School:Michigan Technological University

Overview

Michigan Technological University is a world class research university looking to further encourage the startup culture on campus. Many of the resources available to students come from other students in the form of events and clubs. This wiki page will serve as a running record of the resources available to students on the Michigan Tech campus.  

Student Entrepreneurship 

Michigan Tech offers students a variety of resources to student entrepreneurs. While some of them are easy to come by, others are more challenging for students to find. A few of the top resources are listed below: 

• Bob Mark Elevator Pitch Competition: The Bob Mark memorial elevator pitch competition was designed to encourage student entrepreneurship at Michigan Tech. The competition brings in over 30 aspiring small businesses together to present their idea in three minutes to over 150 audience members. 
• New Venture Competition: The New Venture Competition is a joint partnership between Michigan Tech and Central Michigan University where startups get business plan feedback, mentorship, and an opportunity to win over $30,000 for their new idea. 
• Entrepreneurs Club at Michigan Tech: The E-Club brings together a group of student entrepreneurs at Michigan Tech to share ideas, challenges, and solutions once a week. 
• TechHacks: TechHacks is an event put on by the ACM chapter at Michigan Tech where students are invited to hack on new projects for 24-36 hours. ACM also funds and supports trips to MHacks and Illinois Hacks where students are encouraged to hack on new projects

Faculty Entrepreneurship

Faculty at Michigan Tech are being encouraged (more and more) to take their research to market. With classes like Technology Commercialization faculty are being given the tools to take their ideas to market. A few resources available to faculty are: 

• Michigan Tech Entrepreneurship Support Center: The support center exists to allow for new technologies to move towards commercialization without having to deal with the legal hassles of filing as a business. The support center allows small businesses to operate under their legal umbrella while they establish their venture. 
• Technology Commercialization Department: Michigan Tech has an entire department (led by Jim Baker) devoted to helping faculty and graduate students move their research from the lab to a commercially available product. 

General  Entrepreneurship

While it can sometimes be helpful to break the resources available into faculty and students, there are many resources available to all entrepreneurial minded individuals around Michigan Tech. A few of them are highlighted below: 

• SmartZone: the SmartZone in Houghton offers a variety of services to inspiring entrepreneurs. From their SmartStart program which guides startups through a curriculum to validate their idea, to low cost office space the SmartZone can help move an idea into reality quickly. With a major state grant the smartzone is able to offer world class services at a low cost. For students at Michigan Tech faculty, a strategic partnership between the University and the Smartzone makes many of the services free. 

Landscape Analysis

Michigan Tech trains and equips some of the best engineers in the country. The Houghton Smart Zone and associated resources provide an excellent support structure for new businesses, and contests such as the New Venture Competition inject much needed funding into the startup culture at Michigan Tech.

Despite these resources there has not been widespread proliferation of student led startups at the University.

In speaking with several would-be founders, the bottleneck seems to be finding talented individuals who compliment the needs of the startups. Students not involved in the startup culture at Michigan Tech, and whom have progressed far enough through their curriculum to add significant value to a startup, seem to be reluctant to add another responsibility to their busy schedule.

Furthermore it’s challenging for founders to find the top-talent at Michigan Tech to involve in their projects. Current methods rely on unstructured social connections and in many cases settling for whomever agrees to help.  

The current enterprise and senior design structure is great for connecting motivated students to funded projects and have been very successful in creating some truly incredible results. However in our observations it seems that often times the students involved with these enterprise teams are more engaged with the engineering challenge and less so in the viability of their project as a business.  

Put simply, we believe there is often a disconnect between those passionate about engineering, and those passionate about creating a business.

If there were a way to connect founders with the top self-motivated talent within the University, one of the final bottlenecks for a thriving startup culture would be removed. We believe we can remove this bottleneck by merging the engineer successes brought forth by the enterprise and senior design structure with students who have demonstrated business acumen and are passionate about transforming their idea into a new venture.

More about Michigan Tech

David Shull - A University Innovation Fellow from Michigan Tech

Brad Turner&nbsp:- A University Innovation Fellow from Michigan Tech

About the University - Learn about Michigan Tech including a landscape analysis

Michigan Tech Student Priorities - Learn about what students are working on