Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts

Innovation Month: Entrepreneurial Swag Giveaway!
2026-09-10 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | MA
Stop by the Campus Center for some seriously fun swag (you’ll have to see it to believe it), chat with our student ambassadors, and discover the entrepreneurial and innovative resources waiting for you at Tufts. No registration, no pressure — just good vibes and cool stuff.
This Innovation Month event is hosted by Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts. Learn more at derbyecenter.tufts.edu.

Innovation Month: Entrepreneurial Taco Social
2026-09-15 17:00 - 19:00 | MA
Tacos, tunes, and top-tier networking — what more could you ask for? Swing by the Derby Entrepreneurship Center’s Taco Social for a laid-back night of good food and even better connections. Mingle with fellow student innovators, swap ideas with faculty and staff, and get the inside scoop on academics, business plan competitions, and co-curricular opportunities. Catch lightning talks from alumni who’ve turned their Tufts hustle into real-world ventures, plus rapid-fire pitches from campus clubs looking for their next great member. Come hungry, leave inspired.

This Innovation Month event is hosted by Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts. Learn more at derbyecenter.tufts.edu.

Innovation Month: Startup Boston Week Field Trip
2026-09-16 17:30 - 20:30 | MA
Meet us in the 1st floor lobby of the Joyce Cummings Center (near the front door) at 5:30pm!
Looking for an accelerator? A networking group? Government support? Or just trying to figure out where you fit in Boston’s startup scene? Startup Boston Week is bringing the region’s most impactful startup support organizations together under one roof — live and in person. Meet the people behind the accelerators, communities, agencies, and nonprofits helping founders and startup teams launch, scale, hire, fundraise, and thrive. Whether you’re just getting started or already building something big, this is your shot to explore what the ecosystem really offers and connect with the people ready to help you grow.
About Startup Boston Week
Startup Boston Week is the largest annual gathering for New England’s startup community — five days of connection, learning, and inspiration for founders, operators, investors, students, and the ecosystem builders behind them. Learn more at startupbos.org/sbw2025.

This Innovation Month event is hosted by Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts. Learn more at derbyecenter.tufts.edu.

Innovation Month: Hybrid Activate Infosession: Backing Tufts Scientists on the Founder Track
2026-09-22 12:00 - 13:00 | Tufts Venture Lab (JCC301), 177 College Ave, Medford, MA, 02155, United States
Got breakthrough science you want to turn into a company? Activate is backing scientists on the founder track. Join us for a lunch and learn (sponsored by Activate) on their two-year fellowship, which provides funding, mentorship, and a community to help you drive hard tech into real-world impact. Activate has supported 294 fellows to date, who’ve gone on to raise $5.5B in follow-on funding and create 3,000 jobs.
The Activate team will introduce how the program works and what it offers researchers at every stage — from PhD students to postdocs — who are exploring whether their lab work could become a startup. We’ll also share the stories of two Activate teams from Tufts: Deco Labs and Entocellular. Entocellular won 1st place in the Healthcare & Life Sciences track of the 2025 Derby New Ventures Competition, is a Tufts Venture Accelerator alum, and completed NSF I-Corps with the Auster Center for Applied Innovation and Research.
This Innovation Month event is sponsored by Activate and co-hosted by the Auster Center for Applied Innovation and Research and the Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts.
Learn more about the Auster Center for Applied Innovation and Research at austercenter.tufts.edu.
Learn more about Derby Entrepreneurship Center at derbyecenter.tufts.edu.
Learn more about Activate at https://activate.org/.

Innovation Month: Entrepreneurial Pizza Open House
2026-09-23 12:00 - 13:00 | MA
Come mingle, connect, and get inspired at our Entrepreneurial Pizza Open House! Join us in the Venture Lab (Room 301, Joyce Cummings Center) to reconnect with friends, meet fellow aspiring innovators, and dive into everything Tufts entrepreneurship has to offer — over pizza, of course. Learn about our upcoming cross-university hackathons and mixers, speaker events, and hear about the New Ventures Competition and other Spring opportunities on the horizon. Hear founding stories from recent Tufts Venture Accelerator teams, and connect with students and alumni who’ve landed grants, won prizes, or are building side hustles. Explore potential internships and collaborations, chat with current MSIM students about the program, and discover how the Derby Entrepreneurship Center can support your journey to becoming an entrepreneurial leader.
This event is hosted by the Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts. Learn more at derbyecenter.tufts.edu.

Innovation Month: Fletcher D-Prize Launch
2026-09-24 12:00 - 13:00 | Cabot 703
Join us to learn about the Fletcher D-Prize, a competition that funds entrepreneurs who increase access to proven poverty interventions. The world has already invented ways to end poverty, yet the best interventions are not being distributed at mass-scale. Can you design a business or NGO that solves one of the Distribution Challenges like education or agriculture? If selected, The Fletcher D-Prize will award you up to $20,000 in cash to launch a pilot in any region where extreme poverty exists.

The Fletcher D-Prize is open to all Fletcher students, alumni, and Tufts undergraduates. In order to participate, at least one member of the team either be a current student of The Fletcher School or a Tufts University Fletcher Business Certificate undergraduate student.

This event is hosted by the Fletcher School in collaboration with Derby Entrepreneurship Center.
Learn more about the Fletcher D-Prize at https://sites.tufts.edu/dprize/.
Learn more about Derby Entrepreneurship Center at https://derbyecenter.tufts.edu.

Innovation Month: Candy Chat @ Career Fair
2026-09-25 11:30 - 13:30 | Halligan
Need a break from the career fair hustle? Stop by our table for candy, swag, and a chill chat about what’s next for entrepreneurship @Tufts. Whether you’re curious about applying for a small grant to start a side hustle, joining a cross-university event to meet students from other universities, or just want to say hi, we’d love to meet you!
This Innovation Month event is hosted by Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts. Learn more at derbyecenter.tufts.edu.

Innovation Month: Makerfaire - the 3D Printing Edit
2026-09-28 18:00 - 20:00 | Nolop Science and Engineering Center, 200 College Ave, Medford, United States
Ever wanted to bring your own ideas to life with 3D printing but didn’t know where to start? Join us for Makerfaire: The 3D Printing Edit and learn how to find cool designs online or create your own part — then get it ready to print at NOLOP. No experience necessary, just curiosity! Pizza included. Spots are limited to 20 participants, so register now before they’re gone!
This Innovation Month event is hosted by the Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts. Learn more at derbyecenter.tufts.edu.

Innovation Month: Hybrid Event - From PhD to Founder: Building (and Selling) a Startup
2026-09-29 17:30 - 19:30 | JCC 1st floor, 177 College Avenue, Medford, MA, 02155, United States
From lab bench to boardroom: what does it actually take to build (and sell) a biotech company? Join us for a fireside chat with Kristina Fontanez, PhD — a two-time founder who scaled her last startup, Fluent BioSciences, from 2 to 40+ employees, raised $19M+, and led it to an $85M acquisition by Illumina. Now she’s building Adept Scientific, an AI platform tackling a problem she saw firsthand: life science labs have no real-time visibility into how their products actually perform.
The conversation will be moderated by Idicula Mathew, Entrepreneur in Residence at the Derby Entrepreneurship Center and Cofounder & CEO of Hera Health Solutions, a biotechnology company specializing in the research, development, and commercialization of a proprietary nanotechnology-enabled platform for transforming existing therapeutics into more effective and long-acting therapies.
Whether you’re curious about science, startups, or the leap between academia and industry, come hear how Kristina turned a research gap into a growing company — and bring your questions.
Pizza served at 5:30pm, talk starts at 6:00pm.
About Kristina Fontanez
Adept Scientific is led by founder and CEO Kristina Fontanez, PhD (Princeton AB, Harvard PhD, MIT postdoc). Kristina co-founded Fluent BioSciences, scaling the team from 2 to 40+ employees, launching 7 commercial products, and raising $19M+ in funding. She played a pivotal leadership role in securing the company’s $85M acquisition by Illumina in 2024. Throughout her tenure at Fluent and later as Senior Director at Illumina, Kristina identified a systemic gap: life science companies lacked real-time visibility into product performance in customer labs. Support was anecdotal, field engineers didn’t scale, and product teams flew blind. This firsthand operator experience, spanning R&D, commercialization, manufacturer economics, and post-acquisition integration is exactly why she’s building Adept: an AI-powered platform designed to provide the “Google Maps” for lab workflows, finally closing the visibility gap in life sciences.
This Innovation Month event is jointly hosted by Auster Center for Applied Innovation and Research and Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts.
Learn more about the Auster Center: austercenter.tufts.edu
Learn more about the Derby Entrepreneurship Center: derbyecenter.tufts.edu.

