Berkeley eHub creates ‘brave space’ for student entrepreneurs to take risks

Last spring, Ashwin Joshi, BA 28, could often be found tucked away in an upstairs corner at the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Hub, working on plans for his startup, InstaTrain, which is building AI avatars to help train front desk hotel staff. 

“Dawn (McGee, the eHub’s executive director) calls it ‘my spot’,” said Joshi, who has also taken advantage of the Berkeley StEP Program and the Y Combinator AI Startup School. Joshi is among an increasing number of aspiring entrepreneurs who have found their way to the eHub, which opened its doors in February 2025. As momentum continues to grow, the eHub has big plans and some new offerings for the coming year.

The fall semester kicks off with Start Something@the eHub, three weeks of social and entrepreneurship exploration activities. The eHub is also offering a new “Find Your Problem” app designed to help students navigate a starting point in entrepreneurship; a self-guided eHub Entrepreneurship Activity Card Set that provides students with structure without requiring program membership; and an AI-driven community app that helps students find other students working on similar problems or to find students with particular skills.

The eHub’s goal is multipurpose. It serves as a starting point for students trying to navigate the some-100 separate entities devoted to innovation and entrepreneurship on campus—including incubators, accelerators, competitions, and hackathons. It’s also a beautifully remodeled Julia Morgan house that provides a home to meeting space, programs, and mentorship for students at different stages of the startup journey. 

Many students arrive as curious beginners, McGee said.

“One of the greatest challenges students have in terms of accessing entrepreneurship is they don’t have an idea to work on,”she said. 

Students who become eHub members (they’re 510 members strong so far) can choose from one of three tracks. The first, the SEARCH track, is designed to help students find one. The second track, called TEST, helps them validate their idea, so they know they’re pursuing something of value. The third track, BUILD, is for students who are further along. All tracks begin this October.

Bharath Kurapati, EWMBA 26, joined the BUILD track online last spring to ramp up work on his startup, FeatureBox AI.  Through the program, he met startup founder and mentor Pancrazio Auteri, who helped him perfect his startup pitch. Within weeks, Kurapati was on stage at UC LAUNCH Demo Day, pitching FeatureBox AI, which is building technology for AI-driven inventory forecasting. Kurapati scored second place, walked away with $15,000 in seed money, and now has 10 paying customers.

Mentoring is in huge demand at the eHub, said Saikat Chaudhuri, Faculty Director of the eHub and the Management, Entrepreneurship & Technology (M.E.T.) Program. He noted plans to beef up the mentoring opportunities in the months ahead.“Entrepreneurs’ interests and needs tend to be very specialized,” Chaudhuri said. “The goal is to be able to provide highly specific matches to meet students’ needs.”

InstaTrain’s Joshi said that he found the eHub in-person meetings beneficial.“As a founder, there’s a lot of volatility, and it’s great to have something stable, where you have these dedicated meetings on Fridays and access to that office space,” he said.

Connecting students to dozens of startup resources across campus is also critical to the eHub program. 

Hannah Wissotzky, BS 27, founder of startup Quilly, began working with Karenna Rehorn, the eHub’s “Navigator,” last year to find and fill out applications for different startup competitions. Their work led Wissotsky to enter the Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge, which named her a finalist for her AI-powered platform designed to help women in college build stronger support systems.

Isabel D’Elia, MBA 26, co-president of Female Founders & Funders at Berkeley, is also working on an AI startup, joining the BUILD track after completing more than 100 customer interviews during her Lean Launchpad course at Haas. D’Elia said she’s found McGee to be an invaluable resource. “She’s just connected me to a lot of people who have been really helpful,” she said. “I think that when you’re early in your entrepreneurship journey, bouncing ideas around with people who have done this in the past is just so incredibly beneficial.”

McGee says she’s proud of the supportive culture that’s developed at the eHub in such a short time. “Students who end up coming to Berkeley are trained in the idea that they need to achieve and do well,” she says. “They’re used to performing and presenting polished experiences. We create a space where they can put this down for a while and try things that are risky. They can be brave.”

BUILD group member, Luis Torrealba, MBA 26, founder of Cata Tools, which is using AI to help manufacturing teams make decisions faster and more effectively, said he’s grateful for all of the support. “I got to learn how people are navigating their entrepreneurial journey and understand the different aspects of the struggle that comes along with it,” he said. “It’s a great way to build community and have a supportive group of peers that are going through the same things as you when trying to start a company.”