Product Management: Startup vs. Bigco
2026-02-26 15:00 - 16:15 (America/New_York) | JCC 180, 177 College Avenue, Medford, MA, 02155, United States
In this panel, startup product leaders share how they work and explore how their work differs from product roles in large companies. The conversation will explore how rapid product iterations works in a startup setting, where the team defines, designs, develops, and launches new products and services without being constrained by legacy products or an existing customer base.
Panelists will discuss how startup product teams operate with lighter, right-sized processes that can be fast-moving, informal, and occasionally chaotic, while still staying grounded in product thinking. Students will gain a clear view of how product roles are implemented in a startup environment–and how those skills translate across career paths.
Confirmed speakers:

Alex Ocampo, A14, Entrepreneurship Minor, Founder & CEO of Ganance, a startup behind a modular wearable that makes every watch a smartwatch.

Eric Olson, Assistant Director of Product at Center for Open Science, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting open science practices in research.
Xiao Zhou, MSIM ’23, Founder of HIPOND, a startup that helps international students and newcomers to a city furnish their spaces.
Anica Zulch, A23, Product Manager, Quantified AI, a startup that provides an AI role play solutions for sales teams.

This is an Inside the Classroom event hosted by Professor Elaine Chen, who teaches ENT162 Bringing Product to Market at Tufts University.

Building, Scaling, and Reinventing: Lessons from a Full-Stack CEO
2026-03-05 13:30 - 14:45 | JCC 180, 177 College Avenue, Medford, MA, 02155, United States
Join us for a fireside chat with Matt Blumberg, CEO of Markup AI, as we explore how AI is transforming customer discovery, market research, and early‑stage venture building. Matt will share practical insights for founders and student entrepreneurs on using AI to test ideas faster, understand users more deeply, and build stronger organizations from day one.
This is an Inside the Classroom event hosted by Professor Moneer Azzam at Tufts, who teaches ENT100 Entrepreneurship and Business Planning.
About Matt Blumberg
Matt Blumberg is a veteran tech entrepreneur, board leader, and author who has spent his career helping startups scale with clarity and discipline. Before founding Markup AI, he led Return Path and Bolster, supporting thousands of founders and executives in developing their leadership and operational strategy. At Markup AI, he focuses on empowering teams with responsible, human‑centered AI tools that accelerate learning and decision‑making.

Inside Early Stage Investing With Jackson Saunders and Khat Zorig
2026-04-07 10:00 - 11:15 | Nelson 112
Join us for a fireside chat with early stage investors, Jackson Saunders and Khat Zorig, as they demystify how venture capital works and when it matters for founders.
Not all ventures need VC funding — but for those that do, understanding the path from angel investment to exit is key. Both speakers are founders turned investors who have sat on both sides of the table. Jackson, a Double Jumbo (ENT minor + MSIM), invests in robotics and AI at Cybernetix Ventures. Khat, an MIT alumna, co-founded a mental health startup at MIT Sloan and now invests in early stage ventures.
Learn what investors look for and how today’s fundraising landscape works.
This is an Inside the Classroom event hosted by Professor Elaine Chen at Tufts, who teaches ENT101 Entrepreneurship and Business Planning.

Legal Essentials For Founders with Michael Douglas
2026-04-09 15:00 - 16:00 | JCC 170, 177 College Avenue, Medford, MA, 02155, United States
We’re pleased to welcome Michael Douglas, Partner at Gennari Aronson, LLP and a trusted advisor to founders, growth‑stage companies, and investors. A Tufts graduate with a B.A. in Psychology; Michael went on to earn his J.D. from Boston College Law School before building a career in corporate and transactional law. With deep experience in mergers and acquisitions, securities, and venture financing, he brings a practical, founder‑focused perspective to the legal challenges of starting and scaling a business. Our fireside chat will explore his path from Tufts to corporate attorney and the legal insights every entrepreneur should understand.
This is an Inside the Classroom event hosted by Professor Moneer Azzam, who teaches ENT101 Entrepreneurship and Business Planning at Tufts University.

Fireside Chat with Mike Curry, Co-founder, Life After Prison
2026-04-16 15:00 - 16:15 | MA
Join us for a fireside chat with Mike Curry, Co-founder and Executive Director, Life After Prison.
Mike Curry, a native of the Dorchester section of Boston, has always had a natural talent for writing. He is the author of the compelling “3 Pounds of Pressure” series, which vividly portrays life growing up in the inner-city of Boston.
In addition to his writing career, Mike is also a dedicated business mentor and coach. He thrives off of organizing, strategic planning and executing. However, his true passion lies in helping individuals who have been incarcerated to rebuild their lives and reintegrate into society. He firmly believes in providing support and guidance to returning citizens, allowing them to regain their footing and create a brighter future.
This is an Inside the Classroom event hosted by Professor Moneer Azzam at Tufts, who teaches ENT100 Entrepreneurship and Business Planning.

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.
