About Innovation and Entrepreneurship at RIT

RIT provides a unique, multidisciplinary ecosystem aimed at promoting and supporting innovation and entrepreneurial endeavors of its students, faculty and staff. That network includes:

• The Albert J. Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which offers interdisciplinary curriculum, experiential learning through the Student Incubator, coaching, access to the Construct student makerspace and events such as the Summer Start-Up program, IdeaLab@RIT, Tiger Tank, RIT Business Model Competition and Access Technology Product Competition.

• Venture Creations, RIT’s business incubator, which provides services to start-ups whose products and services advance educational and research missions.

• Center for Urban Entrepreneurship, located in RIT’s Downtown Center at 40 Franklin St., which provides business and consulting services to anyone who wants to launch or maintain a business within the city of Rochester.

• Saunders College of Business, which supports and funds a variety of programs, including Tiger Tank, Summer Start-Up and Business Model Competition. The college also offers a minor concentration in entrepreneurship, which involves an applied-learning field experience and gives students the opportunity to earn credits for advancing a business concept.

• Studio 930 RIT Design Consultancy, which focuses on experiential learning and production technologies and products that help people with disabilities.

• Co-Up, co-sponsored by the Simone Center and Center for Media, Arts, Games, Interaction and Creativity (MAGIC), which provides summer internships on multidisciplinary teams with projects in digital media.

• National Technical Institute for the Deaf, which hosts “Next Big Idea,” an annual innovation competition in which teams of deaf and hard-of-hearing students create a product, business, service or type of technology that solves a problem or eliminates an existing challenge for potential consumers and/or users. In 2017, NTID and the Simone Center received a grant from the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps to provide support for deaf and hard-of-hearing entrepreneurs in the STEM arena.

• RIT Venture Fund, launched in 2012, provides investment capital and guidance to entrepreneurial ventures with a strong connection to the RIT community. The fund has become an integral component of an ever-expanding entrepreneurial ecosystem in the greater Rochester region.

RIT student representation at regional, state and national entrepreneurship competitions such as Digital Rochester GREAT Awards, Rochester Venture Challenge, 43 North and the New York State Business Plan Competition.