iVenture Accelerator

Ayesha Kazi sharing her aspirations at ASL Aspire as how she is on a mission to bridge STEM education access gap in k-12 education of deaf children. TechCrunch selected startup. #TechDisrupt2024 #edTech #socialimpact

Talking digital trends with Sahaab Mohammad (iV7) alum and founder of NeonCrate LLC , an e-commerce platform that sells customized neon signs. Sahaab and I first met during the Chicago Entrepreneurship Workshop hosted by iVenture Accelerator and the Technology Entrepreneur Center, where we take students on a tour of the vast Chicago entrepreneurship ecosystem. Sahaab has since served as a mentor for several of our companies, in the e-commerce space. After a successful exit, Sahaab is currently using his talents at Deloitte.

Excited to be in San Francisco from Oct 28 - Nov 1 🚀 I’m looking to connect with founders, VCs, and anyone working on (or interested in) exciting projects in the Bay Area. Let’s meet up and share ideas! At MetaFrazo, we’re democratizing personalized translation, translating thousands of minutes of video every two weeks 🗣 We translate for: 🎓 Universities like Gies College of Business - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (huge shoutout to W. Brooke Elliott, Steven Pratten, and Dan Rodawig for the partnership!) 📚 Individual content creators like Chris Webb, helping bridge language gaps across audiences. If you know of any cool founders or investors I should meet while in town, let me know! 👀 Looking forward to great conversations and building new connections.

Engaging with the local community has been an integral part of the iVenture Accelerator story. Our students have dedicated workspace at BrewLab Coffee every Monday afternoon, we hold Startup Socials at Sipyard & Analog in Urbana, we cater from local restaurants, and we bring in community members as mentors and speakers for our founders. Yesterday was our inaugural Community Startup Showcase at Lodgic Everyday Community — Champaign, led by Tim Chao & the team at BakeLab. Great to see a diverse group of entrepreneurs from Monticello to Parkland College, pitch alongside our tenth cohort. I also want to recognize the following folks from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who showed up to help us integrate better with the Greater Champaign-Urbana region: Professor Elias Kourpas, Director of the Entrepreneurship Major Gies College of Business - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Gerald O. Wilson, PhD, MBA, Director of Entrepreneurship Jacob Kinsey, Director of the Magelli Office of Experiential Learning and Founders at Kinsey Labs Marissa Siero, Associate Director at the Technology Entrepreneur Center ⚖️Randall Green, Adjunct at the University of Illinois College of Law and Attorney Meyer Capel P.C. Samuel Chen, Director of the Disruption Lab at Gies Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/g4ftrgDm

Tonight! At Lodgic Everyday Community — Champaign in partnership with the City of Champaign and City of Urbana, Illinois, is our annual Community Startup Showcase. Register here: https://lnkd.in/gTQRHjdF Come meet local businesses and hear our iVenture Accelerator companies pitch.

🚀 Are you a business owner or a startup founder? If so, consider applying to be an EntreCORPS client! 🚀 At EntreCORPS, we provide consulting services to entrepreneurs. Our team consists of driven consultants passionate about delivering innovative solutions to drive business growth! Why EntreCORPS? ⭐ Wide Variety of Majors: our student consultants study everything from marketing to mechanical engineering and everything in between. This gives us a wide range of perspectives when advising your business. ⭐ Expertise: EntreCORPS has successfully advised companies in over 20 industries at every growth stage. Whether you’re just starting out or already established, we can help you grow your business. ⭐ Pro-Bono: EntreCORPS is a strictly pro-bono organization, so all our work will be done at no cost to you. If you’re interested, fill out the application form, and feel free to DM or email us Application link: https://lnkd.in/dyTuqPkh Contacts: - Project Acquisition Team: Qi Tian, Misha Gandhi & Henrik Weidemanis - Email: entrecorps@gmail.com

I’m an alum of College of Applied Health Sciences at Illinois. During my undergraduate studies, I had a keen interest in programs at Gies College of Business - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, but none of the business fraternities at the time would interview me because I wasn’t a business student. PGN (Phi Gamma Nu) was the only one that gave me an interview. I got high marks on the interview, but alas was denied, with the main reason being I wasn’t a business guy 🤭 Fast forward to today - PGN on campus is open to all majors it seems. I’ve employed PGN members like Chuck Miller in our competitive Fellowship, mentored PGN students such as Sam Townsend, also a fellow Illinois Promise Scholar, and resourced PGN founders like Anish Makkapati , CEO of BY ALL MEANS in iVenture Accelerator. And I’m writing this as things come full circle, just as as I finished a talk to some fun students at PGN 😊 Shout out to Tarun Velamoor for inviting me, and the student who said it was an engaging lecture because he didn’t fall asleep.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Inaugural Founders Week Recap: First and foremost, hats off to Gerald O. Wilson, PhD, MBA and the University of Illinois Research Park team for executing a true unified Illinois entrepreneurial event and bringing in our entire ecosystem across and beyond campus. Finally met in person many of the angels of Illini Angels @ Illinois Ventures, led by Paul Magelli (who moderated my favorite panel with heavy hitters Sean Chou, Craig Vodnik, and Alan Braverman—responsible for hugely successful companies like Catalytic, Cleverbridge, & Eventbrite). Shout out to the iVenture Accelerator companies in the portfolio (who've been supported by the entire ecosystem): - Ascent Integrated Tech (iV3) led by Paul Couston - DeepWalk (iV5) led by Brandon Yates - Natrion Inc. (iV6) led by Alex Kosyakov - Pathlit (iV10) led by Advay Gupta - Top Tier Lessons (iV9) led by Cara Bognar While it was excellent to see many alumni come from out of town for the event, it was equally wonderful to see many of the greater Champaign-Urbana entrepreneurial community take center stage in panels such as Jason Berg from Pixo and Chinmay Soman, founder of EarthSense, Inc. And lastly, great having Gies College of Business - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign representation with W. Brooke Elliott sharing ideas on how to integrate with campus, and opening the discussion on how we can do that better. At Illinois, we produce founders.

Great kickoff to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Inaugural Founders Week by University of Illinois Research Park. The fun continues today at the I Hotel and Illinois Conference Center: https://lnkd.in/g4dGyVre Come meet entrepreneurs, investors, and alumni.

Awesome opportunity at Technology Entrepreneur Center