Couri Hatchery Student Business Incubator Welcomes 2025-26 Student Founders and Mentors
This fall, the Whitman School of Management’s Couri Hatchery Student Business Incubator welcomed a new team of entrepreneurs-in-residence, fellows and ambassadors who are already proving what’s possible when young people bet on their ideas and back it up with hustle.
The Hatchery is an entrepreneurial hub where students and alumni from across campus can experiment, fail forward, build startups, raise funding and support one another in the process. These students are living entrepreneurship and are here to help their peers do the same.
Hatchery student staff Yasmin Madmoune, Will Lewandowski, Nas Monrose, Ava Lubkemann and Laurenne Mvete.
Entrepreneurs-in-Residence
Ava Lubkemann ’27 (ECS), environmental engineering major
Founder of Revamped, a mobile upcycling bus turning textile waste into opportunity. Lubkemann has already secured more than $35,000 in funding and is building a brand that pushes the campus and community toward sustainable fashion. As an entrepreneur-in-residence, she will continue her work as an Orange Innovation Fellow to scale her venture while mentoring the next wave of student founders in the Hatchery. Read more here.
Judah Milgrom ’26 (FALK), sport management major
Founder of Keter MGMT, a FIBA-certified basketball agency launched with co-founder Josh Asaraf. Milgrom started with storytelling in the basketball world and has built that into a full-service agency focused on player representation and global placement. He brings that same energy and his knowledge from courses in entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises into the Hatchery as a mentor, shaping how other students and creators think about business and branding.
Trey Augliano ’27, marketing and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major
Founder of Utopia Beauty, a science-driven beauty retailer bringing transparency and trust to the personal care industry. Augliano has experience mentoring student founders and supporting commercialization projects through Syracuse University Libraries as an Orange Innovation Scholar and Intelligence++ Scholar. As an entrepreneur-in-residence, he is building Utopia Beauty’s curated line of clinically validated products while helping his peers navigate retail, branding and consumer trust in the Hatchery. Read more here.
Couri Hatchery Fellows
Will Lewandowski ’27, entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major
Founder of Clique Sports, a platform helping athletes navigate NIL deals, plan their careers and prepare for life after the game. With five NFL players already on board, Lewandowski is proving that student founders can build ventures with national impact. Read more here.
Laurenne Yomi Mvete ’25, ’26 M.S.
Currently a Master of Science in Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises student and founder of Founders Without Borders, a peer-to-peer networking platform that empowers student entrepreneurs to become global changemakers. Mvete turned her experience in South Africa into an outlet that now has $6,500 in funding and recognition from the Whitman School Dean’s Sustainability Challenge. She is building with empathy and showing her peers what it means to innovate with purpose. Read more here.
Entrepreneurship Ambassadors
Isabella Carter ’27 (NEW), television, radio and film major
Chief marketing officer of Revamped, Carter knows how to make ideas visible. Her animated promotional video for Revamped was showcased at the Newhouse School and now she is using her creative eye to help other founders in the Hatchery tell their stories. Read more here.
Nas Monrose ’27, real estate and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major
Founder of Checkup University, a basketball mashup tournament that brings energy, community and competition to campus. Monrose also interned with the Allyn Family Foundation on housing and real estate development projects in Syracuse and Auburn. This year, he is leading a finance and entrepreneurship book club in the Hatchery to build financial literacy across the student founder community.
Yasmin Madmoune ’27 MBA
Founder of Yas Apothecary, a North African-inspired wellness and body care brand, Madmoune is already making substantial sales and has products on shelves in a spa. A Morgan State alum and first-generation Moroccan and Jamaican entrepreneur, she is bringing global perspective, retail traction and four years of business building experience from Morgan State’s Blackstone LaunchPad into the Hatchery community. Read more here.
Building on a Legacy
The students stepping into leadership this year are building on the foundation of alumni who raised the bar in 2024-25.
Emeka Ossai ’25 MBA
Founder of CampusLabs Nigeria, Ossai leaves behind a legacy of mentoring founders and launching social impact ventures. He won $10,000 from the Orange Innovation Fund and was named Whitman Entrepreneurship Graduate Student of the Year in 2025. Read more here.
Professor John Torrens handing Tosin Alabi her check during the 2024 Orange Tank Business Pitch Competition.
Tosin Alabi ’25 MBA
Founder of Diabetech, Alabi raised more than $40,000 across nine pitch competitions, including a first-place prize of $25,000 at the Whitman School’s Orange Tank competition. Her persistence and boldness showed what is possible when a student founder pushes forward with vision. Read more here.
Faculty Mentors
Behind every student success story is a mentor who helps make the impossible feel possible.
Indaria Jones, program manager of the Couri Hatchery, helps founders turn ideas into startups that people believe in and back with dollars. She has helped secure more than $128 million in funding and guided founders to grow, beginning with an incubator in Syracuse for creators she founded in 2016 that was acquired in 2023.
John Torrens G’93 (EDU), professor of entrepreneurial practice and deputy department chair of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises at Whitman, is a three-time INC 5000 entrepreneur, co-founder of Sprout Therapy Group and a ’CUSE50 alumni entrepreneur, providing guidance to student founders scaling ventures.
Other EEE faculty members also mentor students, along with ’CUSE50 alumni.
Professor John Torrens mentoring Ronna Hussar, founder of MacroFlow.
Resources Available Now
The Couri Hatchery Student Business Incubator creates a community where students believe in their ideas, get the tools to test them and find the courage to put them into the world.
Students with ideas, whether for a startup, side hustle or campus project, are encouraged to stop by the Hatchery in suite 116 at the Whitman School of Management to connect with the team, attend 1:1 office hours and explore the many programs available. The Hatchery is here to help turn ideas into action and support every step of the journey.
“While the Whitman School has housed the Couri Hatchery for some time, over the past two years we’ve really developed an ecosystem where students from across the University have the opportunity to develop their entrepreneurial ideas,” says Professor Maria Minniti, chair of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises and the Louis A. Bantle Chair of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy.