Elevate Ventures today awarded $50,000 grants to Ball State University, Indiana Institute of Technology (Indiana Tech), Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine and the University of Evansville to support entrepreneurship programming and curriculum. The funding, which is channeled through the Elevate Nexus program, is now in its third and final year. It is designed to strengthen bonds among higher education institutions, community partners and entrepreneurs.

IUPUI, Purdue University, Trine University and the University of Notre Dame received grants in 2019; last year the winners were Butler University, Ivy Tech Community College in Bloomington, Taylor University and the University of Indianapolis.

“With the support of the Elevate Nexus Higher Education Grant Program, Indiana Tech is excited to help engineering entrepreneurs foster new business ideas, create technology-related innovations, conduct market analysis, and launch commercialized products or licensed patents,” said Ying Shang, dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Sciences at Indiana Tech. “Indiana Tech is pleased to be part of the community efforts in making changes in Indiana economical ecosystems into a technology-inspired community.”

Proposals submitted by the universities call for varied approaches:

• Ball State University: Develop an elective cross-disciplinary course connecting Computer Science and Entrepreneurship & Innovation majors, enabling student-led ventures to move from ideation into prototyping and end user-testing.
• Indiana Institute of Technology (Fort Wayne): Expand entrepreneurial programs and initiatives through the Center for Creative Collaboration (C3), a multidisciplinary entrepreneurship center with focus on connecting business clients with the university.
• IU School of Medicine (Indianapolis): Launch a web-based innovation platform to evaluate student and clinician business ideas.
• University of Evansville: Create MakerspACE, a three-pronged entrepreneurial program providing access to innovation for K-16 students.

Elevate Nexus Higher Education Grants are made possible through a partnership with the U.S. Economic Development Administration. A total of $600,000 has been awarded. The funding enables higher education institutions to launch and improve programming to support growth of Indiana startups.

“In the last three years, we have seen some exceptional proposals—all of which foster entrepreneurship and innovation across the campus and in the communities they serve,” said Landon Young, executive director of the Elevate Nexus program. “We are seeing the successful execution of programs, the building of cross-campus ecosystems, and high-potential companies starting and growing. I look forward to the future success these universities see from the programming they were able to launch and expand.”

Source: Elevate Ventures