Hi there, I am one of the executives of Blockchain at Berkeley. Happy to see we're getting some attention on here! I would love to clear some things up about what we do. :)
We're a student group (mostly undergraduate) that runs somewhat like a non-profit. We focus on all things related to cryptocurrency and decentralized tech (more simply put, blockchain - that's at least how the world sees it).
In the case of consulting, no one is actually pocketing money for themselves. While there is money involved, it is essentially a donation contract between us and our clients. Everything goes back towards the organization and the cause. We all work for free in that sense, and we reward the community with what we earn where we can.
What we do for consulting is mostly on the lines of Ethereum smart contract PoCs with front-ends. It's a lot of investment for a company to make their engineers go out and do this themselves, but not unreasonable for some students with a lot of motivation and decent programming knowledge to learn and build. We don't ask for much so companies are happy to work with the group of amazing students we have here to benefit the cause. ;)
Fundamentally, the whole thing is a learning experience for those who lead, those who consult, and even those who teach. Everyone who's a part of us at the end of the day is learning. We try to reach professional standards where we can - we love the personal development aspect that grew from so many people putting in their efforts to make the org a reality.
Blockchain at Berkeley does a few things beyond consulting - we run an undergraduate cryptocurrency course during the school year and post materials online (see blockchain.berkeley.edu/decal), we host events with well-known industry speakers and workshops for the public to join which can be found on Facebook, and we also teach executives about the technology in custom sessions. We're also working on an Ethereum Dapp course which will be offered Fall 2017 at UC Berkeley and will be recorded for the public with open sourced materials.
You could say we're just trying to demystify buzzwords for the world!
If you have questions or are interested in talking, you can ping me personally: akash@blockchain.berkeley.edu
Knowing student groups, it's not about making money, but a few smart undergrads showing other undergrads emerging fields and letting them get some hands-on experience.
A group like this has a DeCal (a student-led university-credit course), events, speakers, and probably a selected group that works on club leadership and consulting.
