SDSU students build investor tools and rethink travel with AI

San Diego State University’s Lavin Entrepreneurship Center is using AI projects to give students practical experience in startup investing and travel planning. Based within the Fowler College of Business, its Lavin Entrepreneur Program brings together undergraduate and graduate students across majors, emphasizing entrepreneurial skills that extend beyond founding a company.

Students from the program collaborated with SDSU’s ZIP Launchpad startup incubator to create eight different AI-powered tools for eight different investor groups participating in the 2026 San Diego Angel Conference. Built with Lovable’s app development platform and customized generative AI, the tools helped investors analyze startup applications more efficiently as potential investment opportunities.

In a separate partnership with Alaska Airlines, students were asked to develop an experience-based AI travel app for Gen Z travelers. The challenge reimagines mobile trip planning beyond conventional booking, helping users discover destinations, personalize itineraries, collaborate with others and book travel.

The center also hosts a casual monthly AI meetup for students with questions, concerns or ideas about the technology. Together, these initiatives aim to help students from different disciplines develop emerging-technology skills and explore how they can contribute to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in a variety of roles.