This Giving Day, share the love with TLA

Feb. 8, 2023

Your gift is multiplied thanks to a $20,000 anonymous matching pledge.

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Giving Day web banner with photo of Betsy Cantwell, Sahand Sabet, and Doug Hockstad

Make your gift to Tech Launch Arizona today and an anonymous donor will match the sum total of all gifts received up to $20,000. Your gift provides funding to engage students, particularly female and underrepresented minorities, in university technology commercialization and alternative career exploration in entrepreneurship and innovation to create a better world for all.

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Extending Student Engagement in Commercialization

Tech Launch Arizona has a history of supporting and engaging students in the IP commercialization process and entrepreneurship efforts surrounding UArizona-owned inventions. Over the last several years, we have launched multiple programs supporting university technology commercialization to foster student entrepreneurship, increase diversity, equity, and inclusion, and offer alternative career pathways through experiences working with TLA and Arizona startups.

  • From the first days of TLA, The Market Research Student Analyst Program has engaged students in analyzing intellectual property, both in terms of the patentability and market landscape. This program has helped dozens of students learn about IP and entrepreneurship and continues to produce one of the key elements of our commercialization process: the Commercialization Assessment Report.
  • The Entrepreneurial Fellows Program engages students in the process of launching university startups. One of the first of its kind, this program supports startups as they are being formed and provides participants with a unique experience where they are teamed with Mentors-in-Residence for “learn-by-doing” educational opportunities. They gain first-hand knowledge of technology and startup assessment, team mentoring, and many other steps involved in launching a new company.
  • The Student Startup Internships Program provides students with internship opportunities working with UArizona startups. In collaboration with TIMESTEP (Tucson Initiative for Minoritized student Engagement in Science and Technology Program) and RISE (Resilience Internships and Student Experiences), we match students with university startups, giving them valuable entrepreneurial experience along with a summer stipend. In turn, each participating startup gets an additional set of hands and a fresh perspective – a much-needed boost for young companies.

TLA’s efforts to expand diversity, equity and inclusion have launched several programs, including World Changing Women during National Women’s Month when TLA spotlights women inventors and works to engage up-and-coming female researchers; and our Claim Your Seat at the Table series, originally presented in collaboration with the USPTO and FutureForward, targeting women interested in increasing their impact outside of academia by exploring commercialization and entrepreneurship. While those programs have primarily aimed at faculty and staff, we felt a need to increase the scope. Our experience working with students has led us to create a new program. This cohort-based series will be designed to engage female and traditionally underrepresented graduate students and post-docs in entrepreneurship and commercialization-focused educational workshops, mentorship opportunities, interactive “fireside chats,” networking, and more to prepare participants for careers in bringing university innovations to market.

Excluding the Student Analyst positions, these programs were launched and supported with the generous support of donors like you. While we are currently working to transition existing programs to more permanent sources, the newest program engaging females and under-represented minorities in these opportunities will be launched with donor support.

We wouldn’t be where we are today without such support. Thank you.

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