Entrepreneurship

EBV Alum: ‘To Do What You Love is Priceless’

Posted on by Claire Hall
Portrait of Jason Otrin holding a drone.
EBV alumnus Jason Otrin (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)

Imagine a young child wandering alone in the woods on a frigid afternoon, with each passing minute decreasing the likelihood of a successful rescue.

UConn alumnus Jason Otrin would like to encourage emergency responders in Connecticut, and across the nation, to adopt the use of drones for such public-safety emergencies. Continue Reading

Family Businesses: ‘Your Name is On It!’

Posted on by Claire Hall
Cal Miller-Stevens, left, and her niece Capri Frank pose for a photo inside the store at Miller Foods, Inc., a fourth-generation, family owned and operated food business located in Avon, Conn. Behind them is a photo taken in the early 1960s, in the same location. From left is family matriarch Margaret “Oma” Miller and her two daughters, Sandi Trudeau (Frank’s mother) and Miller-Stevens. (Nathan Oldham / UConn School of Business)

UConn Revamps Family Business Program, Offers Bootcamp, Summer Internship Program to Help Multi-Generational Companies Thrive

Ask Julie Paine-Miller, vice president of Paine’s Inc. Recycling and Rubbish Removal, what it is like to be employed in a family-owned business, and she will share that some of her fondest childhood memories involve riding in her family’s garbage trucks.

“I have a deep-seated love for trash!,” Paine-Miller said with a laugh. “I have memories of being around the trucks from the time I was a little girl.”Continue Reading

First ‘Get Seeded’ Event Awards $3k to New Ventures

Posted on by Claire Hall

Portrait of Daniel Ruskin.
Junior Daniel Ruskin, one of the winners of the first “Get Seeded” competition, organized by the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. (Nathan Oldham / UConn School of Business)

Junior Daniel Ruskin has an idea for creating an in-home, hand-held voting machine that electors would receive when they register to vote.Continue Reading

Enthusiasm, Hard Work Keep Hockey’s El-Mir ’19 On Top

Posted on by Kimberly Nguyen

Karl El-Mir '19 playing hockey wearing a UConn jersey.
Karl El-Mir ’19 follows an intense schedule on and off the ice – and it pays off. (Courtesy UConn Athletics)

One of the most embarrassing things that has happened to Karl El-Mir, a senior in the School of Business and a forward on the UConn Men’s Hockey Team, is stepping on a hockey puck and taking a fall during warm-ups.Continue Reading

Inaugural Entrepreneurship & Innovation Expo Draws Many

Posted on by Claire Hall
A student experiments with virtual reality technology at the Fall Entrepreneurship & Innovation Expo.
A student experiments with virtual reality technology at the Fall Entrepreneurship & Innovation Expo. (Nathan Oldham / UConn School of Business)

Nursing students Jasmeen Mohammed and Katlin DiPietro couldn’t wait to tell visitors at the Fall Entrepreneurship & Innovation Expo about their project designed to calm elderly patients when they’re in the hospital.Continue Reading

Industry-Academic Program to Grow Entrepreneurial Know-How

Posted on by Jessica McBride
Timothy Folta, professor of management, leads a class at the Graduate Business Learning Center in Hartford. Folta is director of the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UConn.
Timothy Folta, professor of management, leads a class at the Graduate Business Learning Center in Hartford on Dec. 6, 2013. (Peter Morenus/UConn Photo)

A new industry-academic initiative to increase entrepreneurial education and output among the state’s top researchers has been launched recently by the University of Connecticut, Unilever, Quinnipiac and Wesleyan Universities, and The Jackson Laboratory, with funding through a grant from the CTNext Higher Education Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund.

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