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Some of the best moments happen in the lobby. At TEDCO’s 12th Entrepreneur Expo, our Head of Partnerships, Alison Waldman, ran into a familiar face: Samuel Bond ’26, a Mental Health Xperience (MHX) student, getting ready to pitch in front of more than 1,000 attendees at the Concept Capital pitch competition.
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That day, DIRA, the company Samuel co-owns, celebrated receiving TEDCO’s $25,000 Concept Capital award. When we shared the moment, Samuel had his own take: “Full circle is an understatement!”
“I was drawn to xFoundry’s reputation for supporting builders who can think beyond traditional boundaries.”
Samuel Bond ’26, Mental Health Xperience
Where it started
Samuel joined MHX, our competition tackling mental health on college campuses, and built a venture called Radiant. He says he was “trying to turn an idea I cared deeply about into something real.” He couldn’t have known then how much that experience would shape the way he approaches building, pitching, and solving problems.
He credits that experience, and the venture he built, with helping prepare him for the responsibilities and opportunities he’s taken on since. In his words, xFoundry gave him “room to build before I had all the answers.”
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Where it’s going
Today, Samuel is co-owner and Founding Engineer of DIRA, a medical device commercialization technology company, where he leads its data pipelines, platform architecture, and AWS infrastructure. The company, and specifically the technology he built, is what he pitched at TEDCO.
“It’s funny how quickly you’re onto the next problem, the next build, the next milestone. Sometimes it takes someone else telling the story back to you to realize just how far you’ve come.”
— Samuel Bond ’26
That’s why we built our programs. Not to hand out awards, but to give founders like Samuel a running start toward moments like this one.
So proud of you, Samuel. This is just the beginning.
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