ACC Entrepreneurship & Innovation Academy

Where student ideas take flight.

EDGE Team is Austin Community College's student-led entrepreneurship organization. We run NEST FEST, build founders, and connect student innovators with Austin's startup ecosystem.

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EDGE Team Founding Cohort
EDGE Team — Founding Cohort

Flagship Event

NEST FEST

ACC's annual student startup showcase. Real ideas, real feedback, real community.

NEST FEST 2025 Recap

The inaugural event

Watch the full showcase from November 7, 2025 at Riverside Campus — 15 pitches, industry judges, and over 60 attendees.

Coming April 2026

NEST FEST Spring 2026

Ready to pitch your idea? Applications open soon for ACC's second annual startup showcase. All majors welcome.

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The People

Meet the team

Student officers, faculty advisors, and the founding alumni who built EDGE from the ground up.

Current Officers — Spring 2026

AR
Abel Rincon
President & AI/Automation Specialist
LinkedIn →
FH
Faiza Hussain
Student Founder
LinkedIn →
JT
Juan Tovar
Communications Coordinator
Spring 2026
LinkedIn →

Leadership & Advisors

MR
Dr. Monique Reeves
Executive Champion & Vice Chancellor
LinkedIn →
AK
Dr. Andrea Kehoe
Head of Product & Advisor
LinkedIn →
HS
Harshal Shah
Program Director, EIA & CEO, The Venture Build
LinkedIn →
AW
Prof. Alexandra Watkins
Academic Advisor
LinkedIn →

Founding Alumni — Spring 2025

CH
Carol Hernandez
Alumni Advisor
Founding Member · Graduated
LinkedIn →
Funnation
JE
Josh Edmond
Alumni Advisor
Founding Member · Graduated
LinkedIn →
Juco AI
CC
Cullen Cline
Founding Member
Founding Member

Success Stories

Built at NEST FEST

Real ventures launched from ACC's premier pitch competition. We provide the platform; they provide the hustle.

🥇 Winner

Big Bites Bakery

Deanna DeLeon

Pastry Arts student. 1st place NEST FEST 2025. Presented at SXSW EDU.

🥈 2nd Place

CutQueue

Omer Ulucan

2nd place NEST FEST 2025. AI appointment system for barbers across phone, SMS, and WhatsApp.

🥉 3rd Place

Custom Card Frames

Christopher Winnier-Cline

3rd place NEST FEST 2025. Custom display frames for sports card collectors, built with 3D-printed prototypes.

logo

The Paddock Society

Eduardo Mejia Arteaga

Didn't win. Went back to the lab, refined the concept, and is now launching Austin's first motorsport dining experience.

Auntpreneur

Faiza Hussain

A mentorship platform unlocking business opportunities for women entrepreneurs. Built at NEST FEST 2025.

Aerial Media & Drone Services

Ben Harris

Economics major. Licensed commercial drone pilot. Took the stage at NEST FEST 2025 with a real estate media client base already in progress.

🚀
Founder Story

Your idea could be next

NEST FEST 2026

Applications open Spring 2026. All majors welcome.

Community Voices

The people, the proof, the future

Behind every pitch and every event is a narrative of growth. Discover how EDGE is reshaping the student experience.

O
Origin

Five students. A blank page. ACC's first entrepreneurship program.

In Spring 2025, EDGE Team was handed no blueprint and told to build something that had never existed at ACC. Six months later, over 60 people showed up.

“We didn't know what we were building. We just knew it had to exist.”
Read full story →
P
Process

What it actually takes to build NEST FEST

Venue bookings, sponsor decks, judge recruitment, run-of-show, AV setup, and fifteen student pitches — here is how the first one came together.

“Every decision was made without a playbook because there wasn't one yet.”
Read full story →
F
Founder

She didn't just pitch a bakery. She made the judges eat it.

A culinary student walked on stage at NEST FEST 2025, pitched Big Bites Bakery, closed with a live food demo, and won. Then she took the same business to SXSW EDU.

“Who wants to take a bite with me?”
Read full story →
F
Founder

From a NEST FEST slide deck to Austin's streets

Eduardo and Jose came to pitch a motorsports fan experience. They left and built it. The Paddock Society ran its first real event within months of the competition.

“The pitch wasn't the finish line. It was the starting gun.”
Read full story →
E
Event

EDU Week — March 11, 2025

EDGE Team participated in ACC's EDU Week, bringing entrepreneurship programming to campus with the Business in a Box lab, workshops, and community connection.

