A new incubator is rising in Gainesville with hopes of recruiting students interested in making a difference in the world.
HiveSpace is the new brainchild of UF Hillel and Starter Space, an incubator founded in September.
Quang Tran, a managing partner and 2004 UF alumnus, said he is looking to include future companies with an initiative to help the planet and make a profit.
HiveSpace is currently recruiting driven UF students who own a company or are thinking of creating a company they want to take to the next level.
Tran said he does not look at the process as “hiring.” Instead, he said he wants the applicants to feel like HiveSpace is their perfect match.
“We don’t have a strict application,” Tran said. “We actually have a survey that says, ‘Is this the right fit for you?’”
The survey, found on HiveSpace’s website, is meant to find applicants who share the partners’ five core values, like the idea that “failure is fertilizer.”
UF Hillel CEO and HiveSpace managing partner Rabbi Adam Grossman said he doesn’t expect a company to succeed on its first attempt but wants to provide the tools to achieve it.
“We know at the end of the day that most companies will fail on their first try,” Grossman said. “Our hope is to help everybody succeed.”
Because of the ambitious and philanthropic community at UF, Grossman said he has high hopes for the first wave of HiveSpace entrepreneurs.
“Actually taking the actions we can take in our world, making it better today than it was yesterday,” he said, “that’s really our goal.”
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 1/26/2015 under the headline “HiveSpace looking for savvy students"]
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