On Sunday, May 5, the first-ever Next-Gen Summit was held here at NEIA. Our own Langston Reid created this event for entrepreneurs who want to connect.
The day was a big success, with big names as guest speakers such as Raymond Chang, NEIA Co- Founder, Erik Fogg, Founder of Futures Forge, and Steve Messineo, Director of Operations at Physical Therapy Innovations and Former President & CEO of Marlborough Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The summit finished off with an impressive pitch competition where three student-founded companies pitched their business ideas for a $1,000 prize to fuel that company’s growth.
“I think in general, it went very well,” Langston said. He was proud of the way he and his team pivoted when two speakers failed to appear on the day of the conference, instead creating a space for people to stand up and pitch their ideas and ask for help. He doesn’t want this to be the end of Next-Gen though. “My fear even when I started this was that it would just be some one-day event. Next-Gen is its own business. So we have many platforms you can use to stay connected. So we met some cool people stay connected with them through a Discord groupchat. In the future we will have a summer Summit. Next-Gen will release videos of our speaker’s talks so that people can come back to them. And we have more events planned for the future.”
Langston had a lot of people to thank; he knew all of them off the top of his head. Top of that list are eleven NEIA students: Owen, Vicki, Lila, Marcus, Ileana, Elaine, Finn M., Max R., Max H., Aaron Z., and Kathryn J.. “Those are the 11 people who really just brought it to life,” Langston said.
“I kind of started this the year before even meeting them, but it couldn’t have happened without them and all the support.” He also wants to thank his parents, his Auntie Kelley, and NEIA staff like River, John, Jennie, Maggie, Ben, Tom, and Baldev. “Baldev was probably the most supportive person in my life of the NEIA staff during this entire process, as my entrepreneurship teacher and mentor,” he said.