Entrepreneurship
Resources
Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
The Albert J. Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship promotes innovation and entrepreneurial learning across the RIT community by leveraging RIT’s strengths in multidisciplinary and experiential learning.
Read More about the Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
MAGIC Center
The MAGIC Center is a university wide, multi- and cross-disciplinary center in which faculty, staff, and student researchers, artists, and practitioners come together to create, contextualize, and apply new knowledge in a multitude of related fields and disciplines as appropriate not only to STEM, or the arts and humanities, but their intersection.
Venture Creations - Business Incubator
RIT Venture Creations is a technology business incubator that provides a range of services to seed/mid-seed stage startups to help them advance their businesses.
Center for Urban Entrepreneurship
The Center for Urban Entrepreneurship is helping to reshape the regional economy and build wealth within the urban community by being the central resource for urban entrepreneurial programs and research.
RIT Venture Fund
RIT Venture Fund provides investment capital and guidance to entrepreneurial ventures with a strong connection to the RIT community.
The Construct
The Construct, RIT’s makerspace, is designed to serve the needs of innovative students seeking to create new products, inventions and applications. If you’ve got an idea, this is the place to make it real.
Programs and Competitions
Saunders Summer Startup
Saunders Summer Startup is a 10-week initiative over the summer aimed at assisting entrepreneurs develop their business concepts to a point where they are ready to begin seeking angel investment.
Tiger Tank
The Tiger Tank competition gives students the opportunity to pitch their business idea to a panel of judges with a chance to win cash prizes. Submissions describe an early-stage product or service with foreseeable commercial impact.
IdeaLab
IdeaLab is a program designed to link problems and challenges with technical and creative problem solvers at RIT. Student teams with multidisciplinary expertise solve unique problems faced by organizations or institutions such as Al Sigl Community of Agencies, Rochester Regional Health and others. The students spend one weekend designing innovative solutions for specific problems identified by the participating organizations.
Next Big Idea (NTID)
The Next Big Idea is an annual innovation competition at NTID sponsored by ZVRS. Teams of deaf and hard-of-hearing students work together to create a product, business, service, or type of technology that solves a problem or eliminates an existing challenge.
MAGIC Maker Program
The MAGIC Maker Program is designed to help fund students to work in multidisciplinary teams on projects and experiences that lead to startup products and commercial activities in digital media.
RIT Business Model Competition
Students are asked to submit business plans for a potential new business and are judged on the written presentation of the idea, ability for the team to succeed, market potential, feasibility, and general knowledge of subject.
Conferences
RIT Venture Capital Forum
This three-day workshop in the Silicon Valley will provide students with a robust understanding of venture capitalists and the process of early-stage fundraising and investing. Guest speakers, panel discussions, and company visits will provide students with a complete overview of the important relationship between entrepreneurs seeking funding and the venture capitalists that provide investment capital.
RIT Entrepreneurs Conference
RIT’s Entrepreneurs Conference is an inspirational hub and day of learning on how to start a business. The annual event is for anyone who believes that creativity and bold thinking are vital to success.
Minor in Entrepreneurship
A minor in entrepreneurship provides the necessary learning, experiences, and skills to start and operate new ventures and organizations. Students from any discipline can select a minor in entrepreneurship through RIT’s Saunders College of Business and tailor their education to follow their career goals.
Latest News
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December 10, 2024
![Chris Soukup stands in a blue shirt against a brick wall.]()
EMBA student leverages RIT for inclusive leadership growth
Chris Soukup, a graduate student in the RIT Executive MBA program, is the CEO of Communication Service for the Deaf, a nonprofit organization that provides resources and services to benefit the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community in the employment sector. -
December 9, 2024
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Distinguished Alumni Award winners named for 2024-2025
CEOs, Chief Financial Officers, and Chief Technology Officers are among the 12 RIT alumni honored with Distinguished Alumni Awards for the 2024-2025 year.
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November 22, 2024
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RIT expands research on circular economy in Southeast Asia with new funding boost
A $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of State will continue the work led by professors Clyde Hull and Eric Williams with entrepreneurships based on circular economy principles in member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
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November 20, 2024
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RIT professor helps to tackle energy access in rural Africa
Williams’ collaborative work tackles the subject of energy access in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2015, the United Nations established Sustainable Development Goal 7 to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all.
