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Knoxville Business News Tennessee Mountain Scenery Background
January 23, 2025 | Tom Ballard

Need to power your cell or tablet?

If you are at Belmont University, a junior business major has a way to do it easily.

Over the holiday break, Belmont University introduced new charging spaces for students on the go — a new student venture called Plug. For $2 an hour or $6 a day, Plug offers a portable power bank sharing service where chargers can be rented for convenient usage.

According to a news release from Belmont, the Plug service is offered by Abdul Abdurasulov, a junior business major, who partnered with the Thomas F. Cone Sr. Center for Entrepreneurship to take actionable steps in bringing power banks to campus. The idea stemmed from a trip last summer to his family’s home in Uzbekistan, where power bank stations are regularly found at local coffee shops, restaurants and cafes. 

It wasn’t until Abdurasulov was out late with friends one night and found himself needing a charger that he realized how useful the charging stations could be. “I realized it would be easy to start up at Belmont and further expand into Nashville,” he said. 

Abdurasulov is hopeful that once the power banks are successfully implemented in daily life by Belmont students, he’ll be able to expand into the greater Nashville area. “The idea was to build an ecosystem where people could implement Plug into their lives,” he explained. “If their phone ever dies or they need to charge, you can go just about anywhere and find a power bank.”  

After researching, Abdurasulov found the same supplier of the power banks in Uzbekistan and set up a virtual meeting to discuss pricing options. He gathered details about what it would take to purchase five stations and ship them to Nashville, then reached out to the Cone Center and connected with Executive Director Elizabeth Gortmaker 



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