Imagine a tabletop demo exhibition produced entirely by college students and promoting new companies developed exclusively by college students. That’s what I saw on Friday night …Right here in Boston.

Not only were the participants in the Husky Innovation Challenge (HIC) at Northeastern University all college students, they’re working on companies as diverse and interesting as an online marketplace for South American nations to find manufacturing contracts in the U.S. and an all-in-one band management software package helping make emerging musicians more viable.

Approximately 100 people came out to take part in the first-ever Husky Innovation Challenge Demo Day last Friday night inside the school’s Curry Student Center. Northeastern students received the help they needed to launch businesses created through a competition leading up to the event. The competition was the culmination of six boot camps that these students took part of to become educated on the process of starting a company — each incorporating insights from a different local mentor.

“It was a very collaborative project. We started developing the HIC over the summer and we implemented it this fall,” said Northeastern Entrepreneurship Club member Aaron Gerry, who helped organize the whole thing alongside Punit Shah and Praful Mathur.

“There are a lot of resources on campus: professors, labs you can use, space in the library. But realistically, it’s really difficult to start a company without a lot of direction. That first jump into it is the toughest part. What we wanted to do was demistify that whole startup experience.”

Eight startup ventures ran the paces of the HIC over the last two months, and they presented their products to the crowd at Demo Day. (more…)