“Every week is EDU week when you're building something real.”
View Flyer ↗
Event

ACC students just presented at SXSW EDU

EDGE Team brought student founders to one of the most recognized education conferences in the country. Big Bites Bakery was the live case study. Community college students teaching the world.

“We went from our first campus event to SXSW EDU in the same academic year.”
Read full story →
Event

EDGE Team mentored at NASA's River Hack

Invited by the ACC Computer Science & IT department, EDGE Team ran a dedicated Mentorship Room at the NASA International Space Apps Challenge — coaching student dev teams on pitching, business models, and entrepreneurial mindset in 7-minute speed rounds.

“The best code in the world still needs a story. We helped them find it.”
Read full story →
B
Behind the Scenes

Here is what six hours before an ACC event looks like

Room reservations, equipment pickups, volunteer briefings, run-of-show rehearsals, and last-minute pivots. The invisible work that makes the event look easy.

“Nobody sees the setup. That's how you know it went well.”
Read full story →
F
Founder

He studied economics. He built a drone business.

Ben Harris showed up to NEST FEST 2025 as a licensed commercial drone pilot with a real estate media client base already in progress. Economics major. No business degree. Launch Ready.

“Entrepreneurship belongs to every major, every background, every story.”
Read full story →
Event

The AI Power Lunch

EDGE Team brought together students, founders, and community leaders for a hands-on conversation about how AI is changing what it means to build a business from scratch.

“The best tool you have is the one you actually use.”
Read full story →
P
Playbook

How to build your own NEST FEST

Everything we learned building ACC's first student pitch competition — the decisions, the mistakes, the model that worked. A replicable guide for any community college ready to give student founders a stage.

“If we could do it with five students and no budget history, so can you.”
Read full story →
Discover all stories

Our Playbook

The work nobody sees

Events don't produce themselves. We maintain a rigorous standard of execution to bridge the gap between idea and impact.

01

Months before

Venue bookings, faculty coordination, sponsor outreach, judge recruitment, run-of-show drafts. Every detail decided before a single student shows up.

02

The week of

AV setup, volunteer briefings, presenter rehearsals, last-minute logistics, and the thousand small decisions that keep an event on track.

03

What it builds

Founder follow-ups, sponsor recaps, press and social documentation, alumni connections, and the infrastructure for next time.

SXSW EDU · March 2025

Business in a Box Student Entrepreneurship Lab

In collaboration with the CTX Learning Festival, EDGE brought students, entrepreneurs, and innovators together at SXSW EDU to explore how AI is redefining entrepreneurship. Facilitated by Dr. Andrea Kehoe, Abel Rincon, and Harshal Shah — with Dr. Monique Reeves as executive sponsor.

Students explored AI as a co-worker — market researcher, CFO, marketing strategist, and product manager — then took early steps toward building a venture using the Business in a Box Playbook.

“The energy in the room was incredible — high-level insights, authentic connections, and a community of future founders learning from one another.”
— Dr. Andrea Kehoe
Experience the journey
EDGE Team at SXSW EDU

The Playbook

How to build your NEST FEST

We built ACC's first student pitch competition from nothing. Here is everything we learned.

01
01

Find your stage

Securing a venue on campus, coordinating with facilities and faculty advisors, understanding what the space needs to hold for a real showcase event.

02
02

Build your judge panel

Recruiting industry professionals, alumni, and community leaders who will give students honest and useful feedback rather than polite applause.

03
03

Recruit your presenters

Getting students to submit ideas, coaching them through the pitch process, and making the barrier to entry low enough that a culinary student and a Navy veteran both feel like they belong on stage.

04
04

Fund it

Finding sponsors who believe in student entrepreneurship, building a tiered sponsorship structure, and making the pitch to local businesses and community partners.

05
05

Market it

Building awareness across a campus community where most students don't know the event exists yet. What worked for NEST FEST 2025 and what we would do differently.

06
06

Run it

The day-of logistics, the run-of-show, the things that go wrong and how you handle them, and what it feels like when 60 people show up to something you built from scratch.

Want the full guide?

We are building a downloadable playbook for community college entrepreneurship programs. Get on the list to receive it when it launches.

Get Involved

Apply to join EDGE

We're recruiting the next cohort of student founders, organizers, and innovators. No business degree required.

Lead real events
Organize NEST FEST, workshops, and community programs that reach hundreds of ACC students.
Build with AI
Hands-on work with Google Workspace Gems, Claude, and automation tools for real business scenarios.
Access Austin's ecosystem
Connect with founders, investors, and leaders through EIA's growing network of sponsors and partners.
All majors welcome
Technology, business, marketing, culinary, healthcare — entrepreneurship belongs to every discipline.

Express interest