The Harvard innovation lab buzzed with excitement on Thursday as the Startup Institute‘s summer 2013 class prepared to pitch themselves to an audience of prospective employers from Boston’s hottest startup companies.

After 8 weeks of focused training in one of four learning tracks – technical marketing, sales and business development, product and design, or web development – students from the Startup Institute emerge with the skills necessary to be successful at a startup company.

Co-founder and CEO Aaron O’Hearn called the Startup Institute a “system of goodness” in which alumni become employers looking to hire new talent for their startups. Though the main premise behind the school’s method is to train students to work at startups, some alumni couple these skills with their entrepreneurial spirit and start their own companies.

Steve McGarry and Marty Bernstein, graduates of SIB’s winter 2013 class, partnered to start their company, Dapper, saying that the skills they learned gave them the confidence and ability to begin their own startup. Only a few months after their graduation, the duo were scouting out talent for future hires.

“These students have been trained to execute ideas into reality,” said Allan Telio, a former hiring partner turned mentor in residence at SIB. A main component to accomplishing this goal is to, as Telio says, “align passion with a specific skill set.” When asked how he helps these men and women find their passion, he said, “Most of the time, they already know what it is, they’re just afraid to take the leap. Talking about it to someone else really helps.”

After these encouraging introductions, it was the students’ turn to take the stage. In 60 short seconds, each and every one of them managed to demonstrate their passions and skills with personal, engaging, and eloquent pitches:

Jeremy Bader, from the web development track, invited employers to consider him so that “together, we can solve great puzzles.”

Technical marketing graduate Parker Barnett called himself a “fiery ball of focused energy” ready to build content for companies.

French native David Bruggisser said he is looking for a company to “help me stay out of my comfort zone.”

Haley McLane wants to “create moments and design experiences” with the skills she learned in the product and design track.

Listen to more students share their motivation for applying to the Startup Institute and the most valuable skills they learned there in the videos below: