Ajai Karthikeyan is Invictus

If you are a Tech student, you have probably already heard about the new organization on campus called the Young Entrepreneurs Society. Even if you are not, you might have read about us on AtlanTech. Well, here is the story of how this organization started.

I had some vague ideas forming in my head ever since Atlanta Startup Weekend 2. I was not sure of what exactly what they were until around 5 am on the way to a late dinner/early breakfast after a really long night of FIREwall work.

I realized that morning that not many Tech students to my knowledge were commercializing their ideas.A couple great ideas were out there, but the money was not rolling in. I was talking to a couple friends and we realized that you never hear about a Facebook or Google that came out of Georgia Tech.

My first step was to organize my ideas and put it down on paper. I created a business plan for the organization (which at that time was called the SEC: Society for Entrepreneurs in Computing). I revised this several times, each time receiving input from fellow students, entrepreneurs, faculty and administrators at Tech. Props go to Vinutha Prabhakar, Shaun Zacharia, Chris Stuckey, Josh Silver and Kristin Marsicano who gave me a lot of input and whether they know it or not, their input did cause some changes from my original idea.

Once I had a final plan ready, I approached Cedric Stallworth (Assistant Dean of Outreach, Enrollment and Community for the College of Computing at Tech). Over lunch we discussed how the society was going to work (and whether it was going to work) and by the end of the hour I had $1,500 in funding to get this off the ground. Two days later, I met with Merrick Furst (Former Associate Dean of the College of Computing) who not only agreed to be the advisor for this organization but also offered $1,000 in funding.

After some thinking over how I was actually going to do this (and whether I was going to be able to do it) over the break, I got onto working on marketing the organization and getting speakers lined up as soon as I got back in Atlanta. Terris Johnson was kind enough to make the logo for this new organization. Special thanks to Mary Alice Blane of the College of Computing for her help in getting speakers. Stephen Fleming was the first speaker we got lined up and props to him for replying to my email, offering his help within 2 minutes of me sending the email.

Since then, we have had 5 great speakers including David Sung, Jeff Levy, Sig Mosley and Lance Weatherby. Our speaker sessions get about 30-40 people each week and a dozen or so come to the weekly thursday meetings and this number is only growing. We are already integrating ourselves with the Atlanta Startup Community. Recently, we were able to send a couple students to Startup Riot.

For the future, my goals for this organization are to provide students with the resources and access they need to be successful entrepreneurs. We have only just begun and there is a long way to go and any help is welcome. Look forward to seeing you at our next meeting.