The University of Central Florida is getting about $750,000 in grant money to help grow the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Central Florida, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced today alongside U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and UCF President John C. Hitt.<\/p>\n
The secretary made the announcement during a press conference at UCF and praised the university for having a comprehensive plan for taking ideas from the research lab to market. UCF was one of 26 institutions to receive a total of $10 million from the department, and one of only two universities to earn both i6 Challenge and Cluster Grants for Seed Capital Funds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis achievement is a recognition of the university\u2019s leadership in using innovation and commercialization to help Central Florida recover from the downturn in this region\u2019s manufacturing sector,\u201d Pritzker said.<\/p>\n
She described UCF\u2019s approach as well-developed and deserving of both grants.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an exciting day for UCF, the region and the state,\u201d said Thomas O\u2019Neal, associate vice president of the Office of Research and Commercialization at UCF who has led UCF\u2019s I-Corps project, which is one of the reasons UCF was named a winner of both grants. \u201cWe are working with partners and industry to make Central Florida an epicenter for innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship. UCF has had much success through a variety of programs in helping some of our students and community members take great ideas through the commercialization and marketing process. These grants will enhance our ability to help more future entrepreneurs across five counties.\u201d<\/p>\n
The counties are Orange, Seminole, Brevard, Osceola and Volusia. Building on the resources developed at UCF over the past 15 years, the i6 grant will support the university\u2019s new I-Corps project\u2019s \u201cProof of Concept Center,\u201d where talented engineers from the five counties hardest-hit by changes in the local economy can translate new products \u2013 like technology for stronger and quicker prosthetic limbs \u2013 into businesses.\u00a0 The commerce grant is for $500,000 with another $500,000 in matching funds.<\/p>\n
The center\u2019s mission will be supported by a second $249,933 grant for UCF\u2019s StarterCorps Seed Fund, which will deploy early-stage capital into innovative technology and advanced manufacturing startups across Central Florida.<\/p>\n
This program addresses the gap in seed funding for local entrepreneurs \u2013 which is considered one of the largest barriers faced by startups around the country, and Central Florida\u2019s tech startups are no exception.<\/p>\n
UCF I-Corps helps teams of innovators go through all the necessary steps before taking an item to market and uses the College of Engineering and Computer Science Maker Spaces created with generous industry partners at UCF to help them through idea, design and prototyping. O\u2019Neal estimates that in the fifth year of the program 195 companies will be created, producing 1,730 new high-wage jobs through the Maker Spaces teams.<\/p>\n
The Economic Development Administration\u2019s Seed Fund Grant will be used to raise, deploy and manage a $5 million evergreen StarterCorps Seed Fund that will be deployed in innovative technology and advanced manufacturing startups in Central Florida. Specifically, StarterCorps will provide the most promising and high potential teams access \u00a0to incremental rounds of seed funding that will be critical in maturing these \u201cStarter\u201d teams into companies that are attractive to angel groups, early-stage venture capitalists and federal SBIR \u2013 Small Business Innovation Research agencies.<\/p>\n
Starter Studio is a three-month program that surrounds technology entrepreneurs (called \u201cStarters\u201d) located in the Canvs co-working space in downtown Orlando with a curated educational program, constant exposure to successful technology startup founders, and the opportunity to pitch their companies in a well-attended Demo Day showcase event. Starter Studio, which was organically funded with a Kickstarter campaign, had 64 teams apply from which thirteen were selected.<\/p>\n
The $10 million awarded Monday nationwide comes from the Commerce Department\u2019s Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program, which is being run by the Department\u2019s Economic Development Administration\u2019s (EDA) Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE). The program is designed to advance innovation and capacity-building activities in regions across the country through three different types of grants: i6 Challenge grants, Cluster Grants for Seed Capital Funds, and Science and Research Park Development Grants. Secretary Pritzker announced the recipients of the\u00a0first two\u00a0funding opportunities today. Recipients of the third grant will be announced in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The University of Central Florida is getting about $750,000 in grant money to help grow the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Central Florida, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced today alongside U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and UCF President John C. Hitt. The secretary made the announcement during a press conference at UCF and praised the university for having a comprehensive…","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":65286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[5,6,24],"tags":[1582,2510,4685,202],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-65285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colleges","category-community","category-science-technology","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-john-c-hitt","tag-thomas-oneal","tag-alumni"],"yoast_head":"\n