The Hatchery Sandbox

Build. Explore. Belong.

The Hatchery Sandbox is Emory's newest entrepreneurship community.

Sandbox makes entrepreneurship accessible, welcoming, and action-oriented. Learn how great ideas are engineered and we'll show you how to build them. You can join a team, learn by doing, and grow your confidence and curiosity into something you can hold in your hand. Sandbox gives you a place to start.

Sandbox is a community that rewards participation, experimentation, and progress. Members earn access to new opportunities and resources by showing up, building, and contributing to the community.

Join Sandbox

Ready to get started?

Complete the Sandbox Membership Form

Sandbox uses rolling membership cycles to help students join the community throughout the academic year.

Fall 2026 Cycle

  • Registration Form Opens: August 17, 2026
  • Registration Form Closes: September 11, 2026
  • Sandbox Kickoff: September 26, 2026

Spring 2027 Cycle

  • Registrations Open: TBD
  • Sandbox Kickoff: TBD

Students only need to complete the membership form once to begin participating in Sandbox programming, events, and community opportunities.

Questions? Please email thehatchery@emory.edu

Who Should Join?

Sandbox is designed for students across all schools, majors, and experience levels. Open to all undergraduate and graduate students who want to found a for-profit/nonprofit startup venture, support a venture, or learn about Emory's own brand of entrepreneurship.

Founders

Students with an idea, project, startup, nonprofit, or venture they want to build.

Startup Team Seekers

Students who want to join an existing team and contribute their skills.

Explorers

Students interested in entrepreneurship, innovation, problem-solving, or startup culture but who are not yet ready to launch a venture.

Student Catalysts

Students who want to support ventures through research, design, technology, consulting, communications, or other specialized skills.

How Sandbox Works

Sandbox operates through a Tiered membership progression system. Every member starts at the same level and unlocks additional opportunities and resources by participating in events, workshops, deliverables, mentoring, and community activities.

How many hours do you expect to commit? Engagement can be as low or as high as you would like. You can be in good standing for as little as 1 hour a month or as much as 10 hours a month.

What Opportunities and Resources You Can Get as a Sandbox Member

  • $50,000+ in funding available to Sandbox members
  • Microsoft for Startups resources (Azure credits, GitHub Copilot, and more)
  • Brand new fabrication lab
  • Frontier AI model subscriptions
  • International collaboration networks and field sites in 5 countries
  • Access to The Hatchery's Coaching Network, with staff-facilitated introductions
  • ...and more!

Sandbox Tiers

Progress is earned through engagement, not through a competitive application process. Learn more about specific resources you unlock with each tier.

🥚Everyone begins here.

As an Egg, you gain access to:

  • Workshops
  • Community events
  • Social nights
  • Building nights
  • Proto Office Hours
  • Team matchmaking opportunities
  • Sandbox community channels

 🐣 Early engagement and exploration.

You unlock:

  • Microsoft for Startups resources
  • Tech stack access (Hubspot, credits, other software)
  • Access to The Hatchery coaching network directory
  • Mentorship introduction requests
  • Founder lunches and special programming
  • Guided tours of innovation spaces in Atlanta

🐥 Active builders making consistent progress.

You unlock:

  • Eligibility for selected micro-grants
  • Dedicated mentor support
  • Peer cluster (mini-Incubator cohort) introductions
  • Priority access to community resources
  • Showcase your work at demo day style events 

🦅Students demonstrating sustained progress and real traction.

You unlock:

  • Advanced funding opportunities
  • Curated advisor and funder introductions
  • Invitation only pitch event
  • Fast-track consideration for advanced Hatchery programs
  • Enhanced visibility through Hatchery communications

Tier requirements and progression details will be shared during program onboarding.

Earn Progress Through Participation

Members earn points by actively engaging with Sandbox.

Examples include:

  • Attending workshops and office hours
  • Joining social and building nights
  • Participating in team matchmaking
  • Submitting project updates and deliverables
  • Teaching a workshop
  • Connecting with mentors
  • Referring new members
  • Building in public

Sandbox rewards action, experimentation, and community participation.

 

Programs and Events

20-20 students sitting in The Hatchery listening intently to a presenter

Practical sessions led by experienced founders, operators, and members of The Hatchery coaching network.

Topics may include:

  • Customer discovery
  • MVP development
  • Pitch design
  • Financial modeling
  • Startup fundamentals
  • Professional outreach
  • Social impact ventures
  • Fundraising and funding readiness

Jose Gomez Marquez and nurses are gathered around a table working on circuit boards and wires.

Drop in, pop open your laptop, drink way too much coffee, and build. Weekly sessions with José Gomez-Marquez for software or hardware prototyping, AI tools, and rapid experimentation. Thursdays 1-3pm at The Hatchery.

Students and researchers are standing around a round cocktail table with laptops.

Bring your project, bring your people. Monthly work sessions where you actually get stuff done, surrounded by other people doing the same.

Hatchery staff and student interns will be there to help you troubleshoot and find solutions.

4 students are standing and speaking beneath an umbrella at the Emory Student Center as a Hatchery staff member reaches into a cooler.

Come chill with us on campus or at The Hatchery, have a drink on us, and meet collaborators, mentors, and fellow innovators.

Student founders at The Hatchery sit on beanbags and a large blue sofa.

Got an idea but no team? Got skills but no idea? We'll get you in a room together. In-person sessions built to help you find your people.

Students and Hatchery staff are in sitting in a white room with hollow square table arrangment, listening to founders Shashwat Murarka and Alissa Cohan Allen.

"What is it really like to fundraise with VC?"

"How the heck did you afford rent?"

You can ask these kinds of questions when you break bread with founders and operators shaping Atlanta's innovation scene, or get behind the scenes at spaces like HSRB II. Small groups, big perspective.

Join Sandbox

If you are an Emory student interested in solving problems, exploring ideas, building projects, meeting collaborators, or launching something new, Sandbox is designed for you.

No perfect pitch required.

No startup experience necessary.

Just curiosity, commitment, and a willingness to build.

Registrations for Sandbox are open August 17 - September 11.

Join Sandbox