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Learn from Fellows working at cutting-edge companies across the United States.
Many patients are afraid of invasive procedures required for medical diagnosis – to the point that they avoid visiting doctors. Because of that, patients miss an opportunity to discover a disease at an early stage, when it's more curable. So it's important for medical professionals to create devices that are not only effective, but comfortable and non-invasive. In this Build Project, you'll wear the hat of a Design Engineer and prepare a conceptual design for a device that improves patient experience in urodynamics testing and diagnosis focused on alternative test apparatus for a mechanical uroflow. Under the supervision of an experienced Project Leader, you’ll apply bio-mechanical design principles and use CAD software like SolidWorks to visualize your concept for a device that better meets patient's needs. All this will happen in an environment that simulates the operations of a real medical device development team.
The complexity of material usage represents a big challenge in architectural and engineering design and the overcoming of that challenge is a great advantage for those who achieve it. In this Build Project you will go through the process of Shop Drawings creation for the ACM scope of work and learn how the panels are sketched. Under the supervision of an experienced industry expert, you will be able to draw details for specific conditions of the building, recommend the solutions for better material usage and choose which systems are the best for the specific design. Your Project Leader will provide you with insight into panel fabrication process while giving you the concrete knowledge applicable in this always evolving industry. This will happen in an environment that stimulates the operations of a real team that creates Shop Drawings.
Cell-based immunotherapy is a rapidly evolving field that has revolutionized cancer treatment. In this project, you will have the opportunity to propose a theoretical cell-based immunotherapy candidate after reviewing the current industry trends. Under the guidance of an experienced industry specialist, you will learn fundamental concepts and processes relevant to the development of cell-based immunotherapy products. This is an excellent opportunity for early researchers to delve into the science behind cell-based immunotherapies and get exposure to relevant skills crucial for research-based roles in this field.
In this Finance Modeling Project, you'll step into the shoes of a Quantitative Analyst and construct a Treasury Yield Curve from scratch. Under the supervision of an experienced industry expert, you'll analyze market data and implement a mathematical model in Python to estimate term structures of interest rates. You'll become familiar with industry tools and methodologies for data manipulation and bootstrapping techniques for yield curve construction. All this will provide invaluable hands-on experience crucial for entry-level roles in finance, where proficiency in quantitative modeling and data analysis is highly valued.
Wise financial planning is crucial for the success of any business; it becomes especially important for startups that have ambitious growth goals and limited resources. In this Build Project, you'll wear the hat of a Financial Analyst and build a full-year budget that allows a fictional startup to understand its expenses and how much capital is needed to cover all business costs. You will create in Microsoft Excel a budget for employees’ salaries & benefits using dynamic formulas. Also, you’ll create a budget for professional service fees. Under the supervision of an experienced Build Fellow, you'll learn best practices in Financial Planning, specifics of operational and capital expenditure budgeting, and how to use Excel to create solid forecasting schedules. All this will happen in an environment that simulates the operations of a real Financial Planning & Analysis team.
Cell therapy refers to the transplantation of autologous or allogeneic cells into patients to treat diseases or repair damaged tissues. However, the gap between research-scale proof of concept and clinical patient doses is significant and multifaceted. This build project aims to explore key aspects of bridging the gap between R&D and clinical application in stem cell therapy, focusing on scalable/automated cell differentiation process development and cell-based analytical techniques.
You will delve into various types of bioreactors and close-system cell processing instruments, get exposed to different analytical techniques for cell phenotyping and drug efficacy assessment, and conduct an experimental proposal using the design of experiment (DoE) concept. The project will also introduce the drug commercialization process from the perspective of CMC (chemistry, manufacturing, controls) team. You will draft master batch records and raw material risk assessments, documents required for ensuring the drug consistent productivity and quality. This comprehensive project will equip you with practical skills in designing and scaling-up cell differentiation processes, applying advanced cell-based analytical techniques, and preparing documents related to therapeutics safety and regulatory compliance.
Innovation is powered by funding yet the relationship between startup founders and investors is often marked by misaligned incentives and conflicting interests. Receiving funding from reputable Venture Capital (VC) firms is a strong positive signal of success for any entrepreneur, yet many founders could benefit from gaining a deeper understanding of what institutional VC investors look for when identifying their next big investment opportunity.
In this Build Project, you will put yourself in the position of a private institutional investor and analyze the performance factors of a successful venture portfolio, practice negotiating a term sheet, and develop an investment memo pitching a compelling startup investment opportunity to an Investment Committee. With the guidance of a professional with private institutional investing experience, you will calculate a venture portfolio’s performance metrics and practice identifying and pitching startup investments. You will master the fundamentals of key startup valuation metrics and portfolio management basics such as calculating pre-/post-money valuations, portfolio performance metrics, and others. This project will stimulate the operations of a venture capital firm and provide holistic insights into the skills both venture investors and founders need for success in the competitive venture ecosystem.
