time,” Shaw said.

Shaw said he hopes Hedron Design can create a greener manufacturing industry. Traditional manufacturing methods require large machines which cut down a base material into the shape of the part. 3D-printing, meanwhile, begins with fine materials which are built upon until the part is created, so “there is significantly less waste material,” according to Shaw.

Hedron Design has the potential to increase access to 3D-printing, creating a greener manufacturing space.

“The benefits of 3D-printing are not only economically awesome, but also benefit the environment,” Shaw said. “I want to see the future of manufacturing being greener, and I think what we’re doing with Hedron Design can genuinely help with that.”