(Planned by Nathan Phillips, Sterling Smith, Josh Wexler)
(Students: Joel Adejola, Bella Earl, Erik Lien, Emily Clausen, Ziv Cohen, Charlie Erker, Bhumika Gupta, Anh Hoang, Alice Mungamari, Adia Peck)
80 hrs: Nov 2025 - Apr 2026
What has not changed in our world over the last 30 years? The importance of relationships, curiosity, and geography.
Last semester I had a desire: To explore how companies are innovating outside of scientific research, and how to use my career to truly impact the world on a large scale. Encouraged by Josh Wexler, a close professor who had grown up in New York, I worked with Sterling Smith to plan a 5 day trip to NYC. Together, and with the help from Dr. Elaina Sutley, we raised $50k to run this trip for 2 years!!!
The trip for this year manifested itself as 12 awesome students from Engineering, Business, and Industrial Design.
At no other point in my life will I have as much power as I do as an undergraduate student. It's truly incredible what you can create with awesome relationships, and other's willingness to help.
Connect KU students with amazing NYC professionals in the Innovation/Design space
Gain long term mentorship from successful & knowledgeable people
Establish KU as a powerful force outside of the midwest (show NYC what's up!!)
Let students explore how the world works
I've learned you get a truly unique perspective of this in NYC
9 visits with design agencies, tech startups, consulting firms, and finance companies
About half of these explicitly noted how great our questions were
6+ informal visits with KU grads, prestigious masters programs, and awesome people
A new group of friends
Unmeasurable advice
Changed perspectives for almost everyone on the trip (people were genuinely and explicitly mentioning how meaningful this trip had been)
School Visit - School of Visual Arts; Design for Social Innovation (MFA Program)
Met some of the nicest and most welcoming people here!
Miya Osaki - Chair of DSI program
Aya Jaffar - IDEO.org
And so many other students, faculty, and founders
Company Visits
Insight Partners: VC & PE firm
Annie & William - young analysts
Splice: late stage music startup
Devon, Samu, Tasha, Zane
Coast: YC early stage API startup
Austin - CEO; Steph - 2x successful founder
Estee Lauder - 2nd largest beauty brand globally
David Barry - Leading creation of global physical displays and events for makeup products
Work & Co: digital product design agency
Ani; Jesse; Nat, Katie; Strategist, Software Engineer; Designer; Marketer
Working w/ Google, Gatorade, Mayo Clinic, etc.
Smart Design: product design agency
Marcus, Catherine; Industrial Designers
VML: creative advertisement agency
Walter - leading creative design on large commercials (superbowl progressive ad, advil, upcoming MSFT computer)
Good Work - a Morning Brew YT channel
Dan Toomey; Henry, Jack - the Good Work Team
PWC: big 4 consultant
Jan - high up manager, teaching us about how to approach managing teams
Individuals:
Todd Benson: extremely successful KU grad & investor
Todd was so nice and had amazing advice :)
Jordan Wexler: Founder of EarlyBird -> Acorns
Insightful to hear from Josh's brother into his experience starting and selling a company
Jet Semrick: Field Engineer @ Cursor; KU Grad
Perry Kramer: BCG Consultant
Sae-Vheon Alcorn: Real Estate Private Equity; KU Grad
Do more pre-work on what I hope to get out of each individual & company
Learn how to navigate the subway :(
I literally have nothing else negative to say, this was so lowkey lit fire bro
Created an awesome community of KU students
Maintained a casual, curious, passionate vibe
Got so lucky w/ having Josh set us up with people who were some of the most awesome in NYC
