Accelerate 2.0
Rediscovering Wentworth's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center
Felipe Pinto dislocated his patella 20 minutes into his first home game. For a lifelong soccer player, it was a low moment.
In fact, it turned out to be one of the most defining moments of his life. “Fortunately, I didn’t have to undergo any surgery,” said Pinto, a business management major in the class of 2025, “but it was tough.”
On his second day of rehab, he brought in a Gatorade. Pinto, like many student-athletes, used the drink to replenish the sugars he lost during workouts.
“[My trainer] asked me to read the amount of sugar on [the label], then do a little more research,” he shared. “It was 48 grams of sugar.” That’s about a quarter of a cup. At the time, he was drinking three Gatorades—and consuming almost a cup of sugar—per day.
Because of his injury, he wasn’t exercising like he used to, but he still needed a way to stay hydrated. After some searching, he realized that there wasn’t a sports drink on the market that would replenish electrolytes while being both low calorie and zero sugar.
So he made his own.
“I was in Accelerate almost every day after class,” he said. “I walked in, nothing but smiles and help.”
Since 2012, Accelerate, Wentworth’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, has been the campus hub for students looking to bring their ideas to life. With more than 5,000 square feet of space for making, woodworking, 3D printing, sewing, soldering, and more, Accelerate’s team of dedicated staff provide instructions for the machinery and—more crucially—work the problem with the student.
“[Accelerate’s] giving you the resources on campus, by telling you where to go, who to talk to, what to do,” Pinto explained. “[They’re] giving you the steps to get from point A to point Z.”
“We want to help students move their ideas forward,” said Ashley Lucas, Accelerate’s executive director. “If they want to use the tools or equipment, get a strong understanding of entrepreneurship, or just find people to bounce their ideas off of, we’re here to help them reach their goals.”
The convivial atmosphere that Lucas and her staff have cultivated is what makes Accelerate such a special place for the students.
“We’re always here working, bouncing ideas off of other people, bringing a positive attitude,” said Emily Oman ’23. “I think we’ve been able to succeed because of that aspect of both our team and the Accelerate environment.”
Positivity—along with tenacity and passion—has been crucial to her group’s success. Oman, along with fellow biomedical engineering seniors Jessica Scholz ’23 and Timothy Bun ’23, leveraged Accelerate’s resources to complete their engineering capstone project: a prototype exoskeleton glove that alleviates symptoms of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, or hEDS, in the wearer. The prototype’s flex sensor determines when the hand should open and close, taking pressure off the joints during repetitive tasks.
For a group of biomedical engineers, it required a lot of electromechanical fundamentals.
“It felt like we were starting a bit behind compared to someone who . . . is an electrical engineering major,” said Bun. “Imagine an electronics schematic . . . and imagine if someone took a pencil and started scribbling over that so you couldn’t even see what it was. [That’s] the scale of what we’re dealing with.”
That didn’t stop the group, who worked with alumni, their fellow students, and even a local fisherman to fill in the gaps in their knowledge base.
“Each of us brought skills from our [co-ops] that aided us,” added Jessica Scholz ’23. “That [and] the collaborative environment that Accelerate has as well as Wentworth as a whole. The skills we’ve gained outside of our education and the ability to collaborate with the Wentworth lab community have allowed us to be far more successful than we would have been alone.”
It’s that type of innovation and growth mindset that Accelerate hopes to foster in all students. It’s also one of the goals under Wentworth’s High Value Learning strategic pillar.
“Having an entrepreneurial mindset is a vital skill that students need to develop for the 21st century,” Lucas shared. “The ability to have a future vision and experiment their way toward making that vision a reality [gives] students a competitive advantage regardless of whether they want to work for themselves or for someone else.”
Accelerate offers programs that introduce students to this concept from different angles.
Business management major Marcia Williams ’24 attended the business series, a six-part workshop that helps students develop, think through, and iterate on new ideas with the end customer in mind.
“We [had] to think of different ways [to] interpret our business,” she explained. “I was also in classes at the time, so it gave me the opportunity to have some space to think about what I can do for the future.”
Williams, who also has a minor in entrepreneurship, has her own photography business. Utilizing the range of professional photography equipment in the Maker Space and being able to work with Lab Technician Tory Lam has helped her improve her craft.
“Accelerate is so welcoming,” she said. “There’s always different types of people doing different projects . . . it’s really inspiring.”
Williams also participated in one of Accelerate’s newest programs, the Accelerate Co-op for Entrepreneurs, or ACE.
“I’ve never had the time to do anything but my photography business,” she shared. “We had access to individuals with a lot of experience in entrepreneurship . . . one of the mentors from the program [is] still in contact with me and helping me out with my business.”
The program was made possible by a generous gift from the PDB Foundation. As with a traditional co-op, ACE students are paid to focus solely on their company and grow it over the course of a semester.
Jessica Woyton ’24, Heather Torella-McLoughlin ’24, and Gabriel Gomez ’24 hadn’t considered turning their project into a business before ACE. The biomedical engineering majors created a medical device that protects a patient’s sutures during recovery, preventing tears that could lead to infection and scarring. They were inspired by a family friend of Woyton’s who underwent a double mastectomy.
“I [wished] I could give her that confidence back and . . . make her feel like she’s back to normal, that it’s not letting the cancer disrupt her daily life,” said Woyton.
Each of them brings something unique to the team: Gomez, manufacturing; Torella-McLoughlin, outreach and organization; Woyton, research and communications. Within a month of connecting, they’d made a prototype in Woyton’s Tudbury dorm room.
Their first-year engineering design professor encouraged them to take their project to the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) conference in Minneapolis, Minn., where they presented their work during the student poster session. The feedback ignited the group, and when Torella-McLoughlin found out about ACE through Wentworth Co-ops and Careers, she and Woyton knew they had to apply. Gomez completed his co-op at an Allston-based engineering firm, gaining vital insight into the manufacturing process.
It’s a far cry from entrepreneurship “not even being on [their] radar, not even a little bit.”
Cultivating a culture of entrepreneurship at Wentworth has been Accelerate’s mission since it relaunched following a pandemic pause. In the past year alone, over 20% of Wentworth students participated in an Accelerate program, attended an event, or utilized the Makerspace to bring their projects to life. Some decided to turn their ideas into businesses, and some discovered new passions or paths to a career. For now, Lucas and her team are focused on the building blocks of this effort and laying the groundwork for transforming Wentworth into a center for innovation.
