Entrepreneurship at UWM
UWM is committed to fostering entrepreneurship on campus. At the Lubar Entrepreneurship Center (LEC), we offer a range of resources to help you develop your ideas, from our hands-on competitions that challenge you to sharpen your critical thinking and perfect your elevator pitch to specialized courses integrating design thinking to startup support programs.
Whether you’re looking to expand your network or secure seed funding, our entrepreneurship initiatives are designed to help you succeed!
Startup Challenge
The Startup Challenge is an incubator that allows entrepreneurs -student and otherwise- to participate in a series of pop-ups and workshops in order to learn a variety of startup skills. Participants learn about design thinking, customer discovery, the business model canvas, and much more. The Startup Challenge is all about preparing and educating you in the world of entrepreneurship. The program will provide ample opportunity to connect with esteemed UWM professors, Milwaukee community professionals, and a cohort of your fellow innovators and entrepreneurs.
Application Deadline: September – Annually
Contact:
Nathaniel Stern
sternn@uwm.edu
NSF Milwaukee I-Corps™
The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) program uses experiential education to help researchers gain valuable insight into entrepreneurship, starting a business, and industry requirements and challenges.
I-Corps™ enables the transformation of invention to impact. The curriculum integrates scientific inquiry and industrial discovery in an inclusive, data-driven culture driven by rigor, relevance, and evidence. Through I-Corps™ training, researchers can reduce the time to translate a promising idea from the laboratory to the marketplace.
Contact:
Ilya Avdeev
avdeev@uwm.edu
Innovation Talks
Every month, the Lubar Entrepreneurship Center invites a local entrepreneur or community innovator for an intimate chat with UWM students, faculty, and staff. By offering these talks, LEC hopes to build a larger and more diverse network of students involved in entrepreneurship, including one that spans across disciplines and majors.
Social Good Morning
On a Friday morning once per month, LEC invites a local social innovator to discuss their organization or innovation. Everyone enjoys a free coffee or tea from the UWM Grind and listens to opening remarks and anecdotes from the speaker before diving into an intimate discussion involving social issues. Topics of conversation range from poverty to sustainability to inclusivity and beyond.
Diverse Ideas
In the Diverse Ideas talk series, LEC partners with other UWM organizations to bring in diverse ideas from a diverse collection of people. We often have international speakers discuss their work with social issues that we in Milwaukee may not be regularly exposed to. Professionals from a variety of backgrounds and beliefs discuss their work to make the world a better place.
Director’s Cut
The LEC has partnered with the Lubar College of Business to bring you the Director’s Cut speaker series featuring high-caliber professionals from corporations and established startups across the nation. The speakers hold offices such as CEO, CFO, and Director in their respective companies. They speak about their professional journey, discuss what the future holds for their company, and participate in an open conversation with the audience. Director’s Cut allows attendees to gain meaningful insight from respected leaders of the business sector.
Contact:
Tiera Trammell
trammel4@uwm.edu
UWM Innovators Expo
The UWM Innovators Expo is an annual event that exhibits and celebrates UWM community prototypes, ideas, startups, student orgs, partners, classes, and innovations. The event is an opportunity for entrepreneurs and innovators to showcase their hard work and progress as well as build meaningful connections within our community.
Contact:
Tiera Trammell
trammel4@uwm.edu
UWM Research Foundation
The UWMRF fosters research, innovation and entrepreneurship at UW-Milwaukee, complementing the discovery and education mission of the university by helping students and faculty translate their ideas into products, services and new companies. It also has built a portfolio of intellectual property with UWM researchers and has partnered with companies to bring those ideas to the marketplace.
Because mentoring is an essential part of the journey, the UWMRF this year launched the UWM ENGAGE program, offering our budding innovators access to expert advice and feedback from area entrepreneurs and business leaders. Innovators at any stage are encouraged to participate, including students, faculty, staff and UWM alumni. Contact UWMRF if you would like to support this important work.
Contact:
Jessica Silvaggi, PhD
jessica@uwmrf.org
University Innovation Fellows
Since its launch in 2013, UWM has been part of the University Innovation Fellows program.
The University Innovation Fellows (UIF) program empowers students around the world to become agents of change in higher education. Fellows create opportunities that help their peers unlock their creative potential and develop the design-centered mindset required to take on complex challenges in today’s world. Students of all majors and academic levels – from freshmen to PhDs – who want to shape the future of education are encouraged to apply.
