The spring semester of 2021 is at an end. Though all programming had to be held virtually, that didn’t stop the Lubar Entrepreneurship Center and all those who participate in its programming from making the most of a new year. Read on to get a glance of what happened (virtually) at the Lubar Entrepreneurship Center this spring!

National Science Foundation I-Corps^TM Site Program

The Milwaukee I-Corps Program offers researchers and academic entrepreneurs an opportunity to explore the market viability of their discoveries and technologies through direct engagement with their potential markets. Teams explored the viability of a broad range of technologies, from an improved inhaler biomedical strategy, to a dental stabilizing device, to a nursing resiliency toolkit.

• 18^th Cohort
• 10 Teams (26 participants total) completed the I-Corps program
• 5590 customer discovery interviews conducted since inaugural Milwaukee cohort

LEC Curriculum Innovation Grant Program

This new grant program supports faculty and instructors interested in integrating design and entrepreneurial thinking into their courses or developing new courses focused on innovation. One of the program’s goals is to expand the umbrella of Ideas Challenge Courses to expose more UWM students to innovation and entrepreneurship.

Grants awarded include monetary support for award participants, course support and professional development opportunities (such as Teaching Learning Studio at Stanford d.school) and academic innovation conferences like the VentureWell Open and KEEN conferences. Award recipients and LEC Teaching Fellows gathered for weekly conversations, workshops, and speaker series’.

• 23 grants awarded supporting 27 faculty and academic staff
  • Abigail L. Phillips – Incorporating design thinking into a public library course
  • Adam Hudson – Incorporating design thinking U/G work with nonprofits
  • AkkeNeel Talsma & Jeana Holt – Integrate design and entrepreneurial thinking into the existing curriculum for two graduate nursing programs to address current healthcare problems
  • Anne Basting – Creating a new U/G course in English in Narrative and Entrepreneurship
  • Barbara Meyer & Kyle Ebersole – A team science approach for leveraging the health performance continuum to optimize individual and organizational productivity
  • Christ Willey & Nathaniel Stern – Establish Creative Technology as a cross campus concentration that leverages innovation and entrepreneurial tools
  • Coe Douglas & Kim Beckmann – Using human-centered design to break and remake a more ecologically inclusive human-centered design practice
  • Hamid Seifoddini – Incorporating system thinking into industrial engineering courses
  • Erica Bornstein – Integrating social entrepreneurship into anthropology classes on human rights, humanitarianism and global justice
  • Erica Ceka – To build students’ abilities to collaborate in defining and solving complex problems and to generate unique solutions in addressing global challenges
  • Jacob Rammer – Motivating BME Capstone design students to pursue medical device entrepreneurship
  • Jean Creighton & Robin Mello – Collaboratively teaching students to design storytelling events to communicate astronomy performatively
  • John Gardner & Jenny Kehl – Incorporating entrepreneurial thinking into water stewardship planning for local business
  • Mohamed Ayoub – Joy of Teaching & Learning S.T.E.M. Entrepreneurship
  • Nathan Jung – Integrating entrepreneurial design into STEM communications by developing STEM toys
  • Priyatha Premnath – Inculcating Design Thinking and Entrepreneurship in freshman Biomedical Engineers
  • Trudy Watt – Using kindness as a cornerstone to enhance collaborative experiential learning across disciplines
  • Yaron Zoller – Create a new Business course on data analytics & innovation

• 4 featured speakers for LEC Teaching Fellows talk series
  • Dr. Nick Swayne, Executive Director of 4-Virginia and the founder of JMU X-Labs at James Madison University
  • Dr. Mary Raber, Assistant Dean for Academic Programs for Palvis Honors College, Co-Director of Husky Innovate at Michigan Tech
  • Erica Estrada-Liou, Director of Curriculum and experiential learning at University of Maryland, Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
  • Dr. Joseph Samosky, University of Pittsburgh

Startup Challenge

The UWM Startup Challenge is a co-curricular program that fosters an innovative and entrepreneurial culture at UWM by encouraging students to research and develop their ideas, prototype products, services, or social ventures, launch new businesses, and gain the skills that come from the entrepreneurial experience.

