In March 2025, RAMP expanded its offerings to the regional innovation ecosystem with the pilot program of its new RAMP Fellows Program, a 1-month experiential consulting exercise that brought together RAMP alumni companies and MBA students to solve real-life business challenges.
The 4-week program brought together RAMP alumni companies Qentoros, Tiny Cargo, and Corvus Labs with two teams of MBA students from UNC Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. Together they tackled two real-world projects: a business case for clean room development and expansion in the Roanoke Blacksburg region and the development of a market analysis and go-to-market strategy.
“GO Virginia Project GMP CLEAN has four major milestones, with one being the establishment of a Business & Financial plan for the construction and operation of a cleanroom facility. The RAMP Fellows Program served as an invaluable resource to the GMP CLEAN project by providing a hands-on, interactive experience with MBA students to analyze the options and develop a comprehensive approach for GO VA Region 2 to establish cleanroom facilities in Roanoke and Blacksburg,” said Tiny Cargo CSO Spencer Marsh. “The output of this work was a functional financial analysis and final determination of the optimal approach to installing and operating cleanrooms, which will serve as a guide to our operations as we move to install our first cleanroom in Roanoke.”
“The RAMP Fellows Program was a great experience that opened my eyes to an industry I previously had no experience in. It gave me the opportunity to apply many of my transferable skills and knowledge in meaningful ways. The founders were also incredibly generous with their time and insights, helping us understand the space more deeply. I’m especially proud that our deliverable is helping a real business,” said MBA student Yejide Alli.
The RAMP Fellows Program is the newest offering in the suite of programming RAMP provides to support tech and life science entrepreneurs on their journey toward commercialization. In 2024, RAMP added On RAMP, a pre-accelerator program designed to introduce prospective founders to entrepreneurship, as well as Exit RAMP, which supports alumni following their graduation from the signature RAMP In-Residence accelerator program.
Thanks to the success of the pilot program, RAMP plans to continue the RAMP Fellows Program in the fall of 2025. RAMP welcomes participation inquiries from all RAMP alumni and university business programs.