Giving CITE to Students’ Futures
UTSA’s Center for Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship has a mission to transform students into entrepreneurs and deliver cutting-edge technology to the public.
—UTSA Ph.D. biomedical engineering students Tony Yuan and Ramon Coronado ’11 are also business partners in Mobile Stem Care, which is a CITE beneficiary. (Photo by Patrick Ray Duncan)
Founded in 2006, the UTSA Center for Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship aims to transform students into entrepreneurs and deliver cutting-edge technology to the public by fostering student companies.
Under the helm of Chief Commercialization Officer Cory Hallam, one of the center’s primary activities is the biannual $100,000-award Student Technology Venture Competition, which partners business and engineering undergraduates to develop and pitch new technologies to investors. To date, more than 500 students have participated in the competition and more than 75 new ventures have been pitched to investors.
For student entrepreneurs, the value is priceless. “Scientists in general aren’t very business-oriented,” says Ramon Coronado ’11, who is now a Ph.D. biomedical engineering student at UTSA and half the business partnership of Mobile Stem Care, a CITE beneficiary. “Not only do you have to want to succeed in business, but you must have someone there to help you do it. This is what happened for us here at UTSA. It’s fantastic!”
In September, CITE, an interdisciplinary center of the colleges of Business and Engineering, received $300,000 from the San Antonio-based 80/20 Foundation to continue its growth. That came on the heels of UTSA becoming the first university in Texas to be named an Innovation Corps Site by the National Science Foundation.
CITE also fuels other entrepreneurial activities and infrastructure:
* The biannual Technology Entrepreneurship Boot Camp, a daylong intensive crash course on starting a business and the commercialization of new technologies.
* The Technology Venture Mentor Network, which recruits local entrepreneurs and business associates and facilitates the mentoring and support of the $100,000 competition teams and other UTSA startups.
* The local chapter of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization, a student group that brings together student entrepreneurs on campus and fosters their growth.
* The Roadrunner Incubator, which assists early-stage student companies from the $100,000 competition and the entrepreneurship program within the UTSA College of Business.
* The New Venture Incubator, which hosts emerging technology and biomedical device companies on Main Campus.