Since our founding in 2018, the physical home of Innovate@BU has been the BUild Lab IDG Capital Student Innovation Center, aka “The BUild Lab.” The name was chosen to convey the building of ideas, careers, and ventures while also being a “lab” to show that students would learn through experience.
Innovate@BU = campus-wide initiative to empower all BU terriers to innovate and make a difference in their lives, careers, and communities.
BUild Lab = the beautiful space in which we work.
So, why the change?
Over the years, we’ve encountered a few misconceptions about who we are and what we do, though many of them could be boiled down to:
“Do you guys have a 3D printer?”
Since our space is within the College of Engineering building and because our neighbors are the awesome folks at RASTIC (Robotics & Autonomous Systems Teaching and Innovation Center) and EPIC (Engineering Product Innovation Center), students were assuming “BUild” meant another engineering makerspace. And who can blame them?
Plus, we often run into false beliefs that we are only for engineering students or only for business students studying at the Questrom School of Business when we’re actually open to students across all 17 schools and colleges, from undergrads through PhD candidates!
To make things simpler, we’ve removed “BUild Lab” so that now the physical name is IDG Capital Student Innovation Center and is in large metal letters on the outside of the building. And to make things clearer, the window graphics now say:
Innovate@BU
The Home for Innovation and Entrepreneurship for All BU Terriers
Pro-tip: When you’re talking about the space, you can refer to it by its nickname, “Innovate.” We do all the time! If you’re writing out the name in some kind of formal manner, please keep with the full name.
We hope these changes help our students see that we serve all BU students, and that all are welcome in.
We’ll see you at Innovate!