Katia Shek is no stranger to the startup's h fuss. A senior senior in the Faculty of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern has launched several ventures between his undergraduates. However, thanks to a new workshop series hosted by the Garage, her entrepreneur's pace has become turbocharged.
Catalyst: Building with AI is a groundbreaking series designed to help students, researchers and innovators from all backgrounds leverage the power of AI. No technical experience is required. Through hands-on sessions, participants will learn how to prototype, smarter, and more effectively generate and no-code/low-code AI tools faster.
“AI helps entrepreneurs unlock ideas that may not have the technical tools to make it happen earlier,” said Mike Raab, executive director of the garage. “When you can show your ideas rather than simply pitch it, you're much more likely to encourage action, whether it comes from a potential user, funder or collaborator.”
Break barriers and build faster
The Catalyst series debuted this spring at Evanston Campus, with three impactful workshops. It focuses on using ideas to develop products and creating impactful marketing with AI tools such as Galileo AI, Bolt, and Midjourney.
Shek attended workshop sessions the same way she was developing her latest venture, Lex. It is a startup that combines the intimacy of phone calls with AI-style building possibilities of conversation to help users learn new languages.
“These AI tools have removed barriers I'd probably spent weeks trying to overcome,” Shek said. “They have allowed non-technical founders like me to build something realistic and fast.”
Within 24 hours of attending the workshop, Shek and her six-person team had a practical prototype. Rex quickly entered the private beta, carrying insights from the catalyst.
From campus to clinic: AI meets medicine
Following its success on the Evanston campus, Garage worked with the Medical Institute to expand its catalyst to the Chicago campus. In a special two-part series, students, faculty and medical researchers featured AI tools tailored to life sciences.
Karen Gutsman, a librarian at Galter Health Science Library in Northwestern, joined the session with bold ideas. Can AI help to uncover patterns buried in thousands of Northwestern Medicine publications?
Armed with what she learned, Gutzman is currently building an Ai-Enhanced analysis tool using a patient-reported results database and building a measurement core for the Aperided Health Research of Applied Health Research Center for Applied Health Research. If successful, she expands it into a prism. Prism is Northwestern Feinberg's institutional research repository that allows researchers to easily identify collaboration, funding sources and population impacts.
“AI gives us the opportunity to talk more deeply about the impact of our research,” she said. “It's not just discovery, it's visibility, collaboration, reach.”
What's next?
With over 120 participants in five Catalyst sessions (increasing demand from students, faculty and staff), the garage is already planning their next series of autumn workshops.
“Catalyst is about lowering the bars for innovation,” Raab said. “You don't need a computer science degree or a long-standing coding experience. You need curiosity, bold ideas and willingness to experiment.”
Daniel P. Smith is a freelance author based in Chicago.
