Courtesy of Bowie State University
Bowie State University will launch a new pilot program, BSU Entrepreneurship Xtreme, geared toward pairing STEM students with founders of local startups. The program is funded by a $77,540 grant from TEDCO, a state supported economic engine for technology companies.
The BSU Entrepreneurship Xtreme pilot program will provide students with an immersive experiential learning opportunity by pairing them with local tech-based companies. Eight students from the Department of Technology & Security will be placed with partner companies, to work on 2-to-3-month projects providing website development services, software development and testing, and other tech-based support services.
“The partnership provides students with a great opportunity to go into a company and solve a problem for them,” said Johnetta Boseman Hardy, the executive director of the Entrepreneurship Innovation Center. “Using an innovative mindset to solve problems creates value for everyone involved, and that is one of the fundamental principles of entrepreneurship.”
TEDCO issued the grant as a part of the Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII), which launched in 2012 as collaboration between the state five research universities: Johns Hopkins University, Morgan State University, University of Maryland, Baltimore, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and University of Maryland, College Park. The program helps support the growth of promising technology developed by research institutions and bringing those technologies to the commercial sector.
MII executive director Arti Santhanam expressed his excitement at expanding the program to include Bowie State and Frostburg State University, which received $250,000 in this latest round of funding.
“After 10 successful years of helping to bring numerous university technologies to market, we’re very excited to expand MII’s reach to these two additional Maryland comprehensive universities,” said Santhanam. “We greatly look forward to building these new relationships and serving these diverse communities of innovators and entrepreneurs.”