Pilot track
AI and fintech
How lending, payments and risk work as businesses, and where AI changes the economics.
Example problemHow do small exporters get working capital against verified invoices in days, not weeks?
From a first problem to a first company.
For universities, entrepreneurship centres, incubators and faculty. A BQ chapter surrounds your students with investors, mentors, founders and engineers chosen for them, gives them live problems from frontier sectors and hackathons with technology enterprises, and carries the strongest teams towards a company.
Every chapter is shaped around your students, and starts with a pilot.
What students get
Inside live sectors, with the people who run them.
Each chapter runs in sprints, with the same pod and the same mentors from start to finish.
A live problem
A real problem from a founder, enterprise or researcher, framed with the people who own it.
Mentors who build
Engineers, founders and investors from the BQ network, chosen for your students’ sectors, mentor pods directly.
Hands-on workshops
Build Labs run by practitioners, where students leave with something that works.
Mixed pods
Management, engineering and design students working as one team.
A working prototype
An AI-enabled prototype, a sector map and a validated problem that students can show co-founders, investors and employers.
Hackathons and Demo Night
Hackathons and flagship events with technology enterprises, and Demo Night in front of angels, pre-seed funds and operators.
The journey
Access is earned.
Every student starts as an Explorer. What they build and how consistently they show up decide how far they go.
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01
Explorer
Come to chapter sessions, meet practitioners and find the sector that holds your attention.
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02
Builder
Join a pod for a full sprint and ship a working prototype.
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03
BQ Fellow By selection
The strongest builders from each cohort, chosen by a panel of founders and operators. Fellows get one-to-one time with them and a Demo Night slot.
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04
Founder
Take the work further with a team, a problem worth years of your time and people who can help.
You can’t apply to be a Fellow. If a cohort doesn’t produce one, we don’t name one.
Sector tracks
Sectors, taught through their business.
Each track covers how a sector makes money and where it is stuck, as well as how its technology works. Chapters start with two.
Pilot track
Real estate and proptech
How property is bought, built, priced and managed, and where buyers and brokers know different things.
Example problemHow can a homebuyer learn which localities a new metro line will affect, before brokers price it in?
What it takes
A chapter at your university.
What your university gets
- A BQ chapter for your students, co-branded with your university
- A network of investors, mentors and engineers chosen for your students
- Sprints, Build Labs and hackathons on problems from live sectors
- Your strongest teams at Demo Night and in front of investors
- A clear account after every sprint of what worked and what didn’t
What we need from you
- A faculty member or student lead who owns it on campus
- A room for sessions
- A group of students ready to commit for the length of a sprint
How it starts
Start with a pilot, then decide.
There are no fixed session counts and no long contracts up front.
- We listen firstWe learn what your students want, what you have tried and what worked. The pilot is shaped around that.
- One pilot sprintWe run a sprint with a committed group of your students, on problems from live sectors.
- Review togetherAttendance, prototypes and what students said. We share the numbers, good or bad.
- Decide what’s nextKeep going as a chapter, change the format or stop.
Proven formats
Borrowed from the best, built for your campus.
Chapters adapt formats that leading programmes use to build real capability, and ground them in how your students’ markets, customers and capital work.
- Stanford GSB, View From The TopStudents interview the leaders instead of a moderator. Our Founder Firesides are hosted by students, who prepare with a brief and a rehearsal.
- MIT Sloan, Action LearningStudent teams work on live problems with enterprises. Our pods take on live problems from our network and hand over usable work.
- Stanford GSB, Startup GarageCustomer discovery first, then a prototype, then the pitch. Our Build Labs follow the same order.
- Oxford Saïd, Creative Destruction LabBusiness students work alongside deep-tech founders. BQ Fellows work with frontier-tech founders and researchers from our network.
BQ is independent and not affiliated with these programmes.
Start with a conversation.
Tell us about your students and what you have tried so far. We will come back with a chapter shaped around it.