The Mike Loya Center for Innovation and Commerce announces its annual Weekend Startup competition, an entrepreneurship education initiative that gives university students an opportunity to acquire hands-on experience with the different aspects involved in the creation of a company.
Weekend Startup will begin at 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17 and go through final presentations at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 19. Media are invited to attend during those times. The event takes place at the College of Business Administration Texas Gas Student Service Center.
During Weekend Startup, student teams will have 72 hours to start new technology companies. This is the first year the center has implemented its own program based on a mixture of lean startup principles.
“The Weekend Startup Program exposes students to real-life experiences that seek to enhance their education and develop their entrepreneurial spirit,” said David G. Novick, Ph.D., co-director of the Mike Loya Center for Innovation and Commerce and professor of computer science.
To accomplish the feat of creating a company from scratch, groups of students are carefully selected from diverse disciplines in business, engineering and humanities and brought together in a balanced formula to spark creativity and synergy.
The event begins with brainstorming by students who then pitch their ideas about a tech startup to their peers and select the best ideas by vote. Once the teams have coded and prototyped their product, they have to put together a business plan and present it to a panel of experts to receive feedback on the next step.
To help them carry out these tasks, participants will have the aid of a group of experts in different fields. These mentors will utilize their skillset to provide guidance for the students.
The center then provides support and mentoring to further advance teams that are interested in pursuing their own companies. Additionally, the center hosts and sponsors the student track of the Paso del Norte Venture Competition, where teams compete to win up to $10,000 in seed funding.
This event is part of the Mike Loya Center for Innovation and Commerce’s ongoing commitment to advance the science of entrepreneurship education. For more information, contact Aaron Cervantes, coordinator for the Mike Loya Center for Innovation and Commerce, at arcervantes@utep.edu or 915-747-6157.