Lehigh University Scenes from South Mountain

How did you spend your Summer Vacation? Here at Lehigh’s mountaintop campus, six student teams participated in the first-ever LaunchBayC student business accelerator through Lehigh’s Baker Institute for Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation and the Mountaintop Experience. The 10-week accelerator focused on early-stage student companies, including a startup in women’s apparel launched by Jessica Ernst ‘14, who created designs and is having prototype garments made, building upon her passion for the outdoors and commitment to manufacturing in the U.S. as well as utilizing local materials. LaunchBayC provided coworking space, product development/maker space, and an entrepreneur-in-residence who offered venture development programming and orchestrated mentoring by experienced entrepreneurs. Students worked full time on projects ranging from toys for children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder to aquarium devices - developing ideas, designing and prototyping products, and field testing sustainable business models. Financial stipends and prototyping funds helped the students participate in the program and develop their ideas and projects.