Students with Entrepreneurial Curiosity: Launch Your Business Idea at Maryland

Maryland Engineering is one of the nation’s best engineering schools, located on the fifth-ranked university campus for cultivating student entrepreneurialism.

At the A. James Clark School of Engineering, Terps have access to an unparalleled ecosystem of opportunity and support for turning their creative and problem-solving business ideas into fearless entrepreneurial realities.

In the Spring/Summer 2024 issue of Engineering at Maryland magazine and feature story “You Can Launch It At Maryland,” you’ll read about just a few of the Maryland engineers launching their business success stories—including John Fitzell ’20 and Jess Garnett ’21 of JMakes3D; Tyler Denk ’16 of beehiiv; Camilo Melnyk ’21 and Stacey Yaculak of Blimp Logistics; and Sonal ’86 and Ashish Deshpande, who together fund the Deshpande Shell Innovative Rising Entrepreneurs (DESIRE) Endowed Student Award.

Among the campus resources that help UMD engineering students unleash their entrepreneurial potential:

• The Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech), a national leader in entrepreneurship and innovation education that was home to the first tech company incubator within the state of Maryland: Mtech claims an economic impact of over $77 billion to date.
• Startup Shell, a student-run incubator and coworking space on the first floor of the E.A. Fernandez IDEA Factory: its student-spun businesses have secured over $2 billion in startup venture value and contributed $1.3 billion to the economy since Startup Shell was founded just 12 years ago.
• The new xFoundry@UMD, an exciting XPRIZE-inspired initiative that launched out of the IDEA Factory to incentivize students’ technology innovations: the winning team of xFoundry’s annual Xperience competition will receive a venture backed by up to $2 million in investors’ funds to launch their company.

Read the Spring/Summer 2024 issue

Additional issue highlights include:

• SPACE: Alumna becomes 3rd Black astronaut to live aboard the ISS
• ENERGY: Engineered solutions for a sustainable future
• ACCOLADE: Clark School recognizes Martin Medal honorees
• TOP RANKED: #6 among U.S. online graduate engineering programs

Send letters to the editor:

Melissa L. Andreychek
Engineering at Maryland magazine
A. James Clark School of Engineering
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
email

Engineering at Maryland magazine is published twice a year for alums and friends of the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. Digital issues are available on the Maryland Engineering website.

The Spring/Summer 2024 cover and feature are illustrated by Gwen Keraval, whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and The Los Angeles Times; the feature story is authored by Amanda Loudin, whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

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May 7, 2024