Joe D’Ambrose

This semester has gotten off to an excellent start. One of my top priorities this semester has been developing my latest entrepreneurial endeavor and first non-profit business, Javalids, with a student team including 4 students and myself. This began as a for-profit idea that Cary Quinn and I were tossing around back in November: a small advertisement on the top of a coffee cup. We soon discovered that the model would work much more smoothly in the non-profit sector, and began to look into it. Quickly approaching Bryant’s service learning department, we realized that we can work this project into our curriculum (I’m a Sociology & Service Learning major). Three of our friends joined the team, and the 5 of us are all enrolled in two very relevant classes: Not for Profit Law and Governance, taught by Ed Pell, as well as an upper-level directed study in Sociology focusing on social entrepreneurship. With two classes relating so closely to Javalids and such frequent meetings amongst the founding members, we are moving along quickly, and learning a lot about the ins and outs of the not-for-profit world.
We’re in the process of developing a Board of Directors, and we currently have four highly accomplished professors on our advising board. We are also in the process of applying for our 501(c)(3) tax exempt status and looking to secure corporate sponsors and individual donors.

Normal Kings built a website for Javalids which can be found at Javalids.org - check it out and leave some feedback! Expedient Laundry has shared it’s on-campus office space with Javalids, so we now have some official “headquarters” as we get this company off the ground!