UCSD Students Face Off in Business Challenge
In an attempt to connect UCSD students with San Diego’s science and technology-based business environment, a campus organization called the Triton Innovation Network has launched an entrepreneurship challenge for a $50,000 prize.
The “”UCSD $50,000 Entrepreneurship Competition”” will require teams to formulate a business plan through the winter and spring quarters. At the end of spring quarter, the students will be coached on their projects by professional mentors, many of whom hail from San Diego County. Finally, the teams will present their complex models to a panel of judges, who will choose the grand prize-winning team.
One of the competition’s goals is to give students a head start on developing their ideas, providing them an opportunity to license their new technologies to different companies or even found their own.
“”The extraordinary external support for this entrepreneurship competition demonstrates the importance our industrial and private partners place on entrepreneurial experience as part of our students’ studies at UC San Diego,”” Jacobs School of Engineering Dean Freider Seible said. “”It is this entrepreneurial spirit that will foster innovation and competitiveness, attributes our students need in order to become industry leaders.””
The organization hosted a similar event this past fall, in which over 300 students participated and presented more than 50 different business ideas.
Staff Pulls in $1 Million for UCSD Fundraiser
UCSD staff and faculty members have fundraised over $1 million in the last five months as part of the $1 billion “”Campaign for UCSD”” initiative.
Most of the money was raised through the Jacobs School of Engineering “”Teams in Engineering Service”” program, which funds undergraduate philanthropic events involving engineering skills. Jacobs School Communications Director Rex Graham began the effort with a mass e-mail drive, and quickly received a strong response from his peers.
“”I wouldn’t work here if I didn’t believe in all the great things that UCSD has accomplished today, and plans to achieve in the future,”” Graham said.
The fundraising effort is designed so faculty and staff members may donate to the sectors of UCSD – among them science, health care, arts and scholarships – that they find most stimulating or inspiring.
