Blockchain technology has gained prominence in recent years with the rise of cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), but its potential to impact the business world has yet to be fully realized. This impact will touch existing enterprises and propel the launch of many new businesses as well. That’s where Maryland Smith comes in.

In the 2022 edition of the annual rankings, announced today by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine, UMD placed No. 10 for undergraduate entrepreneurship education across all institutions—its seventh consecutive year in the top 10 and 10th straight year in the top 25—and No. 4 among public universities. It was also listed at No. 24 for graduate entrepreneurship education. New this year, The Princeton Review ranked schools regionally, and UMD came in at No. 2 in the Northeast.

Two years ago the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship piloted a new program — Terp Startup Fellows, made possible by a generous donation from Bill Boyle ’81, chairman of the center’s board of advisors. Building on the success of the Dingman Center’s Terp Startup Accelerator eight-week summer program, the Terp Startup Fellows program is an effort to further accelerate the most promising student startups. These student founders have demonstrated a strong commitment to their ventures and the ability to innovate as they push towards commercialization. After positive results from the two-year pilot, the Dingman Center has named five Terp Startup Fellows for the 2021-22 academic year, an increase from 3 last year.

The University of Maryland will receive a $1.5 million gift from the Fishlinger Family Foundation to support the Robert H. Smith School of Business’ Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship and the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences’ Joel and Kim Feller Advising and Career Center. The first $1 million of the donation is designated to help fund the Dingman Center’s programs, operations and other initiatives that help students launch their own startups. The other $500,000 will go to the Feller Center, to endow a Fishlinger director of career planning.

Tom Savransky, a finance student and College Park Scholar who co-founded a virtual fitting company that would improve the experience of shopping online, is being remembered with a memorial scholarship. Savransky died last month after sustaining injuries during a car accident. He was 23. Colleagues and peers considered Savransky a software innovator with an entrepreneurial spirit.

Sometimes, more is just better. This year, the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship is doubling down on its popular Pitch Dingman Competition, increasing both the prize money available and the ways in which to win it.

Last year’s Pitch Dingman Competition was originally scheduled for March 2020, which we now all remember well as the precipice of change to life as we knew it. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Dingman Center team swiftly shifted the competition to a then unfamiliar virtual format.

In fall 2019, the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at Maryland Smith decided to test a hypothesis: If exceptional student founders in our Terp Startup Accelerator continued to receive resources for the following academic year, could we help them bridge the gap and achieve necessary milestones toward commercialization?

Water-Saving Automatic Flushing System Wins Pitch Dingman Competition’s Top Prize For Charles Grody '20, it was a toilet flush (or two...or three) that led to a lightbulb moment. “We’ve all experienced using a public restroom when all of a sudden the toilet flushes automatically without us being finished yet,” Grody said. “I wondered how much water went to waste because of it.”

Each year, the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship hosts the Pitch Dingman Competition — the University of Maryland’s business competition. Hundreds of students, faculty, alumni and VIPs will gather to watch top student entrepreneurs pitch their businesses to an expert panel of judges to compete for a total of $30,000 in seed funding.