Our CEO zooms with LSU entrepreneurship class

Fluker’s is proud of our long-standing relationship with Louisiana State University.  And, course, we’ve worked in partnership with LSU Entomology and LSU Sustainability on our black soldier fly project for the last two years.

Our insect farm sits across the river from Baton Rouge and is only a few minutes’s drive from LSU! It is not uncommon our fearless leader, David, to travel to campus and address classes in various departments when called upon.

So when LSU Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship Daniel Holt needed a local business owner to speak to one of his his spring semester classes, David was happy to put it on his schedule.

Bitten by the “entrepreneurship bug” at an early age, David was excited about this opportunity to address a class full of aspiring business owners and really looking forward to it.

But on March 12 2020, LSU became one of the first universities to announce it was moving its classes online as part of the state’s initial precautionary steps to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus and later fully closed the campus on March 24.

David was disappointed when Professor Holt emailed him to cancel the April guest lecture amidst all the uncertainty. But in keeping with his entrepreneurial spirit, David was quick to offer a creative solution.

“Let’s do a webinar, ” David suggested. Fluker’s had just invested in some new software he thought would be perfect for the occasion. But as things continued to evolve, lock-downs and distance learning swiftly became the new normal.

With LSU’s distancing learning protocols now in place, they had a captive “home” audience in place and ready to Zoom!

“I ended up ‘Zooming’ with the entrepreneur students from my porch. It wasn’t quite the same as being up at the podium in a classroom, but because it fell at the very beginning of the stay-at-home phase, it was one of the first guest lectures they had experienced over Zoom, ” said Fluker.

“The novelty of it was a great way to kickoff a talk about the creativity, innovation, and pivoting necessary to be successful as an entrepreneur,” added Fluker.