Last night the University of Michigan’s Tech Transfer Office held their annual Celebrate Invention event. This event is held each fall to celebrate and honor inventors that are working on exciting new commercial opportunities using U-M IP. It was a cold and rainy evening so I didn’t hold much hope for a large crowd but was excited…
Today ends a 3-day fast paced visit to Chicago for myself and many UM entrepreneurial students who came here to engage the Chicago entrepreneurial network. On Sunday, I was thrilled to see so many wolverines participating in Chicago’s Startup Weekend event. This 50+ hour event is a great way to build energy in a community…
Consider this question: “Describe the value of a gas station”. I like to ask entrepreneurs this question as a thought experiment of how hard it is sometimes to isolate value from something we are used to experiencing every day. A typical response is “a place where I gas my car”. That is incorrect, that is…
Last night was the UM Student Startup Showcase at the new TechArb location where 225 Ann Arbor entrepreneurs gathered to see not only the 8 most recent student startups to complete the TechArb program but also to meet the 20 new UM Student Startups entering TechArb for session #7 (Nov-2011 through April-2012). Many thanks to…
A record number of University of Michigan student startup teams have applied for access to TechArb for the upcoming session (#7 – November 2011 through April, 2012). Tomorrow (Monday) we have interviews with each of the startup teams that are finalists for the remaining slots for most of the day. I really enjoy meeting entrepreneurs…
“(2030) Order edited or modified” is the latest status on my Chevy Volt order when I checked today… and I’m thrilled! It’s been two weeks since the last change to my Volt order (originally placed on 8/25/2011) and I was craving some update as to the status of my future car… incidentally, the update on…
Trying to get a fire lit when you are camping is sometimes a struggle. Sure, everyone has their 2 cents on how to stack the wood, prime the fire and light a match but ultimately we never know if the fire is going to stay lit, blow out or burn out too fast. Ann Arbor’s…
The CFE is hosting today @ 2pm at Stamps Wei Wei Hsing from the Acumen Fund. These guys are amazing! If you don’t know much about what they do you should watch this TED video by one of their founders, Sasha Dichter titled “The Generosity Experiment”. What I like about this video is that you…
40! Apparently, as that is the number of teams that have applied to be part of this year’s Michigan Clean Energy Venture Challenge (almost doubling last year)! This is really exciting as we have completely revamped the Michigan Clean Energy Prize to be an acceleration project instead of a business plan competition. The teams that are…
Today is the last day UM students can apply to the Chicago Entrepreneurial Experience 2011 trip. Why is this event important? Each year the Center for Entrepreneurship takes a group of entrepreneurial students on the road to tour amazing startups, build their network and gain feedback on their ideas. We are excited to be taking…
Doug Neal 