Simone Center News Today

RIT students from the United States and abroad utilize the Simone Center‘s entrepreneurial resources to develop and launch businesses of their own.

A new intellectual property and technology transfer director has been named at RIT. Wayne Plourde was appointed to manage entrepreneurial portfolio.

This semester, five graduate students attending RIT through the Fulbright Foreign Student Program have come together in one course to grow their skills in creating and running new organizations. These students intend to use their newly enhanced skills to create positive impacts in their home countries.

Peter Hogya, a computer science major in RIT’s Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, was honored with the Herbert W. Vanden Brul Student Entrepreneurial Award at last week’s Vanden Brul Entrepreneurial Award Luncheon at Genesee Valley Club in Rochester.

In a move to further enhance an already robust innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, RIT is partnering with the NSF’s I-Corps Hub: Interior Northeast Region. RIT will join a consortium of 10 renowned regional colleges and universities that will utilize $15 million in NSF funding over the next five years to implement and execute a cohesive innovation ecosystem that delivers inclusive models of education and workforce training.

Local businessman and entrepreneur Bernard Kozel was known for having as much passion for helping others develop their businesses as he did for developing his own. Kozel’s dedication to supporting his partners, employees, and entrepreneurs in creating success is the inspiration behind several gifts to RIT.

RIT alumnus Erblin Ribari ’17 MBA (finance) has been named to the seventh annual Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe, which recognizes young entrepreneurs and leaders for how they are transforming business and society today.

Students from around the country—including a Webster, N.Y., high school senior attending Saunders College of Business this fall—will compete to see who will be named America’s Next Top Young Entrepreneur at the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!) 14th annual Saunders Scholars National Competition on June 4.

A trio of trailblazing students who came to RIT from the university’s partner charter school will fulfill a long-term promise when they receive their college degrees at commencement this May. Zaid Abdulsalam, Ismael Cortes Jr., and Justice Marbury were among the first students to enroll at Rochester Prep High School, and they were the three students from the first graduating class in 2018 who chose RIT as their destination.

RIT’s Albert J. Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, created to help students invent and problem solve through experiential learning, offers multidisciplinary student teams a stipend for the unique opportunity to examine their businesses and, for some, move them to the next level of development.