Contact:
Ilya Avdeev, PhD
avdeev@uwm.edu
UWM Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (CEO)
CEO’s mission is to inform, support and inspire college students to be entrepreneurial and seek opportunity through enterprise creation. With a diverse entrepreneurial community and global network, CEO provides student entrepreneurs with opportunities, events, chapter activities and conferences to help start businesses. The highlight of the year is the annual Global Conference hosted each fall.
CEO Elevator Pitch Competition
The competition gives participants two minutes to convey the value of their business venture to a panel of judges. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places will receive a monetary prize. Don’t have an idea to pitch this time? No problem, spectators are welcome.
CEO Student Entrepreneur of the Year
A $1,000 prize will be awarded to the outstanding student entrepreneur who is a current student, a CEO member, and is actively running a business with sales and revenue at the time of submission. This award helps to recognize the hard work and dedication that goes into launching a venture while in college.
Contact:
Jim Hunter
uwm-ceo@uwm.edu
Prototyping Club
The Prototyping Club is composed of students dedicated to inventing, tinkering, making, and learning. They also volunteer in the Engineering Math and Science (EMS) building Makerspace and help to maintain, staff, and run the lab. This club aims to provide a hub for students and student orgs to easily access all sorts of prototyping technology. More than that, though, club members are a valuable resource in the product realization process and act as sounding boards for your technical ideas.
Contact:
Ryan Severson
severs59@uwm.edu
Immersive Media Lab
The Immersive Media Lab focuses on the technologies and mediums of the future – mediums such as the emerging field of Extended Reality. This interdisciplinary research space runs with the mindset that creativity is the denominator between the arts and sciences. Researchers from all over UWM can explore how these new options augment their research through the embodiment of their data, dynamic interactions with the information the data yields, and enhances their efforts through networked collaborative learning.
Location:
Kenilworth Square East Side of Building
1915 E Kenilworth Pl.
Milwaukee, WI 53202
Contact:
Chris Willey
willey@uwm.edu
Business School Entrepreneurial Programs
If you’re interested in finding a like-minded group of business-focused individuals, a Lubar College of Business entrepreneurial program may be right for you! Through these programs, innovation and entrepreneurship faculty, doctoral students, and area corporations advance topics of business competitiveness and leadership. These programs are a great way to connect with peers and build your network, all while learning a great deal.
Contact:
Lubar College of Business
lubarweb@uwm.edu
Wisconsin Big Ideas Tournament
WBIT is an entrepreneurship competition open to undergraduate and graduate students attending any two- or four-year University of Wisconsin school across the state (except UW-Madison). It teaches cutting-edge Lean Startup business development tools, provides business mentorship, and allows participants to compete at a state level for a chance to win seed funding for their idea as well as a chance to compete internationally at the International Business Model Competition (IBMC).
The first round of the tournament is hosted by each UW-School, and the winner of the UWM round proceeds to compete at regionals in Madison. Get your Big Idea on!
Contact:
Wisconsin System
info@wisys.org
La Macchia New Venture Business Plan Competition
Test your professional business plan building skills in the La Macchia New Venture Business Plan Competition. The competition is structured in successive phases interspersed with workshops to help you fully develop your business idea into a comprehensive business plan that’s ready to present to a judging panel.
Contact:
Debbie Roy
royd@uwm.edu
James D. Scheinfeld Entrepreneurial Awards Competition
The James D. Scheinfeld Entrepreneurial Awards Competition gives you the opportunity to convince a panel of venture capitalists, business executives, and educators that your business plan is not only viable, but worth funding. After participating in this unique opportunity, you will walk away with valuable feedback and knowledge, and you may even walk away with seed capital.
Contact:
Debbie Roy
royd@uwm.edu
PantherHacks
The mission of PantherHacks Student Organization is to encourage acceleration of innovation, collaboration, diversity and inclusion, and the development of technical and professional skills by hosting events in the community with UWM partners. In the past, PantherHacks has hosted an annual competition known as a “hackathon” where teams work together on a new idea or product.
Contact:
J. Dietenberger
dietenbe@uwm.edu
I.T. Innovations Internship Program
This program has been refined over the years to hone, develop and supplement students’ classroom knowledge. The goal is to develop job skills that match the industry’s workforce needs. As a result, SAITS alumni enter the workforce with the equivalent of one to five years of real-world experience.
Contact:
J. Dietenberger
dietenbe@uwm.edu