• 9^th year of program
• 28 teams
• 7 Booster Sessions, 10 Pop Ups

Some of the projects students explored this semester were:

• A subscription box for people with diabetes
• Development on a pop-up shoe retail line
• AI program that automatically merges IRS and Department of Education data to find and enroll students in financial aid

Diverse Ideas

Diverse Ideas is an innovation talk series that is always co-hosted with a UWM multicultural or resource office to spotlight diverse entrepreneurs and innovators from a particular community. Conversations are facilitated by a student and offer an open forum for questions about innovation, leadership, and past projects.

• Spring Featured Speakers 

• • Alamelu Vairavan, Author and Chef – cohosted by UWM Women’s Resource Center
  • Debbie Buchanan, Executive Director Milwaukee Homeless Veterans Initiative – cohosted by UWM Military and Veterans Resource Center (MAVRC)
  • Eddie Avila, Director of Rising Voices – cohosted by Institute of World Affairs, Electa Quinney Institute, UWM Center for Latin American Caribbean Studies

Social Good Morning

Social Good Morning (SGM) is an intimate discussion with a local social innovator led by the LEC’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Social Innovation, Mark Fairbanks. Community members are invited to meet with other attendees to ask questions, network, and be inspired.

• Spring Featured Speakers

• • Victoria Ibiwoye, Founder of One African Child and UWM Graduate Student
  • Caitlin Cullen, Owner of the Tandem
  • Portia Cobb, a Principal Investigator of the Voices of Gun Violence, an Associate Professor at UWM Peck School of the Arts
  • Mfoniso Ekong, Director of Social Impact for gener8tor

Pop Ups

Pop Ups are collaborative and engaging workshops led by students, faculty, business leaders, and entrepreneurs. Pop Ups also aim to foster community within UWM and engage the Milwaukee innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

• 62 Pop Ups– 1668 total participants

Well Entrepreneur Community Conversations

Well Entrepreneur Community Conversations is an interactive talk series exploring the intersection of well-being and entrepreneurship. This talk series is led by our Well Entrepreneur- in-Residence, Amelia Coffaro, and launched in Fall of 2020.

• Spring Well Entrepreneur Events:

• • Mark Fairbanks, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Islands of Brilliance
  • Featuring Well Entrepreneur Participants – Reimagining Collective Well-Being as a Collective Whole
  • Susan A. Lubar, President and Founder of Growing Minds

Director’s Cut

Director’s Cut is a talk series that brings in national business leaders to talk about their career journeys through obstacles and achievements. This event series is in collaboration with the UWM Lubar School of Business and the UWM Alumni Association.

• Spring Featured Speaker:

• • Justin Cruz, Auto Product Strategy & Development Vice President

Wisconsin Big Idea Tournament

This statewide competition is open to all UW students except for UW-Madison students. UWM was honored to host the fifth UWM qualifying competition. This competition focuses on the entrepreneur’s journey and experience with Lean Launch methodology. In previous years, our winners were sent to a state competition.

• 12 Submissions
• 1^st – Ross Younger
• 2^nd – Ariel Pershman
• 3^rd place – Kyah Probst
• 1^st place winner Ross Younger competed in the 2021 WBIT State Competition

2021 UWM Innovators Expo

UWM’s Innovators Expo is the largest annual celebration of UWM’s innovation and entrepreneurship. The Expo showcases a collection of UWM community prototypes, ideas, startups, student orgs, partners, classes, and innovations in an exhibit format.

• 57 virtual booths (check out the virtual expo here)
• 5 student orgs, 11 departments and programs, 3 community organizations, 3 student projects, 28 startup/nonprofit
• 4 Cameos (check out our Instagram @UWMLEC)
• 13 awards given
• View the Welcome Video

Scholarships

The UWM LEC is proud and honored to award scholarships on behalf of the American Family Insurance Dream Scholarship and Patricia H. Weisberg Innovation Scholarship. Awardees exemplify innovation, entrepreneurship, and diversity which makes UWM a unique asset in serving Milwaukee and Wisconsin. These are the students making a difference at UWM and in the Milwaukee community, and we are proud to support them thanks to American Family Insurance and Patricia H. Weisberg.

• $68,000 in scholarships dispersed to 19 students for academic year 2021 – 2022