Texas State program encourages innovation

SAN MARCOS — It’s said creativity is thinking up new things, but innovation is doing new things.

Students at Texas State University have been engaging in a dual pursuit, fostering their ideas and visions with the aim of sparking innovation. Over the past six years, a handful of these students have taken their aspirations a step further by presenting their concepts to a panel of judges from the TXST New Ventures Program. This program extends mentorship, services and cash to the most promising finalists, providing tangible support to bring their ideas to fruition.

TXST New Ventures is a competitive incubator/accelerator program that supports early-stage business ventures from faculty, student or alumni ideas and innovations. Its program lead, Sean Bauld, said the program offers participants both personal and professional growth through mentorship and training from Texas State's network of faculty, as well as industry experts and external fellow innovators.

To spark the enthusiasm of aspiring entrepreneurs, the program provides the opportunity to vie for a portion of more than $100,000 in startup funding, as well as in-kind services, access to space opportunities at STAR Park and other essential resources crucial for stimulating business from conception to clientele.

“There's cash prizes and non-cash prizes. We've partnered with Amazon Web Services. We give out hosting credits. We've partnered with Dell for Startups. We've partnered with UFCU. So, we give away services to help people start their businesses and grow,” said Bauld. “Finalists, teams presenting on Pitch Day, can win up to $20,000 each, in addition to all the support every team receives."

Bauld said the rest of the group, referred to as the “Cohort,” are on hand as well.

“We want to introduce the innovators and great ideas from across campus and the Texas State landscape,” Bauld said.

There’s no limit to the number of students or faculty that can participate, but Bauld cautions that this isn’t the place for “hobbyists.”

“This is not for hobbyists. This is for people who really want to solve a problem, it takes work,” Bauld added.

Bauld said individuals or teams with a compelling solution to a problem should apply. It may be a nonprofit, something people can adopt or do differently or a business in need of concept testing, prototyping, validation of product-market fit, evaluation of market potential, assistance with gaining customer traction or another core business development area.

Bauld said the public is encouraged to attend the event on June 22 at the Alkek Teaching Theater on the campus of Texas State University. Doors open at 12:30 p.m., where attendees can meet teams and partners. “Pitching” begins at 1 p.m. with winners announced at 2 p.m.. Parking is free.

“At the university, we want to embrace the public around us,” Bauld said. “We want to celebrate the entrepreneurs and innovators, as well as showcase to investors, alumni and partners the cool research and ideas coming from Texas State stakeholders, faculty, staff and students. There are some interesting things going on and it's a great way to see that.”

This year’s VIPs from outside Texas State include: keynote speaker Hugh Forrest, chief programming officer of SXSW; judge Dr. Nishi Viswanathan, head of commercialization at Innovation Lab; judge Oji Udezue, chief product officer at Typeform; and judge David Valentino, managing director at Austin Venture Association.

Texas State has made tremendous progress on multiple fronts related to innovation in recent years:

• Under the leadership of Dr. Bill McDowell, a campus-wide minor in entrepreneurship has been launched.

• Vice president of research, Dr. Shreek Mandayam, has named Dr. Yatin Karpe the assistant vice president for Innovation and Commercialization.

• The popular Texas State Innovation Series, which does deep dives in topics ranging from digital twins to healthcare is open to the public and has been expanded from STAR Park to include the Round Rock campus now.

Bauld leads workshops introducing athletes to entrepreneurship or social workers to entrepreneurship and believes problem solvers come from everywhere.

“Athletes, chemists, physicists, social workers … their perspective, resilience and mindset make them some of the best employees and add to the vitality and economic development of our community,” added Bauld. “Come out and meet the next generation of problem solvers.”

This year’s four presenting finalists come from a diverse range of industries: sustainable energy, autonomous drones and robots, infrastructure/construction and health and life sciences.

To learn more, visit bit.ly/3Rf9yrj.