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.

This summer, everyone has tried to beat the heat. But at UMD, student entrepreneurs have been hard at work showing how their ventures are just beginning to heat up. On Thursday, Maryland Smith’s Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship hosted its 7th annual Terp Startup Accelerator event, in which 16 student teams pitched their business ventures to an audience of students, faculty, staff and esteemed guests.

Shelly Kapoor Collins started the Shatter Fund LLC in 2017, on a mission to increase female entrepreneurship by providing female founders with greater access to capital. The venture capital firm invests exclusively in high-potential disruptive technology companies led by female entrepreneurs. The Shatter Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Shatter Fund, aims to benefit underserved girls by providing them educational tools, grants, and mentorship to think, create and confidently innovate.

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?

SMITH BRAIN TRUST – The University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business proudly presents its 16th annual Summer Reading List for Business Leaders, as recommended by faculty and staff. The 2019 edition covers history, politics, leadership and even strategies for staying focused in a volatile, fast-paced world. Deep Work By Cal Newport

The Do Good Challenge is an eight-week challenge created by University of Maryland students to encourage each other to create ventures that have a positive social impact, with $20,000 in prize money on the line to fund the best ideas.

After the uproar over the Forbes list, Maryland Smith experts compile a quick list of their own, with just a few of the women that should make any list of innovators.