DoD TCDM to Connect Inventors with “Trusted” Funding

On January 13, 2021, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced the launch of its Trusted Capital Digital Marketplace (TCDM) to support qualified small and medium sized businesses (“Domestic Companies”) that make up the defense industrial base (DIB). The TCDM establishes a forum to provide selected innovative domestic companies with access to “vetted” sources of private […]

UMSL Accelerate accepts six founders into its first Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Accelerator cohort 

Excitement and tears overcame Michelle Robinson on Wednesday morning. That was completely understandable as she’d just learned that her business, DEMIBlue Natural Nails & Creative, had been chosen as a winning founder for the inaugural Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Accelerator at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. In doing so, Robinson had become one of six startups to receive $50,000 […]

Universities’ innovation support system to be bolstered

The special investigator for proposing a new structure for innovation support at public universities in Sweden, Alf Karlsson, has proposed a radical restructure of the system by 2022. Appointed by the government on 16 October 2019, Karlsson has published a 468-page report proposing to overhaul a fragmented and sub-optimal support system to a more nationally […]

MTRAC Innovation Hub for Advanced Computing  awards $270,000 to Wayne State University artificial intelligence projects  

The Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization Innovation Hub for Advanced Computing at Wayne State University recently awarded a combined $270,000 in funding to three transformative innovation research projects led by Wayne State researchers, including a School of Medicine associate professor. These projects aim to tackle deep technology opportunities in high-impact sectors, such as artificial intelligence […]

The CMU Tech Recipe That Feeds Pittsburgh’s Future – Pittsburgh Quarterly

Reed McManigle, mentor in residence at Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation. October 28, 2020 Donald Bonk interviews Reed McManigle, mentor in residence at Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation, as part of the Pittsburgh Tomorrow podcast series. This interview was conducted before COVID-19. The transcript is […]

Harvard Joins MIT In Backing $250 Million Venture Fund Targeting Hard-Sell Startups

With check sizes ranging from $1 million to $3 million, the new fund will target companies that are building what The Engine deems “tough tech”: reversing climate change and de-carbonizing industries, addressing the future of human health and agriculture, and advanced computing systems such as space exploration, quantum computing and semiconductors. “These are things with […]

How can universities be more intentional about their roles in local economies?

University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia’s University City. John Hopkins University and much of Baltimore city. The dichotomy and interdependence between a city and neighborhood that a university resides can often be summed up by the expression “town and gown” — there are the residents, and then there’s the academic population, and the two are distinct. John Hopkins is […]