Entrepreneurship

Berkeley supports IT startups high atop the campus

03/13/12 Communications of the ACM — High above the University of California, Berkeley campus, in the tallest building for miles around, IT entrepreneurs are being given the opportunity to grow their startups in a new venue -- the four-month-old SkyDeck startup incubator/accelerator. At a university known for doing things differently and in its own way, UC Berkeley has dedicated 10,000 square feet of premium penthouse office space to supporting and mentoring IT-oriented startups.

SkyDeck hopes to boost Berkeley-based tech startups

03/01/12 Berkeleyside — The Berkeley SkyDeck startup accelerator, with 10,000 square feet at the top of downtown Berkeley's tallest building, is a collaboration between UC Berkeley's College of Engineering, the Haas School of Business, the Vice Chancellor for Research office, Berkeley Lab, the City of Berkeley, the Downtown Berkeley Association, and the Chamber of Commerce. "This initiative is a perfect fit for a campus that is deeply engaged with and concerned about real-world challenges," said Graham Fleming, vice chancellor for research. "We have long needed a space to help support the activities of the campus' many outstanding entrepreneurs."

New research shows engineers far more likely than MBAs to start, run companies

01/31/12 Wall Street Journal MarketWatch — In the latest edition of its "Revenge of the Nerds" white paper research series, Identified has discovered that company founders and CEOs today more than three times more likely to hold advanced engineering degrees than MBAs and that the overall age of business leaders is steadily trending downward. This shift could have a significant impact on corporate culture with younger, more technically inclined entrepreneurs at the helm.

Businesses born on campus: Students pitch start-ups

04/07/11 Berkeleyside — Six student teams, made up largely of Cal post-grads, who pitched their start-up concepts to a panel of veteran entrepreneurs and potential sponsors were finalists in Cal's Venture Lab program, part of the university's Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology founded by UC Berkeley engineering Professor Ikhlaq Sidhu. The event, called "Entrepreneurship in the Global Marketplace," promised winners either a $5,000 grant from Alibaba.com or a $10,000 Acceleration Award from the Plug and Play Tech Center.

New study on IP strategies advises academics on how to build startups

11/17/10 PRWeb — The Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology (CET) at UC Berkeley has published a report providing practical insight on how entrepreneurs implement effective intellectual property strategies while starting technology ventures within an academic setting. Understanding the mechanics of how academics innovate has become critical as universities increasingly replace private laboratories as a primary source of innovation.