Haloscope | Innovate Carolina

Q & A

Tell us about the issue you want to tackle with your social venture.

With HALOSCOPE, we want to be able to create meaningful media by and for Generation Z. In response to the intensely oversaturated and hyper-curated nature of the web, we came into existence through the will of young artists, writers, and editors that made the ultimate decision to shift the dynamic between maker and consumer. We exist to amplify the voices, perspectives, and work of young creators, without boundaries.

Why did you feel compelled to take on that issue?

I founded HALOSCOPE in 2017, after multiple publications I worked for as a music critic folded. Working in those spaces as a high school student was an exciting and rewarding experience, but a deeply uncertain one— me and many of my peers were all teenage girls, freelancing and working without proper protections on the stories we were covering. In response to that insecurity, I initially started HALOSCOPE as a small zine and web publication, designed to be an experimental Gen-Z driven community. Three years later, HALOSCOPE has radically transformed into a truly boundless platform for the exchange, interpretation, and dissection of ideas by young creatives.

What inspired you to launch your social venture through CUBE at the Campus Y?

Reflexive, accessible media is, at its heart, a social issue. Many publications do not make the necessary appropriations to amplify the voices of marginalized groups, or reflect those voices on their staff and in their leadership. CUBE has always existed as a landscape where young innovators committed to social good can come together to create something new and necessary— the exact stories we aim to tell at HALOSCOPE.

What do you hope to achieve during your CUBE residency?

Our unique capacities as a digital, print, social, and physical space enable our ability to disregard limits and to produce, expand, and evolve freely. Through CUBE, we’re hoping to expand HALOSCOPE’S reach and the stories we’re able to tell— not just in news and reporting, but in video, audio, and event programming, too.

What social impact do you hope to have with your venture?

With a staff composed of artists, graphic designers, photographers, writers, reporters, and even more genre-defying creators from 30+ countries around the globe, we hope that, through community and collaboration, we’ll be able to transform the media industry into one that’s wholly more accessible for all.

What motivates you to be a student entrepreneur?

I’ve always been motivated by people’s stories, especially the joy and optimism of young reporters and creatives who work with us here at HALOSCOPE. Watching people get to have experiences not dissimilar from my own when I was doing on-the-ground reporting, but doing so in a very safe, collaborative space, has been such a rewarding feeling. It’s what keeps me energized and excited to grow the expanse of what digital media can do.