In the summer after her sophomore year at Syracuse University, Lauren Renz moved to Rome to au pair for the Italian monarchy. She didn’t tell her mother until three days before the move.

Now Renz is working on another big project that could move her to Germany — she still hasn’t told her mother.

Renz, a junior advertising major, is working on a tech startup that creates “creative code,” which is essentially an artificial intelligence computer code that knows near infinite answers to questions and adapts with usage. Renz is a co-founder of Entity Power, and is working on marketing the product.

“It takes a lot of tact to introduce something that has a lot of negative emotions attached to it,” Renz said. “Hollywood does a great job of scaring everyone that AI is the worst, but if used in the right format, it could be the best thing for humanity.”

A large part of Renz’s job involves copy writing for videos and advertisements. Renz has always had a love of writing — she published a book when she was in high school. “Kick It” details the story of a student and how she negotiates high school and her soccer team.

Although the story is not autobiographical, Renz loves sports. Her mother taught her to play tennis at a young age, and she still pursues the sport while at SU.

On a drizzly Friday, Renz sat in a corner of Pages Cafe in Bird Library working on a story board for Entity Power. She was dressed in her tennis clothes — she had to dash off to a match shortly after.

Renz takes a tennis class at SU, where she is the only girl among 16 men. She said the group is very competitive — many of the men play United States Tennis Association-level tennis.

“Most of them are pretty good, I can beat about half of them,” Renz chuckled. “I broke a string the other day playing one of the better kids in class. He nailed a serve and it just popped.”

Tennis acted as a way for Renz to make friends, and she used to carry her racket with her to class as a conversation starter. She met one of her best friends when they spotted her bag and asked her if she plays.

Renz loves tennis, but creative writing and copy writing for advertising is her passion. She is interning in Manhattan with Wunderman this summer and may move to Germany with Entity Power after graduation. She said she is not usually one to stick to traditional paths.

“This team, you know the gut feeling when you say, ‘I know this is right,” Renz said. “It doesn’t come along often, and I know it with these guys.”

Although she has only been onboard with the project for two weeks, Renz is already powering through and working around the clock. One of the biggest challenges, she said, is explaining to her friends why she is never around anymore.

“No one knows what you’re doing, and you’re never there, ever,” Renz said. “Your friends are constantly mad at you but you’re like, ‘Hey, I’m trying to change the world.’”

Published on April 23, 2017 at 9:14 pm

Contact Rachel: rcgilber@syr.edu