Endevvr Summer Incubator

It was my first day at the Endevvr Summer Incubator. Moving into Rodin College House, I was nervous about living away from home for five weeks, but this feeling soon passed after having my first Philly cheesesteak at Houston Market. During the prototyping of my accessory stickers for insulin infusion sets, I came across Penn’s friendly community willing to support my team—even when we accidentally trespassed the engineering labs to reach the 3D printer office. At the end of Endevvr, going to Penn had become the next big milestone in my entrepreneurial journey, and attending Wharton had turned into a dream to pursue.

During high-school, I first understood the importance of a hands-on learning environment while volunteering as an English teacher. It was only after creating a letter exchange program that students embraced English for what it really is: a communication tool, rather than a set of strict grammar rules. The program helped them lose their inhibitions in freely using the language, which drastically improved their fluency. Similarly, at Wharton, real-life experiences stand at the core. Inside PennSEM, conducting an optimization project for a social enterprise would introduce me to social entrepreneurs and show me how to apply in-class learnings to create real impact. After a semester, observing my client’s improved performance would be my ultimate reward.

Moreover, Wharton’s “business and more” mantra would help strengthen my technical foundations. During F1 in Schools, as the team leader of Força Canindé, I realized managing a team went beyond overseeing activities through spreadsheets. Learning and working together with our engineers was essential for me to establish effective plans of action and assist them when needed. At Wharton, through a Computer Science minor, I would learn the fundamental skills to bootstrap an idea. The study of management combined with basic computational knowledge would enable me to devise realistic visions, plot efficient strategies, and eventually lead a successful company.

Most importantly, I would not be limited by the campus’ boundaries. A venture and fellow internship at Ashoka in Mexico City would provide me important insights on social entrepreneurship. Accompanying and evaluating social startups would not only further my understanding of the type of value I should be looking to create, but also help me grasp how organizational structures vary across countries. At Mapa Educação, while discussing the future of education with politicians and educators from all corners of Brazil, I found that studying teaching paradigms from other panoramas would allow me to leverage each individual model’s strengths. Thus, learning about the Mexican educational model would enhance my ability to create unique ed-tech ideas for my ventures.

With the diversity of student profiles at Penn, I would meet individuals with complementary skillsets to form