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= Overview =
At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student innovation and entrepreneurship is a newly minted campus wide initiative with faculty, staff, and administrators. Within the campus various departments, organizations, and groups have emerged. From the departments, the Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business hosts the New Venture Business Plan Competition where students are mentored for one semester weekend classes devoted to key areas of interest when pursuing a new venture. At the end of this competition the students walk away with a business plan and presentation that have been judged by industry experts and potential seed funding for their new venture. Additionally, the Business School hosts the Scheinfeld Entrepreneur Fund, which is another business plan competition and they provide seed capital for promising student startups. The other major initiative is the campus wide, multidisciplinary, collaborative Student Startup Challenge, that helps students formulate teams in hopes of developing a prototype and launching a business. This challenge also provides seed capital to budding student entrepreneurs. Beyond the business competition, students are showcasing their involvement in entrepreneurship through three key student organizations: Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization, American Marketing Association, and Student Entrepreneurship Startup Organization. Lastly, beyond the extracurricular activities students can always take courses focused on entrepreneurship such as Product Realization, Innovation and Commercialization, Entrepreneurship as well as many other courses.
= Encouraging faculty innovation and entrepreneurship =
At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee innovation and entrepreneurship are encouraged within their faculty and staff. Faculty are urged to forge partnerships with local businesses to collaborate on research projects and develop new technologies. The UWM Research Foundation is an auxiliary resource for the university and the catalyst on campus for faculty innovation. The goals of the UWM-RF is to provide opportunities for faculty and staff to gain venture funding, develop intellectual property, form a business unit, and truly go out and create a business. The UWM Research Foundation has created a set of programs designed to bridge the gap between research and commercialization. These programs target a range of activities from early discovery through commercialization. The Research Fellows Program provides grants to graduate students over and above other types of support; these "kicker grants" help UWM faculty in key areas to attract and retain the best and brightest students who play a critical role in their research programs. The Catalyst Grant Program provides seed funding to research projects with high potential for return on investment - through commercialization or ability to attract funding from other sources. The objective with faculty entrepreneurs is also to promote corporate partnerships and startup companies in hopes that they can commercialize ideas as they reach later stages of maturity. Underlying all of these activities is the management of intellectual property - which including assessing ideas, protecting intellectual property through patents and copyrights as well as licensing activities.
= Actively supporting the university technology transfer function =
The Technology Transfer Office at UWM helps faculty members spin off research projects into new ventures while striving to make the entire commercialization process easier and painless. While both the goal of the Technology Transfer Office and the UWM Research Foundation is to make the management of intellectual property such as assessing ideas, protecting intellectual property through patents and copyrights as well as licensing activities as clear cut and simple as possible. Beyond the legal services, the Technology Transfer Office and the UWM Research Foundation also provide one-on-one mentoring where faculty can undergo business model canvas sessions, utilize lean startup methodologies, and work with the UWM-RF Entrepreneur-in-Residence to flush out their potential business for their research. The doing all of this the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee realized that it is important that they quantify the stages of their intellectual property and focus on gaining patents and copyrights, with a real goal of procuring license agreements.
= Facilitating University-Industry Collaboration =
= Engaging with regional and local economic development efforts =
[[Category:Universities]]