Fair draws students to learn about entrepreneurship groups

Staff Reporters

Zoe Berg

Organizations from Yale and beyond set up tables on Cross Campus on Tuesday for an entrepreneurship fair.

The Yale Entrepreneurship and Innovation Expo serves to help students learn about classes, workshops, hackathons and startups at Yale. The groups present ranged from Design for America, a club that encourages students to work on community-oriented design projects, to Tsai CITY — the Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale.

Though many attendees were first years, older students — and some from graduate schools — came as well.

Max Troppmann ’29 said he visited the fair hoping to learn more about engineering-focused extracurricular opportunities at Yale.

Though he was familiar with Tsai CITY before coming to Yale, he said he hadn’t heard of some of the other organizations at the fair.

“There are many helpful resources, newsletters to sign up for, and other general information that each of these clubs or organizations are making accessible for students,” Troppmann told the News.

Justin Baldassarre ’28, the director of science for the student-run startup Simplex Sciences, said he was looking to meet students who would “gel” with the students in Simplex and contribute to the club’s culture as a “playground to innovate.”

“One of the good things is that this company is really designed to be managed by students and passed from older students down to younger students,” Baldassarre said. Xinzhi Qiu ’27, the chief executive officer of Simplex Sciences, contacted the News after the initial publication of this article online to clarify that it is a nonprofit organization.

But not all organizations at the expo were based at Yale or run by students.

Candy Hwang — the associate director of the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale, part of Yale Ventures — represented the separate organization Women in Bio at the fair.

Women in Bio aims to address the gender disparity in leadership positions, Hwang said. She stressed the importance of early intervention and mentorship for women.

Trinell Ball came to the fair to promote FORGE, a nonprofit unaffiliated with Yale that helps entrepreneurs manufacture physical products.

“We’ve worked a lot with Yale students,” Ball, the organization’s program director for Connecticut, said. “And we have a ton of success stories.”

FORGE helps its clients through many stages of product development, from designing a prototype to determining a scale for manufacturing, Ball said. He added that it also provides product development grants to boost some of its entrepreneurs.

Duurenzaya Bukhbat SOM ’26, who came to Yale from Mongolia, said he wanted to explore entrepreneurship on campus.

“The main reason why I came to this event today is to, of course, explore Tsai CITY, learn more about them, meet the people and just get a vibe check,” Bukhbat told the News.

Tsai CITY is located at 17 Prospect St.

Correction, Aug. 28: An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of Candy Hwang, the associate director of the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale.

Correction, Aug. 28: This article previously misspelled the name of Justin Baldassarre ’28.

Correction, Aug. 28: This article previously misspelled the name of Max Troppmann ’29.

Clarification, Aug. 28: This article has been updated to clarify that Simplex Sciences is a nonprofit organization, according to Chief Executive Officer Xinzhi Qiu ’27. Justin Baldassarre ’28, the director of science, had called Simplex Sciences a company in an interview with the News.