Since the day he arrived at BC, senior Claudio Quintana was focused on creating start-ups and new platforms to improve the way we live. An information systems and management and leadership major from Oregon, Quintana was named to the .406 Ventures Student Fellows Program, a highly selective fellowship for successful student entrepreneurs from the nation’s top universities.
“I chose Boston College because when I visited it I felt a passion here among professors like John Gallaugher and James Keenan, S.J.,” he said. “I saw BC was growing as an entrepreneurial center, and felt that being involved in its growth as an entrepreneurial and innovation hub was appealing.
“When you mix this growth with BC’s Jesuit ideals, I think we have the potential to be the nation’s leader in social entrepreneurship and innovation.”
That means a great deal to Quintana, a Presidential Scholar, who has already proven success as a student entrepreneur. In 2011 he founded A New Origin, LLC, a start-up featuring sustainable lifestyle clothing and accessories. In 2013, he founded Quabblejack.com, an on-line contemporary art gallery and limited edition print shop.
Through the .406 fellowship, Quintana participated in a two-year program that combined the academic entrepreneurial experiences offered through Boston College with the business-world skills and peer networks needed to build a successful company.
Since the program’s inception, its student fellows have launched companies such as Attendware, Cognection, Codeacademy and Jebbit — whose co-founder Jeb Thomas ’13 is BC’s previous winner of this prestigious fellowship.
“Through the fellowship I was able to connect with people who are doing incredible things. One of the individuals in my fellows’ class is a Thiel Fellow and others have started amazing companies. Having exposure to great minds from other networks and experiences and learning from them — while also teaching them about all that we are doing at BC — is a wonderful opportunity. I hope my experience will also help down the road to make BC an even greater hub for social innovation.”
In addition to his studies in the Carroll School and his entrepreneurial interests, Quintana also has served as a food source intern at Project Bread, providing clients with access to food resources throughout the Greater Boston area, and as an intern at Haley House, where he helps to create marketing and other outreach materials. Most recently, he has worked with the BC social entrepreneurship club Enactus to connect non-profits with local businesses. He was also the recipient of the Compass Fellowship for social entrepreneurs.
“I became an entrepreneur to fulfill my own curiosity. I see it as a vehicle to create ideas and make them come alive, but it is important to me to have a social element. That notion has been fostered by Boston College, where we have been encouraged to ask, ‘How can what I am doing be helpful to others? How can the process of bringing a product to the world be beneficial to humanity?’
“That is why I love it here at BC, and why I feel that I am in my element.”