CU faculty/staff teams offered entrepreneurship seed funding

BOULDER — Eleven teams of University of Colorado Boulder faculty and staff from across campus have been offered seed funding, ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 each through the university’s cross-campus Entrepreneurship Initiative.

The seed grants are meant to encourage entrepreneurial initiative and to inspire faculty and staff to take risks and develop new projects, particularly those that involve collaboration across schools and departments on campus.

The initiative’s steering committee selected the teams from 26 submissions and is administering the funding with assistance from CU-Boulder’s Silicon Flatirons Center at the University of Colorado Law School.

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Rocky Mountain Health Plans (RMHP), part of the UnitedHealthcare family, has pledged its commitment to uplift these communities through substantial investments in organizations addressing the distinct needs of our communities.

The application leaders and their projects include:

Francy Milner/Susan Clarke (business/political science): A model for CU-Boulder undergraduates to work collaboratively and entrepreneurially to address social and environmental problems.

Michael Theodore (music): The development of open-source hardware and software designs for technology-driven public art installations such as those that are found in airports. Such art installations involve sensors, motors and lights.

Don Grant (sociology): Creation of the first social entrepreneurship program for Colorado health-care professionals, with the goal of establishing a statewide network of experiential labs to train undergraduates to be “patient navigators” who guide clients to basic resources for good health, such as food, housing and heating assistance, lowering hospital readmission rates.

Erick Mueller (business): An initiative to broaden and strengthen the teaching of entrepreneurship across campus.

Al Smith and Morley McBride (business): A boot camp to help students learn “design thinking,” which entails inspiration through empathy, creative ideation and iterative design cycles utilizing quick prototypes and user feedback. Students will discover an innovative, human-centered approach to problem solving that they can apply throughout life to academic, entrepreneurial or personal pursuits.

Rebecca Komarek (Catalyze CU/Idea Forge/engineering):  The building of resources at CU-Boulder to further foster research commercialization and local industry collaboration, providing students with a strong understanding of a disciplined approach to entrepreneurship and innovation.

Richard Han (computer science): Strengthening an existing computer-science capstone course, incorporating biweekly micro-pitch competitions and student-led peer investments to mature student product development and entrepreneurship savvy.

Kathy Ramirez-Aguilar (CU Green Labs): A campus website to transfer furniture and lab equipment from departments, with surplus to departments in need, reducing costs and diverting waste.

Lupita Montoya (engineering): The integration of entrepreneurship principles focusing on the needs of Latino and Native American communities in an existing sustainable design course taught in a Residential Academic Program, expanding the course offering to all majors.

Sharon Matusik (business): The formation of a national conference at CU-Boulder exploring new hybrid organizations — such as accelerators, crowdsourcing and funding platforms — and entrepreneurship.

Melissa Hart (law): Developing a plan for the creation of Colorado’s first modest-means law-firm incubator enabling new lawyers to acquire the skills necessary to launch their own successful practices and offer legal services at affordable rates.