Video: MSU Hosts Entrepreneurship Week

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STARKVILLE, Miss. – (WCBI) Turning innovation into profit.

It is Entrepreneurship Week at Mississippi State, and the week long conference began Monday tonight.

This evening’s workshop focused on conceptual challenges. Students offered their ideas for economic development projects and business ideas and how they would make them work.

Throughout the week, the six start-up plan and “elevator pitch” competitions will add up to more than $40,000 in prizes and start-up money.

This year’s them is Accelerating Progress.  More information is featured in the release, posted below.

(Press Release) — Mississippi State’s economic impact on the advancement of innovation will be on display later this month in a series of public campus events.

The university’s Office of Entrepreneurship and Technology Transfer will sponsor Entrepreneurship Week April 21-25. “Accelerating Progress” is this year’s theme.

The Investing in Innovation Conference on the 25th at the Hunter Henry Center will conclude the events. As with each of the week’s activities, the conference is free and open to all — but registration for the noon luncheon must be completed by April 15. To enroll, e-mail to Sheree Bouchillon at shereeb@oett.msstate.edu.

Following the luncheon, final rounds of the weeklong student start-up plan and “elevator pitch” competitions will take place at the Hunter Henry Center, located on the west side of campus adjacent to the University Drive exit.

Among other Friday events are an intellectual property and industry partners’ showcase, breakout sessions for inventors and investors and individual advising sessions by MSU’s Small Business Development Center.

“Our theme of ‘Accelerating Progress’ is in full swing, and we’ve introduced more industry partners to the Thad Cochran Research, Technology, and Economic Development Park including C-Spire and Bomgar in the last few months,” said OETT director Joshua Jeanson.

Jeanson said MSU start-up companies “have more resources than ever as they become the industries of tomorrow,” adding that “innovators at MSU have much to celebrate as we are on track to have our best licensing year since 2006.”

Throughout the week, the six start-up plan and “elevator pitch” competitions will dispense more than $40,000 in prizes. In addition to the colleges of Business and Bagley College of Engineering, this year’s competition sponsors include Tellus Operating Group, MSU alumnus and entrepreneur Mark Dumas, Talos Energy LLC, and campus Thad Cochran Endowment for Entrepreneurship.

For more information about Mississippi State University, see www.msstate.edu.