Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fellowship

The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Academic programs are kicking off a third round of crowdfunding with the goal of boosting their endowed scholarship program to over $50K.  Over the past two years we’ve raised a total of ~$20K with 100% matching from the Dean of the School of Management, for a $40K+ endowed fellowship.   For this campaign, our goal is to raise an additional $5K ($10K with the match from our Dean) to boost the total endowment to over $50K.  The campaign will run from December 1st, 2018 to January 31, 2019. 

The fund will award fellowships/scholarships to graduate students who are either enrolled in the MS in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MSIE) degree program or are pursuing a concentration in Innovation and Entrepreneurship within another degree program at UT Dallas.  Students must demonstrate academic merit as well as entrepreneurial focus and/or experience.

Your scholarship support is making a difference!   

• The Princeton Review ranked UT Dallas’ graduate innovation and entrepreneurship program as the #19 school in the U.S. in 2018 (moving up three spots from #22 in 2017). 
• The new Blackstone LaunchPad co-working facility opened in April 2017, providing us with an outstanding facility for hosting events and providing mentoring and instruction to students. 
• A new $300K+ seed fund was raised in early 2017.  Over $100K has been awarded to UTD affiliated startups over the past two years.  The UT Dallas Seed Fund complements the pre-seed funding provided through our startup launch courses. 
• We continue to move our extra-curricular support initiatives to the next level.
  • Our first FinTech Summit in April 2018 was a huge success with world class speakers and over 600 attendees!
  • The CometX Accelerator Program is now taught by an experienced serial entrepreneur (Shaz Amin).
  • Over 130 student teams applied to last year’s Big Idea Competition which featured a keynote by our celebrity judge, Guy Kawasaki. 

• We now offer 25 masters level entrepreneurship courses, including several intriguing courses that provide experienced-based learning for our students.

  • Startup Launch courses – Enable students to launch companies while receiving academic credit. Students with scalable concepts can apply for up to $25k in funding to support their launch.
  • Seed Fund Support course – Students conduct due diligence and make investment recommendations to a Seed Fund Steering Committee
  • Entrepreneurial Experience course – Students partner with major technology companies to analyze new market opportunities.
  • Social Entrepreneurship course – Students work with local nonprofits to improve one or more aspects of their businesses.  
  • Internship course- Students support a startup company or corporation and get paid while gaining valuable experience and receiving course credit. 
• Graduate enrollments increased 29% for the year ending August 2018 and are expected to continue to grow this year. 

Thank you for your continuing support! As you can see, our generous gifts are making a difference!  We hope to count on you for 2018-19!  Whoosh!