IBM Watson Group Awards University of Texas at Austin Top Spot in Intercollegiate Competition

NEW YORK and AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 15, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced the first winner of its Watson University Competition, part of the company’s partnership with top universities through its cognitive computingacademic initiative. The winning team of student entrepreneurs from the University of Texas at Austin will receive $100,000 in total in seed funding to help […]

Houston venture capital firm opens Ann Arbor office headed by U Michigan Graduate

University of Michigan graduate and serial entrepreneur Adrian Fortinio will lead a new office for the Houston-based Mercury Fund–a venture capital firm–according to a report in Crain’s Detroit Business. Fortino co-founded FlockTag and was a vice president at Invest Detroit before being tapped to lead Mercury’s new Ann Arbor office. The firm, which raised more […]

UTexas-San Antonio honors eight researchers at second annual Innovation Awards

UTSA President Ricardo Romo, Vice President for Research Mauli Agrawal and the UTSA Office of Commercialization and Innovation recognized eight UTSA faculty members yesterday at the university’s second annual Innovation Awards luncheon. The UTSA Innovation Awards program recognizes UTSA researchers who have contributed to the university’s entrepreneurial ecosystem by securing patents and/or commercial licenses to protect, develop and […]

SMU’s MBA Venture Fund reaches $3M

In 12 years since its founding, Southern Methodist University’s MBA Venture Fund has grown to $3 million and is providing money to venture capitalists in a variety of industries. In 2002, two investors put forward $600,000 to begin the fund and give SMU students the chance to gain hands-on experience with venture capital deals. In […]

University of Houston Professor Invents App to Diagnose Skin Cancer

The University of Houston division of research backed Dr. George Zouridakis with $50,000 in gap funding to support proof of concept work and to upgrade the app software for commercial application. Questions remain about the accessibility (or justification) of use by the general public with the associated cost of the necessary dermoscope hardware ($500). However, […]

U Houston Cougar Fund launches $1M student venture fund

The University of Houston has waded into the venture capital market. Administrators have launched the new Cougar Venture Fund this fall as part of its entrepreneurship curriculum for graduate business students. “The goal is to teach students in an entrepreneurial finance class about raising money for a startup, what the options are, how to evaluate […]