Name: SPARK: Faces of Technology Innovation 2021
Start: 2021-09-04T13:00:00-04:00
End: 2021-09-04T15:00:00-04:00
Location: Newcomb Hall Theater

SPARK: Faces of Technology Innovation 2021

The University of Virginia has a long legacy of producing incredible technology entrepreneurs, who began their companies while students. At this event they will be sharing the stories of their journeys from when they started here at UVA with six 10-minute talks.

We will also introduce next steps that students who are just beginning their entrepreneurship journey can take during their time at UVA to follow in the footsteps of our great technology entrepreneurship legacy.

We hope you walk away from this afternoon with the knowledge that if they can do it, you can do it too.

Light food and drink provided in a reception after the event.

See video from previous SPARK events by clicking here.

August

26

,

2017

|

1:00PM

–

3:00PM

Please RSVP Here

4th Year

Simonne Guenette

Transfoam

Class of 2021

Alec Brewer

Transfoam

Class of 2019

Alexander Singh

MIST

Class of 2019

Jared Downing

Gamebytes (YC S19)

Class of 2016

Ameer Shakeel

AgroSpheres

Class of 2013
MBA 2022

Whit Hunter

BetterWorld

When

Saturday

,

August

26

at

1:00pm

Where

Event Schedule (September 1 from 1-3pm)

Welcoming and Introduction
Introduction of Pike Engineering Entrepreneurship Fellows program and the 2018 Fellows
First Speaker
Second Speaker
Third Speaker
Fourth Speaker
Fifth Speaker
Reception with light hors d’oeuvres outside of the Newcomb Theater

Next Steps in Your Entrepreneurial Journey

Inspired by these incredible alumni technology entrepreneurs and wondering how to start your own journey? Check out the upcoming events to the right.

Entrepreneurship @ UVA Kickoff

Sept. 6:

Join fellow students at the Entrepreneurship @ UVA Kickoff to learn about entrepreneurship clubs and the UVA E-Cup, watch students pitch their ideas, meet with other entrepreneurial students and enjoy delicious pizza!

RSVP to attend HERE: http://bit.ly/entrepreneurshipkickoff

Creativity for Invention Workshops

Running Sep 17 - Oct 2:

Want to be an entrepreneur or inventor but don't know where to start? Start here to learn and practice the basics of creativity and the Creative Problem Solving process. There will be two sets of three workshops, and only 25 spots available in each. RSVP to ensure spot. Those who attend all three workshops will be eligible for the spring Creativity for Invention class. All information and RSVP at http://c4i.splashthat.com

Entrepreneurship Cup Concept Competition

Submissions due Oct. 26.

The Concept Competition is the first stage in a three part series of annual competitions organized under the UVA Entrepreneurship Cup. $25,000 in total prize money will be awarded as part of the Concept Stage. Students are encouraged to come up with out-of-the-box ideas that could be translated into compelling projects. Submissions are not expected to be a full business plan, and will not be penalized for not having a working prototype, fully developed team, forecast, revenues, etc.
All information at http://entrepreneurship.virginia.edu/ecup/concept

Women Entrepreneurship Week

Final Date TBA

Be one of 20 students to participate in a roundtable event with 10 professional women entrepreneurs and 10 current student women entrepreneurs to make connections and to celebrate Women Entrepreneurship Week. Follow the Society for Women Engineers for more information.

The Pike Engineering Entrepreneurship Fellows Program

Submissions due in late Fall semester.

The premier program of its kind at the University of Virginia, providing seed funding and nine months of intensive support, guidance, and mentorship for early-stage University of Virginia student entrepreneurial projects that are based on developing or commercializing some form of novel technology. The culminating event allows student teams to compete for the $50,000 Pike Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Click Here for More information.

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#SPARKuva

event agenda

Works in Progress developed after conversations with 500+ students & was designed with the tiny minority of students working on entrepreneurial projects outside of formal programs in mind. Our operation mainly consists of two full-time staff within the Technology Entrepreneurship program that work on supporting this community part of the time, and we act using lean startup methodology. We operate on personal (one-to-one) rather than transactional (one-to-many) interactions.

"

To achieve great things, two things are needed:

a plan and not quite enough time.

Quote Block #2

Technology Entrepreneur Speakers

Payam Pourtaheri & Ameer Shakeel

AgroSpheres

Begun as an iGEM project in 2013, Payam Pourtaheri (Nanomedicine Engineering 2016) and Ameer Shakeel (Biomedical Engineering 2017) partnered with nanoscience expert Professor Mark Kester to commercialize a technology to remove harmful pesticide residues and improve food safety worldwide.

Vincent Ning

Scaphold

Vincent Ning (Computer Science & Economics 2015) took his first entrepreneurial steps when he won second place in the UVA Entrepreneurship Cup. After he graduated, he worked for Microsoft for a year and then quit to pursue Scaphold, a platform to offer GraphQL back end as a service, within Y Combinator.

Crystal Icenhour

Phthisis Diagnostics & Aperiomics

Crystal Icenhour commercialized research from UVA into life sciences startup, Phthisis Diagnostics. After it was acquired in 2013, she went on to co-found another startup company, Aperiomics, which is developing cutting edge pathogen diagnostics.

Joseph Kilroy

SoundPipe Therapeutics

Joseph Kilroy (Biomedical Engr PhD 2014) launched SoundPipe Therapeutics right out of his graduate student work, where they are developing a novel, intravascular ultrasound system for drug delivery. Dr. Kilroy will be talking about his journey from graduate student researcher to technology entrepreneur.

Evan Edwards

Kaleo Pharmaceuticals

Joshua Anton (Commerce 2014) has launched a series of mobile applications under his X-Mode company, the most famous of which being Drunk Mode that has amassed almost 2 million downloads. He has raised almost the same amount in investment so far, and has been featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

Directions

The University of Virginia has a long legacy of producing incredible technology entrepreneurs, who began their companies while students. At this event they will be sharing the stories of their journeys from when they started here at UVA with six 10-minute talks.

We will also introduce next steps that students who are just beginning their entrepreneurship journey can take during their time at UVA to follow in the footsteps of our great technology entrepreneurship legacy.

We hope you walk away from this afternoon with the knowledge that if they can do it, you can do it too.

Light food and drink provided in a reception after the event.

See video from previous SPARK events by clicking here.

Newcomb Hall Theater

"I think what WIP is doing is fostering a culture that brings people together. By being able to hold ourselves accountable with the other entrepreneurs in the community, it helped structure me and keep me focused in terms of making sure I could work on my entrepreneurial project after college."

Joshua Anton

X-Mode

UVA Class of 2014

The University of Virginia has a long legacy of producing incredible technology entrepreneurs, who began their companies while students. At this event they will be sharing the stories of their journeys from when they started here at UVA with six 10-minute talks.

We will also introduce next steps that students who are just beginning their entrepreneurship journey can take during their time at UVA to follow in the footsteps of our great technology entrepreneurship legacy.

We hope you walk away from this afternoon with the knowledge that if they can do it, you can do it too.

Light food and drink provided in a reception after the event.

See video from previous SPARK events by clicking here.

RSVP Here

SPARK: Faces of Technology Innovation 2021

The University of Virginia has a long legacy of producing technology entrepreneurs. We hope you walk away from this event with the knowledge that if they can do it, you can do it too, and that there is an expansive community of technology entrepreneurs here to help you along your way.

RSVP Here

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