Innovation Month: Tufts Small Business Fair
2026-09-30 11:15 - 13:45 | JCC 1st floor, 177 College Avenue, Medford, MA, 02155, United States
Did you know that many current Tufts students, faculty, staff and alumni have businesses selling consumer products and services like hoodies, packaged snacks, bottled beverages, photography services and more?
Stop by the 1st floor of Joyce Cummings Center and learn about the retail businesses that Tufts students, faculty, staff and alumni are building. Become a customer and support a Jumbo!
If you are a Tufts student, faculty, staff member or local alumni who has a current consumer-facing business, submit the vendor application form by September 28, 2026.
This Innovation Month event is hosted by Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts. Learn more at derbyecenter.tufts.edu.

Apply to become a vendor

Fall 2026 Vendors

Innovation Month: Cross-University FinTech Hackathon
2026-10-02 14:00 - 17:30 | Room 160, Joyce Cummings Center, 177 College Avenue, Medford, 02155, United States
Ever wondered what it takes to build a fintech solution, but weren’t sure how to start? The Cross-University FinTech Hackathon is your chance to find out — no coding or finance background required.
Join students from Tufts and universities across the area to tackle a real problem: how can fintech make life easier for college students managing money? You’ll form a team, brainstorm a solution, and build it out with guidance from entrepreneurial coaches and subject matter experts who’ll show you how to use AI tools to solve real problems at warp speed— all in just a few hours. By the end of the day, you’ll pitch your idea to a panel of judges and fellow participants for a shot at cool snacks and swag.
Stick around afterward for a large cross-university Student Innovators Mixer — the perfect chance to keep the energy going, meet founders and innovators from other schools, and expand your network beyond the hackathon.
This event is open to Tufts students, alumni, faculty, and staff, as well as students from other universities in the area. Space is limited and this is an in-person-only event, so please only register if you can commit to arriving on time and staying the full duration.
This Innovation Month event is hosted by Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts. Learn more at derbyecenter.tufts.edu.

Innovation Month: Cross-University Student Innovators Mixer
2026-10-02 18:00 - 20:00 | Tsungming Tu Complex – Patio and Atrium, 200 College Avenue, Medford, 02155, United States
Save the date! Registration link coming soon!

Boston has 74 universities and nearly 250,000 college students — and the world’s next great companies are being built right here, right now. Are you in the room?

This is your chance to connect with the builders, dreamers, and doers shaping tomorrow — find your cofounder, grow your team, swap war stories with people who actually get #startuplife, and plug into a community that’s moving fast.

We’re bringing together innovators across the hottest spaces:
🤖 AI
🌱 ClimateTech & Sustainability
💳 FinTech & Embedded Finance
🧬 HealthTech & BioTech
📱 Social Tech

Plus dedicated sessions for:
🤝 Cofounder Matching — find your person
🐦 Birds of a Feather — connect with your tribe
🎤 Pitch 2 Match — pitch your idea, find your team

Aspiring founders and entrepreneurs from Babson, Olin, Wellesley, Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis, Harvard, MIT, Tufts, UMass Amherst, UMass Lowell, and beyond will all be there.

Boston’s student economy isn’t just an advantage — it’s a superpower. Come use it.

This Innovation Month event is hosted by Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts in partnership with Startup Boston.
Learn more about Derby Entrepreneurship Center at derbyecenter.tufts.edu.
Learn more about Startup Boston at startupbos.org.
