CTStartup Podcast

Ethan Rodriguez-Torrent and Max Sutter are the co-founders of Escape New Haven Connecticut's newest attraction. Imagine you and your friends are locked in a room and the only way out is to solve the puzzles that lie within the room. Some may think that this doesn't sounds fun but for a growing number of people this is a perfect weekend night.

Rosie Gallant is currently the Program Manager at reSET, and is responsible for developing, implementing, and assessing the success of reSET’s social enterprise programming. In her role, Rosie focuses on leveraging resources and building strategic partnerships to support individual social entrepreneurs and the growing social enterprise sector in CT. Previous to reSET, Rosie obtained her MBA in Organizational Management and Environmental Sustainability at Antioch University New England where she concentrated on the triple bottom line business model and consulted for a variety of organizations to build strategic management plans that incorporated social and environmental value in to the business bottom line. Through triple bottom line business consulting, Rosie has been able to connect her passion and previous experience with natural systems and environmental sustainability to the financial value component of the business bottom line.

Rosie came to reSET after interviewing Founder, Kate Emery, for her Master’s thesis on Storytelling for Social Change. Kate’s story inspired her, and spotlighted the incredible momentum of social enterprise right here in CT.

Rosie is passionate about local and start-up economies, working to help build strong communities, and finding new ways to support CT’s social entrepreneurs. At reSET, Rosie’s role provides her the opportunity to work with social entrepreneurs that are serving multiple sectors including food systems, health and wellness, and education. Rosie has also traveled internationally throughout South America and Africa to study environmental sustainability in emerging economies and holds a B.S. in Natural Resources Management and Engineering from the University Of Connecticut. Her background and current work focus help her view business and CT’s entrepreneurial ecosystem through the lens of complex systems, and lends insight in to developing strategy for start-up social enterprises.

Outside of reSET, Rosie has Co-founded two businesses, is an avid organic gardener, and is passionate about supporting start-up business initiatives that build more resilient local economies in CT.

Civic Lift was born out of a project that Evan Dobos was creating for his client at the, the City of Torrington, CT. Seeing the need for a platform to encourage and curate civic engagement and how the people of Torrington used the new website, Evan decided to create a platform that other towns and cities could leverage. Evan has won several awards and is developing the software to scale Civic Lift to towns and cities across the United States and outside.

The Happiness Lab was created by Vishal Patel and Onyeka Obiocha who are the owners of A Happy Life Coffee. Their benefit corporation was created to have sustainable coffee make the world a happier place one cup at a time. A Happy Life’s motto is…Live is Short, Live Happy, and Pass it On

The CTStartup podcast is all about connecting people who are passionate about the growing Connecticut startup ecosystem. The story of how CTStartup podcast got started is not unlike how startups begin.