Ian Goodine ’21, ’22MS and Ethan Walko ’21, ’22MS

Ian Goodine: "We were undergraduate and graduate students here at UMass, and when we were undergraduates we were able to get started really quickly by working on rStream-related ideas for our senior design project. We were able to do it for two semesters and pull together a team to work on the project. Also we were able to get the endorsement of our lead for the senior design course in order to work with other teams, so we worked with five or six other rStream teams and in total we were able to come up with some really cool ideas that laid the foundation for what rStream could be. We were also lucky enough to be able to compete in and win the Innovation Challenge in the Berthiaume Center in partnership with the College of Engineering. It was a great experience for us to be able to compete in the Minute Pitch, the Tech Challenge, and the Innovation Challenge finals and raise funding to support the engineering tasks we were working on in senior design."

Ethan Walko: "After finishing up undergrad we decided to return for a 4 +1 Masters, also in Mechanical Engineering, where we were able to continue our education in courses like robotics and artificial intelligence, which we were also able to tie into the business that we were working on. Simultaneously we were able to further our own professional education and training while learning skills we were able to apply to the company. During this period we also got support from the institution with grant writing, seeking out fundraising, and learning how to start a business. So really we received a lot of training during that one more year, and that helped create a platform that we were able to launch off of and go full-time working on the startup after graduation."