15 Tech Companies Created In Dorm Rooms

Like most college students today, many hope to avoid the typical 9-to-5 job upon graduation. And whether through entrepreneurial vigor or a genius idea that came to fruition in a dorm room, there exits a cohort of young minds that were successful in their pursuits. From Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook to Shawn Fanning's Napster, we track 15 successful tech companies created within the hallowed walls of the academy.

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School: University of Houston
Year Created: 2002

Ten years ago, then just a freshman at U of H, the tenacious Texas native created a blogging platform that changed the game forever. You'd be hard pressed to pinpoint the exact moment blogging exploded (somewhere between 2003 - 2005), but one thing is certain: Without Matt Mullenweg's bold idea, the Internet—and how we communicate online—would not be what it is today.

School: Cornell University
Year Created: 1994

In the midst of the dot-com bubble, Conrell students Todd Krizelman and Stephan Paternot, both 24, created TheGlobe.com. It was, by most accounts, the first social network. And when the company went public it made history: it posted the largest first day gain of any IPO up to that date. TheGlobe.com was the social network MySpace and Facebook got their style from.

School: Stanford University
Year Created: 1994

Before Google came along and took the top spot, Yahoo! was the dominant search engine online. Developed by Jerry Yang and David Filo, both then electrical engineering students, the web portal offered a gateway into the Internet never before experienced. And while Yahoo! is not what it was in the old days, the company's shift toward content diversification has paid off well. Yahoo! now includes popular sports, political, news, and financial sites.

School: Duke University
Year Created: 2012

Duke grad Douglas Hanna created A Small Orange during his junior year. The Durham, North Carolina startup buys struggling web hosting companies, works on improving them and, depending on growth, either retains the business or sells it. Hustle hard, indeed.

School: University of Pittsburgh
Year Created: 2011

In an effort to create a more green economy, three savvy students developed the Personal Electric Vehicle Zero, aka the PEV0. The best part? The motor bike can drive over 100 miles on just 25 cents of electricity, nearly 30 times more than a Toyota Prius. In Micah Toll's (pictured above), Thorin Tobiassen's, and Max Pless' future, electric vehicles will dominate the road.

School: University of Texas
Year Created: 1984

It's 1984 and Michael Dell is a pre-med student at U of T with an idea to sell personal computers directly to consumers (it hadn't really been done before). After deciding to follow his gut, he leaves school, and focuses on providing custom-built PCs to the masses. As CNBC reports: When the company went public it's "market cap went from a scant $1,000 to $85 million instantly. [Over 25] years later that number is up to [$60 billion in revenue], and Dell computers are near ubiquitous among consumers and businesses alike." A dollar and a dream, indeed.

School: California Polytechnic State University
Year Created: 2009

Developed in a response to founder AJ Forsythe's (pictured above) desire to pay less for pricey Apple repairs from a shattered iPhone screen (a constant reality for all Jobs disciples), iCracked has quickly made a name for itself. Along with Leslee Lambert and Anthony Martin, the trio entered Y Combinator's 2012 winter class and have been making their mark ever since. iCracked currently has more than 120 locations worldwide and has posted over $1 million in revenue in less than two years.

School: Stanford University
Year Created: 1998

Then both Ph.D students at Stanford, Larry Page and Sergey Brin had an idea: An all-inclusive search engine (Yahoo!, still relatively new, was then only four years old) that would mine data quicker and more efficiently than anything ever before. Fast forward 25 years and Google has become the first online destination people go to when they need a question answered. Oh, not too mention the tech giant's lock on the email game (Gmail what up!), its acquisition of video-sharing goliath YouTube, and its $50 billion revenue in 2012.

School: Arizona State University
Year Created: 2011

Startup G3Box is what we talk about when we talk about technology's ability to accomplish global goodwill. With the greater good in mind, four ASU students created G3Box, a company that designs inexpensive, mobile medical clinics in the US and Africa. Each clinic is fashioned out of a recycled steel shipping container and aims to offer healthcare in rural areas.

School: University of Miami
Year Created: 2011

In a world fueled by online connection and gadgets, Ketan Rahangdale and Jaiyu Ni aimed to create one devoid of cords. EarTop Technologies develops and designs wireless adapters and self-sustaining wireless devices. That the company has been such a success so far, generating $1 million in revenue in 2012, is only the tip of the iceberg.

School: Williams College
Year Created: 1992

While students at Williams College, Bo Peabody (pictured above) and Brett Hershey developed Tripod, an all-inclusive source for resume writing assistance, tools for website building, and links to pertinent products. The company was eventually bought out by Lycos and would become known for its signature web hosting services.

School: Harvard University
Year Created: 2004

You've heard the story by now: Aloof genius attends Harvard for a year, creates a budding social network, drops out to focus on it full-time, and ends up becoming one of the most important innovators of our time. Facebook currently boasts more than 500 million users and is valued at over $100 billion. Indeed the stuff of legend.

School: Brigham Young University
Year Created: 2011

Founded by BYU students Garrett Gee, Ben Turley, and Kirk Ouimet in 2011, Scan aims to connect businesses to the digital world like never before. Creating QR codes and NFC image recognition technologies, Scan's app has garnered over 10 million downloads and is currently being used in more than 75 countries worldwide.

School: Northeastern University
Year Created: 1999

Of all the selections on our list, Napster may be one of the most significant. Shawn Fanning (pictured above) and Sean Parker (who would go on to become the first president of Facebook) developed a peer-to-peer music sharing and downloading platform that single handedly altered the music industry. The original Napster, which garnered over 80 million users in its first two years, was eventually shut down in 2001. To say that Fanning's company was the beginning of digital music downloads (now a common, if not altogether expected, practice) and faltering music sales would be a gross understatement.

School: Harvard University
Year Created: 1975

The argument can be made: Bill Gates might be Harvard's most infamous dropout. In the mid-70s, before our idea of what was truly possible through technology, a scrawny Seattle native left Cambridge to focus on his computer software company. Thirty five years later? Microsoft is a household name, Windows is commonplace on most PCs, and the company is valued at over $70 billion.