Stories & Updates

From housing to fightwear to agricultural robotics, UD Summer Founders alumni share how 12 weeks of mentoring and customer discovery changed everything.

Powered by a social entrepreneur’s mindset and a global perspective shaped in northern Ghana, Yakubu Adam brings purpose-driven energy to Horn. At the heart of his work is real care for people, whether he’s welcoming others with a good meal, engaging with researchers as they explore entrepreneurship, or building ventures that create meaningful jobs for young people. In this Q&A, Yakubu shares his path to Horn, what he’s working on now, and what keeps him inspired.

Long before teaching entrepreneurship, Dr. Charis Asante-Agyei was living it. He founded an undergraduate student council at his university, organized a science camp for kids in Burkina Faso, and launched a tour venture in Korea. Today, he brings that same curious, build-and-test energy to Horn as the instructor of ENTR 356: Creativity and Design Thinking.

Alec Boyd is a fall 2025 entrepreneurship grad with a minor in professional selling and sales management and a familiar face in the Venture Development Center. When he tried to transfer a few community college courses back to the University of Delaware to save time and tuition, he hit a wall of PDFs, emails, and outdated processes. Alec leveraged his coursework plus VentureOn, Pitch Party, and Hen Hatch to turn a personal frustration into a tool that can save students real time and real money: Equivly.

From growing up in a STEM-driven household to becoming a New York Fashion Week designer at age 23, University of Delaware alumna Annabelle Brame has always moved at the intersection of creativity, sustainability, and bold vision. A 2024 graduate with a BS in Fashion Design & Product Innovation and a minor in Entrepreneurship, Annabelle built the foundation of her fashion label, Brame, through Horn Entrepreneurship programs including Summer Founders, REEF, and VentureOn. Today, she’s crafting an entirely new conversation around ethical design, adaptable apparel, and what it means to build a fashion house rooted in purpose.

The 15 latest recipients of Blue Hen 17&43 awards were announced at the recent Blue Hen Innovation Fest. These awards are Horn Entrepreneurship and the Lerner College of Business & Economics’annual recognition of the most promising early-stage startups founded by University of Delaware alumni.

Six more people have been inducted into Horn Entrepreneurship’s Honor Circle of Innovators, which recognizes transformational leaders who shape the future through innovation and entrepreneurship in Delaware and beyond.

The final round of Hen Hatch featured four teams with widely divergent concepts: straws that change color to discreetly reveal spiked drinks, an app for women to manage chronic health conditions, a clothing line that supports animal shelters and autonomous robots that look for leaks in water lines.