BU Today Features BU Spark! Director Ziba Cranmer
BU Spark! is an initiative for student-centered entrepreneurship and innovation in computing led by Ziba Cranmer. BU Spark! is incubated at the Hariri Institute for Computing and aims to utilize programs, activities, resources, and networks at BU to empower students to pursue next-stage development of their ideas, concepts, and creations for computing and data-driven technology. As BU Spark! Director, “Cranmer’s tasks include Creating a supportive community for student innovators and developing programs and activities to serve their needs and raise the visibility of student entrepreneurship at BU.” BU Today spoke with Cranmer to discuss her extensive leadership background in fostering innovation and her future goals for BU Spark!:
Created with $1 million gift from the Mullen Family Foundation and based at the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering, BU Spark! is a new incubator for technology-driven student entrepreneurship. The initiative will offer programs and resources to help students pursue next-stage development of projects.
“It’s really about supporting students to take their ideas to the next level, and that can be a commercial venture or developing some tool that could benefit society,” says Spark! director Ziba Cranmer. “A lot of students have said to me already, ‘We’ve got this thing, what do we do with it? What now?’ I can really help them leverage expertise across colleges and centers at the University to bring the skills and the tools they will need.”
BU Spark! will support ventures driven by computer science, engineering, and related disciplines. Help and advice is available from several sources, including Hariri Institute programming experts, the Questrom School of Business BUzz Lab, and graphic designers from the College of Fine Arts, Cranmer says, as well as alumni with expertise to share or money to invest.
“There’s no end to who can get involved and what can be created,” says BU trustee Alicia Mullen (CAS’83), founder and principal of the early-stage investment fund Washing Pond Ventures, who studied computer science at BU. The donation from the Mullen Family Foundation, started by her and her husband, Tim Mullen, will fund the first five years of BU Spark!