The Kendra Scott Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute (KS WELI) supports creatives, founders, leaders, and allies by redefining leadership and entrepreneurship. KS WELI equips and empowers students of all backgrounds through engaging programming and events, spotlighting women-led businesses through the FoundHER Program, and sponsoring interdisciplinary courses within the McCombs Entrepreneurship Minor. Since its founding, KS WELI has become a force on UT’s campus to grow and support the number of women-owned and women-led businesses.

The LaunchPad at UT Austin is a resource hub that helps all undergraduate and graduate students explore entrepreneurship at UT. We help students identify where they are in their entrepreneurial journey – Explore, Ideate, Create, or Scale – then educate and connect them to resources across campus and in Austin. LaunchPad resources include events, coworking space, funding, bootcamps, accelerators, and other programs. We are a proud member of the global Blackstone LaunchPad Network of 46+ campuses.

The Longhorn Impact Fellowship at Texas provides UT-Austin students with impact-focused consulting experience. Selected Fellows are placed with sustainable corporations, start-ups, and nonprofits to solve sustainability challenges. Projects are completed in 10-12 weeks and must be related to sustainability, corporate philanthropy, impact/ESG investing, or social and environmental innovation. Scholarships are available for students with financial need.

One of the fastest growing minors in the Moody College of Communication, the Media and Entertainment Industries minor encourages students to critically assess and analyze the media and technology sectors from industrial and entrepreneurial perspectives. Our students are trained to think like entrepreneurs—to learn from the innovative thinking of historical media magnates and digital content creators alike—as well as apply those skills in a variety of experiential learning courses and assignments.

This course explores how to solve medical device design problems using systematic design thinking and practices. Students will interpret clinical needs and define an open engineering medical device design problem, including formulating engineering requirements/specifications to address a marketable need and generate concepts in a way that promotes both creativity and usefulness.

The Moffett Family Summer Entrepreneurship Academy (SEA) is an in-person, 8-week summer program for UT Austin undergraduates. SEA participants will complete 4 of 5 required courses for the Entrepreneurship Minor. Students will develop a foundational understanding of entrepreneurship, through terminology, case-based learning, key theories, and empirical-based practices, while working with local startups, corporate sponsors, McCombs alumni, and entrepreneurial mentors.

The Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) program offers $50,000 grants for Faculty and Grad Student/Postdoc researchers to reduce the time and risk associated with translating technologies from lab to market, quickly assessing the market potential of inventions developed from fundamental discoveries in science and engineering. Teams work directly with leadership from the Southwest I-Corps Node (SWICORPS) at UT Austin to gain eligibility and prepare for the NSF grant program through regional activities.

The Office of Industry Engagement (OIE) negotiates all contracts related to private industry research funding. OIE endeavors to streamline negotiations to better accommodate industry financial cycles and assist UT faculty in their collaborative efforts with industry partners. OIE focuses on flexible engagements and expedited contractual negotiations, through collaboration with internal and external stakeholders and with support from the Office of Technology Commercialization.

Pivot allows researchers in all disciplines to quickly discover funding opportunities that match their interests and expertise. Pivot is available to all UT faculty, staff researchers, research administrators and students.

The President’s Award empowers students and faculty to examine real-world interdisciplinary topics while incorporating in-country learning into the classroom experience. Faculty work closely with other UT faculty, student teams, and international partners, utilizing funding and administrative support provided by the award to implement international projects. Students earn 4 credit hours during the one-year program. Projects incorporating entrepreneurship and innovation are invited to apply.