Dear Colleagues,
In partnership with CTNext (https://ctnext.com/) the School of Engineering has secured a grant to promote entrepreneurship in CT-based students. Starting this summer, the grant will support fifty (50) college students (at UConn or other CT schools) at the junior or senior level to do a 10-week summer research program in a faculty lab or research center. This is an extension of our recently concluded NSF E-REU grant focused on entrepreneurship and translating faculty research into the commercial sector. The program will be administered by the School of Engineering under the guidance of the Co-PIs, Prof. Hadi Bozorgmanesh (https://entrepreneurship.uconn.edu/about/leadership/) and Prof. Daniel D. Burkey
A brief summary of the program is below:
“The Connecticut Experiential Entrepreneurship Research Experience for Undergraduates, CT EE-REU, will award fellowships to fifty junior and senior undergraduate students from Connecticut institutions of higher education to undertake a ten-week intensive residential summer research and entrepreneurship program. Students will live on the UConn Storrs campus to facilitate networking, cohort-building activities, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and entrepreneurial engagement. The CT EE-REU will build Connecticut's technology entrepreneurship sector by providing undergraduate STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) students with an integrated research and entrepreneurship training experience, exposing them to in-depth technology research as well as teaching them the entrepreneurial competencies that are essential for taking full professional advantage of their academic training. The students will identify potentially commercializable technologies within faculty laboratories, and, through the program's entrepreneurial training, will develop a business model and potentially a startup company in collaboration with the faculty member. The student's summer activities will stimulate faculty to consider the commercialization potential of their scientific discoveries, thereby increasing the transition of university-developed IP to the marketplace and building a culture of entrepreneurship in the university and the state. Upon completion of the program, students will receive a certificate of achievement and will become entrepreneurship ambassadors at their respective institutions.”
Action Item: Please forward this announcement to your faculty – we are seeking a broad range of faculty from across the University to host student researchers over the summer! Please note that the student support (stipend, etc) will be covered by the grant.
Faculty interested in hosting a student can provide the requested information here:
https://forms.gle/eD7fYjMzz86FHYmq9
The information requested in the form is the following:
Name
Email
College
Department
Number of Students you wish to host
One-paragraph description of the proposed research topic (to be used to advertise to students)
URL for laboratory or research page
Picture or other representative graphic for your work (optional, for recruiting, along with the project description)
Interested faculty should respond no later than Monday January 27.
Student recruitment will be open from Monday February 3 through Monday March 2.
At the conclusion of the recruitment period, participating faculty will be sent the list of students who selected their project and asked to make their selection(s).
Our intention is to notify students of their acceptance by Mid-march.
For more information, contact: Daniel Burkey at daniel.burkey@uconn.edu