Aaron Scarboro

This time of year in Chapel Hill can be a bit dull. With students home with their families, the normally thriving bars and restaurants of Franklin Street are all but abandoned, leaving townies to themselves. It’s when the students are gone that you are most aware this is a college town; their absence conspicuously noticeable. But the yearly month-long lull in the action around the holidays is a perfect time to reflect on the year and look ahead to the coming one.  So, at the risk of this sounding like a holiday letter from an acquaintance you no longer...

This time of year in Chapel Hill can be a bit dull. With students home with their families, the normally thriving bars and restaurants of Franklin Street are all but abandoned, leaving townies to themselves. It’s when the students are gone that you are most aware this is a college town; their absence conspicuously noticeable. But the yearly month-long lull in the action around the holidays is a perfect time to reflect on the year and look ahead to the coming one.  So, at the risk of this sounding like a holiday letter from an acquaintance you no longer...

After experiencing unprecedented enrollment over the past several years, the computer science department at the University of North Carolina has been stretched to the limit, says department chair Kevin Jeffay. The tipping point happened in November, when staffing and budget constraints prevented the department from offering even half of the seats demanded by students.  While the issue has since been resolved, growing stress on the department’s limited resources will remain a challenge for at least the near future.   Interest in computer science is not a trend unique to UNC. Across the country, college students are realizing the value...

Last Thursday night, Jeff Smith and John Pamplin stood on a stage in front of 300 people and hoisted an oversized check for $1,000, smiling for the cameras. It had been a long night of handshaking, networking, and selling themselves and their medical device startup, Compression Kinetics. The check they held was fake but the prize money they won for placing 2nd in the Carolina Challenge Pitch Party was very real—valuable resources for a startup trying to remain as lean as possible.    Pitch Party is the kick off event for the University of North Carolina’s four-month-long entrepreneurship competition, the Carolina Challenge. This...

Last Thursday night, Jeff Smith and John Pamplin stood on a stage in front of 300 people and hoisted an oversized check for $1,000, smiling for the cameras. It had been a long night of handshaking, networking, and selling themselves and their medical device startup, Compression Kinetics. The check they held was fake but the prize money they won for placing 2nd in the Carolina Challenge Pitch Party was very real—valuable resources for a startup trying to remain as lean as possible.    Pitch Party is the kick off event for the University of North Carolina’s four-month-long entrepreneurship competition, the Carolina Challenge. This...

In an age where traditional journalism is on a perceived decline, John Clark and his students in Reese News Lab are using entrepreneurship to transform the media. In a room full of faculty, entrepreneurs and news reporters last Friday, Clark’s students pitched six different startup ideas, a culmination of a semester-long project. For the students, the process was fun and frustrating at times, and anything but ordinary. One thing was abundantly clear the entire semester: Reese is anything but a traditional journalism class.    That’s because Clark’s students are taught to think like entrepreneurs to solve big problems facing today’s media.   ...