In the spirit of continuous improvement, we are working to raise our innovation and entrepreneurship programs to the next level each year.  This is impacting UTD and the North Texas community positively. 

To continue to do this, we need your support!  

Recent updates from November 2017 include the following:  

In mid-November 2017, 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 last year). 

• The 2017 BIC competition finals were held on November 16, 2017. 
  • 134 teams entered this year, up from 109 teams last year.
  • 931 attendees at the BIC finals, up from about 250 attendees last year.
  • Total prize money of $80K this year, including the UTD Design Awards.  Total BIC only awards of $40K, up from $25K last year. 
  • This year, our celebrity Judge was Guy Kawasaki, the founder of Garage.com, former Apple marketing evangelist, and a current brand ambassador for Mercedes Benz.    
  • See http://launchdfw.com/2017/11/21/cant-stop-wont-stop-ut-dallas-2017-big-idea-competition/  
• We are offering a unique “seed fund support course” for the first time at the graduate level in Spring 2018.   This course provides an exceptional opportunity for our students.  Grad and undergrad students both conduct due diligence and make investment recommendations to our (relatively new) UT Dallas Seed Fund.   All of this is under the supervision of our experienced angel/venture investment faculty and staff.    

• Graduate enrollments for spring 2018 are already up over 20% from last spring.

Please help us continue to drive our program forward!   On behalf of the IIE and I&E academic programs, your help is greatly appreciated!

Thank you for your support so far on our crowdfunding campaign!!  We are currently at 88% of our target! 

We’ve made great progress over the past 30 days.   A few highlights from November and December are shown below.

1. The Princeton Review ranked our graduate innovation and entrepreneurship program as #22 in the nation.  This is the first time our program has been ranked in the top 25.

2. The Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE) won the Richardson Edge Award. 

3. We wrapped up the Business Idea Competition in late November and awarded $25K in prizes.  The quality of the teams this year was very good.  A total of 109 teams participated this year, up from 102 last year and 65 the year before that. 

Thank you again for your support for this important fund raising campaign!