How to Become an Entrepreneur with Illinois Grainger Engineering Student Emily Zhou

The leap from creating a student startup to seeing it come to fruition can be overwhelming. Where do you begin? How do you pitch your idea to the right people, and where do you find them?

 

Emily Zhou (BS Computer Science, ’24/MS CS, ’25), the CEO and founder of the Sound of Molecules, reveals that the answers are everywhere at The Grainger College of Engineering. From the message boards that grace most building interiors to the calendars of events posted on social media and websites, students are directed to resources that match their interests.

“You’ll find communities to support your startup, practice your social skills and prepare you for those important connections,” Zhou said. “And then, attend!”

This approach led her to pitch her startup to Illinois Grainger Engineering Dean Rashid Bashir following YouTube co-founder Steve Chen’s Q&A event last August. The chance encounter led Dean Bashir to share his own ideas and support her through a continued correspondence. It also gave Zhou an advantage when she met Thomas Siebel (BA History '75, MBA '83, MS CS '85), the CEO and founder of C3 AI, at a dedication event for Illinois Grainger Engineering’s Siebel School of Computing and Data Science a couple months later.

Dean Bashir, who accompanied Siebel as he greeted a sea of Illinois Grainger engineers, introduced Zhou to the tech titan upon recognizing her. She came prepared by bringing two books she published: The Sound of Molecules: A Molecular Encoding for AI and The Musical Adventures of Hailey the Hydrogen Atom. The books are an educational component of her startup, with the first book outlining how she is trying to fill a gap in current methods of understanding molecules. Harnessing AI, Zhou applies an information encoding technique to map musical notes to elements in the periodic table to represent molecular structures and reveal patterns that visual data alone might miss.

“Picture Google Maps but for molecules,” Zhou said. “This will help us find new ways to optimize data for drug discovery, health care and education.”

Last January, Zhou met Siebel once again through the Technology Entrepreneur Center (TEC) Silicon Valley Entrepreneurship Workshop during a tour at C3 AI. The workshop gives participants the opportunity to meet entrepreneurs at various stages of their startup.

Resources like TEC and their programs, including SocialFuse and Cozad New Venture Challenge, are favored by Zhou, along with iVenture’s Women in Entrepreneurship program. The constant growth of connections has helped her prepare for what comes next.

 Zhou will graduate this spring after completing the five-year BS-MCS Program and will earn a minor with the Hoeft Technology and Management Program. She hopes to eventually take her startup full-time to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she grew up.

She advises startup hopefuls to go the extra mile when finding their own resources, which can mean sticking around to connect with people face-to-face when an event ends.

“Just keep going,” Zhou said.