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<span style="font-size:larger;"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The work of turning ideas into real companies happens in RPI’s incubator, the Emerging Ventures Ecosystem (EVE).&nbsp; EVE is a distributed incubation program which accelerates the growth of new businesses and boosts the transfer of scientific and technological breakthroughs from the laboratory and classroom to the marketplace, for social and economic impact.</span></span>

<span style="font-size:larger;"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Rensselaer’s previous incubator program was opened in 1980 as the nation’s first such program wholly sponsored and operated by a university. In its later stages, the incubator was primarily used for its “brick and mortar” assets, as place for entrepreneurially minded students to rent at a low cost, with convenient access to a photocopier.&nbsp; The model of RPI’s old incubator was traditional: it was rented by students who were seeking to start a venture, which either lived or died, and then moved on.&nbsp; The RPI Incubator building was closed in late 2009 simply because it did not make any money for the institution.</span></span>

<span style="font-size:larger;"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">The key to RPI’s Emerging Ventures Ecosystem is that companies never graduate from the incubator because business development and iteration is never finalized.&nbsp; Companies supported by EVE are always welcome to come back and ask for assistance in making new connections with the large international network of individuals.&nbsp; RPI’s large alumni network serves as a virtual incubator in the sense that the network is leveraged to help grow companies as they experience the transition from technology ideas and intellectual property to commercialization through their education.&nbsp;</span></span>

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