When all of the applications for student portion of the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition were counted, one school stood out as arguably the most fertile place for studentpreneurs –
Wayne State University.
More students from Wayne State entered the competition with a business idea than any other of the state's places of higher education. The
University of Michigan wasn't too far away at second. The $50,000 competition received nearly 300 student entries, accounting for about half of the 570 entries. Wayne State students also scored four of the 28 semi-finalist spaces.
Organizers for both the
Accelerate Michigan competition and Wayne State's entrepreneurial programs credited the surge in applications to the number of existing events and organizations that spotlight entrepreneurship as a career option. Among those events are the
E2 Challenge and the university's office of technology transfer.
Eric Stief, technology principal for Wayne State's
Office of Tech Commercialization, notes he had a long list of students to draw upon when he and other university officials began recruiting for the competition.
"I was surprised to hear we were at parity with larger institutions," Stief says. "You shouldn't be surprised the grass is growing where you have been watering it."
The Accelerate Michigan competition is headed up by the
Business Accelerator Network, which is composed of southeast Michigan's major business accelerator agencies. The Top 10 student teams will be selected just before the event on Dec. 11. It is being hosted around the
Big Chill hockey game in Ann Arbor.
Source: Eric Stief, technology principal of Wayne State's Office of Technology Commercialization
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at
SEMichiganStartup.com.
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