RNA-seq has been selected as one of the most reliable assays in biotech research for studying gene expression level. In fact, this assay has emerged as a widely used technique for quantifying all gene expression levels. In this Build Project, you’ll imagine you assume the role of a research associate for a well-known company. They have decided to assign you the task of on boarding this assay with the purpose of investigating gene expression levels within the context of assessing the genetic tool your company has developed as part of curing genetic disorders. You will be exposed to common therapeutic approaches being conducted at molecular level and will dive deeper into different next generation sequencing technologies. These experiences represent the daily task of a research associate in the biotech industry and will be a good learning curve as part of your career development.
The need of the hour is to transition over to clean renewable energy for our electricity demand. With the climate change moving to an irreversible tipping point, both state and federal governments along with international authorities have introduced policies (administrative and monetary) to support the building and operations of renewable energy power plants. This opens many entry-level opportunities for firms that build, own, and operate these plants and are in constant need of engineers to support their mission and vision.
In this Build Project, you’ll wear the hat of an electrical engineer and develop and present a utility scale power plant project proposal. Under the supervision of an experienced industry expert, you’ll run simulations on the project’s electrical output, showcasing the project’s electrical power and energy calculations, and would also provide cost and financing models. You’ll become familiar with industry tools like PVSyst, PVWatts, and Microsoft Excel, for project cost and finance. All this will happen in an environment that simulates the operations of a real electrical engineering project development team.
"When the economy goes south, the ad market is the first thing to go." While most business sayings should be taken with a grain of salt, this one has proven to be particularly true in recent years. In the midst of economic downturns, global pandemics and the resulting change in consumer behavior, businesses all over the world have been struggling to identify new and creative ways of efficiently engaging and acquiring net new customers at a profit.
In this Build Project, you’ll wear the hat of a Customer Success Manager and perform an opportunity analysis to determine which geographical markets a client should invest in. Under the supervision of an experienced Build Fellow, you’ll research customer behavior in various European markets, conduct a cohesive customer data analysis and create forecasts for expansion opportunities. You’ll become familiar with data analysis tools in Excel and business pitch techniques.
Contracts are a part of everyone’s business experience. Whether you are founding your own corporation or working as an employee, you will see more than one contract in your work life. It is important to know what to look for, to know how to use them, and that you are not daunted by them. This Build Project will show you how to analyze common business contracts. With guidance from an entrepreneur with previous Legal Counsel experience, you will also develop the tools you need to review and assess contracts through the utilization of templates.
This project is for everyone. Are you an engineer wanting to start your own company, a communications major signing on to work for an organization, or a business student interested in closing your first business deal? This project will give you the skills you need to assess contracts. Your signature means a lot, so sign up for this groundbreaking project today!
This project aims to explore key aspects of gene editing and gene therapy, focusing on current techniques, historical evolution, and the associated challenges. You will delve into the mechanisms and applications of gene editing technologies, understand how they have evolved from early experiments to sophisticated tools used in modern biotechnology and medicine. Utilizing bioinformatics tools, you will conduct an analysis to understand disease modalities, interpreting genomic data to identify and characterize structural variants, and assessing their potential impact on gene function and disease progression.
The project will also investigate genomic instability and off-target effects that can arise from gene editing, emphasizing their implications for therapeutic safety and efficacy. Additionally, you will explore the role of bioinformatics as a powerful tool for deciphering disease modalities, leveraging computational approaches to analyze genomic data and understand disease mechanisms at a molecular level.
Through this comprehensive exploration, this Build Project seeks to equip you with a deep understanding of the complexities and potentials of gene editing technologies in healthcare and biotechnology. You will produce a report about the evolution and current state of gene editing techniques, including a historical overview of gene therapy. It will also cover the mechanisms of genomic instability and off-target effects resulting from gene editing, providing insights into their implications for therapeutic safety and efficacy.
Industrial fermentation plays a significant role in reaching the U.S ambitious net-zero emissions economy by 2050 by enabling production of sustainable alternative to fuels and chemicals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The industry needs qualified scientists, associate scientists, research associates and engineers now more than ever.
In this Build Project, you will wear the hat of a Fermentation Scientist and develop a roadmap for bio-ethanol production using industrial fermentation. Under the supervision of an experienced industry expert, you will visualize various fermentation process parameters, understand the trends over time, and calculate metrics to identify the areas of improvement to increase key performance metrics like yield and productivity to make a process more economic and profitable. You will become familiar with different fermentation types, equipment, culture media, microbes etc. for different end applications. All this will happen in an environment that simulates the operations of a real bioprocess development team.
In this project, students will tackle the exciting challenge of virtual enzyme inhibitor screening for drug discovery. Their task is to navigate through vast public databases, select a target enzyme, and design potential inhibitors using computational tools. Through hands-on virtual experiments, students will analyze docking results, predict ADMET properties, and ultimately identify promising drug candidates. By mastering these skills, students will be well-equipped for entry-level roles in the pharmaceutical industry, where the ability to leverage computational tools for drug discovery is highly valued and in demand today.
