Student Innovation Opportunities in Viterbi

July 28, 2017

Posted: September 14, 2016, 2:10pm

Two weeks ago, Dr. Andrea Belz, now the Vice Dean of Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Viterbi School of Engineering, gave a presentation to both undergraduates and graduate students about innovation opportunities at USC. Covering everything from cross-school student organizations to technical workshops to competitions, she highlighted several new resources that have been implemented in the past year, like the Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Hub (TECH). TECH is focused on four actions – teach, think, launch, and link, which are further based on four foundations – curriculum, co-location, competitions, and community.  This encompasses groups like the Viterbi Start-up Garage, LavaLab, Viterbi Student Institute for Innovation (VSI2), as well as national funds like the National Science Foundation I-Corps Innovation Node Team Grants.

The easiest way to dive straight in, however, is through competitions. The ones that most engineering students are involved with are the Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition(MEPC), the Min Family Engineering Social Entrepreneurship Challenge, and the Stevens Student Innovation Showcase. Although the deadline for the Stevens event has now passed, it’s not too late to begin finding teams or brainstorming transformative ideas for MEPC or the Min Challenge. I found out about these competitions extremely late last year and applied right before submissions closed, but look where it got me! If you have any interest in the intersection of business and technology or the start-up industry, definitely keep in eye out for upcoming deadlines! You don’t want to miss out on these incredible opportunities to get funding for your innovations!

Published on July 28th, 2017

Last updated on January 20th, 2021


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