Create your own path. Be the driver of your future career. Combine your passion for creativity or desire to create change with your work in the classroom. Inspire others with your creative work or solutions to real world problems.

What are entrepreneurial and creative endeavors?

Students learn to set their own course by having experiences in early stage start-ups, advancing ideas to solve real world problems, or create artistic, written or performance-based projects. 

DifferenceMakers By the Numbers

  • $5M
    raised by teams
  • 40
    companies formed by teams
  • 11
    Number of teams patents filed or issued

Meet the DifferenceMakers

UMass Lowell Image
Treehouse '14
DifferenceMakers

A website and phone application that connects people with plans, events and small businesses nearby.

Treehouse will revolutionize how people and businesses connect and make plans.
Read More ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ Treehouse 
DifferenceMaker-Team-BASH
BASH '16
DifferenceMakers

BASH plans to create and implement a new waste management system for the city of Les Cayes, Haiti.

We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to have access to clean water.
Read More ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ BASH 
Cleidir Mendes poses in his graduation cap and gown
Cleidir Mendes '22
Finance

A series of mentors helped Cleidir Mendes thrive at UML — and land a job at Fidelity Investments.

I’m very thankful that I had so many people who supported and guided me.
Read More ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ Cleidir Mendes 
UMass Lowell Image
Fresh Beets '14
DifferenceMakers

Fresh Beets is a food truck and music venue based out of Lowell, Ma. that unites food, music, education, and revelry into one vehicle of change.

Fresh Beets will feed, educate and excite the citizens of Lowell, a city I am proud to call my home.
Read More ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ Fresh Beets 
Hannah West sharing her idea during one of DifferenceMaker's workshop series.
Living, Green Wall
DifferenceMakers

Vertical green walls reduce carbon dioxide and increase oxygen levels.

Vertical green walls reduce carbon dioxide and increase oxygen levels.
Read More ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ Living, Green Wall