The concept of the frontier forms the basis of portfolio theory, which pertains to how investors seek to build a portfolio that maximizes expected returns while managing a certain level of risk. It aids investors in comprehending the risks and rewards within their portfolios, assessing how they stack up against the most efficient array of portfolios. In the finance field, you're likely to come across discussions on the efficient frontier in finance research papers or on financial news channels like Bloomberg or CNBC. Are you interested in discovering how to create a frontier from scratch and understanding its advantages and limitations? Would you like to delve into the fundamentals of portfolio management? If so, this project is perfect for you.
In this Build Project, you'll step into the role of a Regulatory Affairs Specialist and tackle the challenge of navigating the complex and variable regulations governing medical devices. Working under the guidance of an experienced industry expert, you'll develop a regulatory strategy document that addresses the nuances of regulations across different countries. Through this project, you'll become proficient in interpreting guidelines and ensuring compliance, gaining valuable skills essential for success in the medical device industry. You'll also gain insights into maintaining consistent adherence to quality management systems, a crucial aspect of any medical device company's operations.
Mass-produced products are often designed to be manufactured quickly and in a cost-effective process. The traditional design of a product leads to tradeoffs in quality, safety, and reliability. In this Build Project, students will redesign 3 popular consumer products using basic and advanced engineering design principles. Students will identify problems and use TRIZ, Morphological charts, Biomimicry, data driven methods, etc. to modify the existing product.
Students will also perform DFMEA, PFMEA and follow standard industry guidelines to reach an economically feasible solution. During this project, you will learn engineering failure modes, causes and effects, perform Root cause analysis, prepare fishbone charts and use basic cost analysis for all consumer products. The tools used during this project are a staple of the manufacturing industry and will provide a great boost to students when they are showcased while working on a project.
Marketing is all about ideas and numbers. In this project, we combine them both. We will first get to know what companies want when it comes to social media marketing campaigns, and how to impress them and get their budget, then we will investigate how to deliver a good result. We will be talking about influencer marketing, content marketing, data gathering, data analysis, business negotiations, platform relation management, and much more. All the project and material you use came directly from our previous for-profit projects. At the end of the project, I will have available internship opportunities for students to apply for.
Knowing how to conduct a market research is a very valuable skill for anyone who plans to work in the business industry, no matter what role you want to play. In this Build Project, you'll wear the hat of a Market Research Analyst and provide recommendations on how Fizz can enter the Online Marketplace app space specifically for Gen Z users. Under the supervision of an experienced Build Fellow, you'll collect primary data using market research surveys and focus groups to understand the needs and wants of the customer base. You'll use secondary data like market reports from Statista to evaluate the importance of the trends emerged through the survey analysis. You'll become familiar with data collection, data analysis and trend spotting – and how these tasks can be performed in tools like Excel and Tableau. All this will happen in an environment that simulates the operations of a real Market Research and Analysis team.
In this project, you'll wear the hat of equity research analyst, and pitch a stock idea with compelling thesis and financial projects. Under the supervision of an experienced Project Leader, you'll conduct fundamental research and financial modeling to support your stock idea. You'll become familiar with financial modeling and valuation techniques like financial statements including income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement. All this will happen in an environment that simulates the operations of a real equity research team.
Under the tangled global impacts from all directions, the turbulence of the current financial market makes it hard to predict and invest. At this moment, studying tail risk (known as the extreme loss from an asset or portfolio and represented at the left tail of the return distribution) and designing tail hedge strategies has become more critical to protect against severe market distress. In this project, you'll wear the hat of Financial Engineer and study tail hedge strategies as potential investment models for controlling significant drawdown risks. Under the supervision of an experienced Build Fellow, you'll construct, implement and measure the performance of tail hedge strategies empirically using more than 15 years of index and option data. You'll also formulate your own opinion on the strategies’ behavior for the future potential market move and provide cost-effective recommendations for clients. You will use Pandas, Numpy and Matplotlib Python libraries to analyze strategies and build your own functions on selecting, exiting and entering option positions.
It is virtually impossible to successfully and efficiently sell a product, service, concept or even idea, without a clear strategy. With all the noise and continuously emerging competition, for any budding entrepreneur, this is more critical now than ever. In this Build Project, you’ll wear the hat of a Marketing Director and design a blueprint for success for a new product launch. This unique experience will give you the opportunity to step into the shoes of a senior leader and help you understand the ‘why’ and ‘what’ vs. the ‘how,’ which is where junior roles are mostly focused.
Don’t worry! You will not be on your own. Under the supervision of an experienced industry expert, you will devise a bottom-up marketing strategy, starting from the overarching big idea, derived from insights, through to the plan, execution and tracking. You’ll become familiar with market research, commercial strategy and marketing & media tactics. All of this will happen in an environment that simulates the operations for a real team and your project leader will support you through the process.
Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a must-have skill for Architecture professionals as it provides a comprehensive and efficient way to design and document. It streamlines communication between different disciplines and facilitates the project delivery process in a market where fast-tracking has become a norm.
In this Build Project, you will design a simple residential project and generate schematic drawings using BIM software. The program will equip you with entry-level skills in the Architecture industry such as making design decisions and creating graphic representation.
The Build Fellowship helps nonprofits advance their mission-driven programs and enrich the U.S. economy with world-class global talent.
