40 | LEHIGH ALUMNI BULLETIN load throughout the country once it simultaneously goes live on both stores, but initial marketing efforts will be focused in Philadelphia. The plan is to then expand to other cities, such as Washington, D.C., and Boston, every three months. Clowes and Karr, whose parents, David Karr ’90 and Kirsten (Kleine) Karr ’90, are Lehigh graduates and had always stressed the importance of networking through the university, had been wondering how to get Lehigh involved. Then, Karr saw a post on LinkedIn about Lehigh Ventures Lab. Within two hours, they applied, and eventually partnered with the venture support program for startups. During the Spring 2024 semester, fuse is a case study for Dierdre Malacrea’s digital marketing class and Dale Falcinelli’s MBA consulting course. Karr says she and Clowes will receive many different reports and analyses on their business and marketing plans that they can utilize as they launch. Students in the digital marketing class will formulate a social media marketing strategy tailored to an assigned persona, Clowes says. In the consulting course, five student teams have each been tasked with presenting specific deliverables: customer experience, pricing models, business strategies, market expansion plans and financial projections. They also have found value in working with others in Lehigh Ventures Lab. “It's been really great to connect with other Lehigh students who are doing the same thing,” Karr says. “We’ve established some pretty close bonds with some other students or recent grads who are in the program, and that’s been really helpful for Elodie and I because none of our friends work in the same space.” Another perk is having Kauzmann as a sounding board. “Sometimes it’s really hard,” Karr says. “You’re juggling three different CEO’s opinions of what you need to be doing. They’re all very valued and all so smart, and here we are, first-time founders not knowing what we’re doing, and there are three different ways to answer the problem. But Chris always has a very good, level head of how to then take the advice and move forward with all of it.” DOT TECH INC. Born in Nigeria, Abdulrasaq (Dulra) Amolegbe ’26 visited Kenya before attending the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa, for high school. It was then he realized how difficult it was for international students and immigrants to access electronic banking on a continent that includes 54 different countries and 42 different currencies. While in high school, Amolegbe applied to open a bank account, bringing all the necessary documents. Now, as a sophomore at Lehigh, over two years later, he says he has yet to hear back about his account because of his foreign status in South Africa at the time. “For immigrant students specifically that are coming to a new country for the first time, with no immediate relative or immediate support system to help them figure out all these bits and pieces, this can be really difficult,” Amolegbe says. “And that was me when I was schooling in South Africa.” In speaking with other students at his international high school, he knew he wasn’t the only one facing issues. He says he also realized the prevalence of cash, estimating 90% of transactions across Africa are processed with cash. Amolegbe wanted to help students like himself, so he began working on Dot Tech Inc., a cash-to-cashless platform for immigrant students within Africa, during his senior year. CHRISTA NEU Abdulrasaq (Dulra) Amolegbe ’26 intends to help immigrant students with a cashto-cashless platform.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTA0OTQ5OA==