The first ever Morning Edition of UNeMed’s Idea Pub is planned for later this month, aiming to help university innovators and entrepreneurs connect and collaborate with colleagues and experts from the venture and startup community.
UNeMed, the technology transfer and commercialization office for UNMC and the University of Nebraska at Omaha, sponsors the event, which will become a regular monthly series. The series will feature guest speakers from the Omaha entrepreneurial ecosystem and will provide UNMC and UNO innovators an opportunity to build new partnerships and allies that can help develop their innovative ideas and discoveries into products that help people.
“This is going to be an important event for university innovators and the local entrepreneurial community,” said Michael Dixon, PhD, UNeMed’s president and CEO. “First, this will give our campus an opportunity for networking and meet the local community that’s involved in the startup ecosystem. Second, it will help our campus innovators develop technologies that can be developed into startup companies.”
The first Morning Edition of Idea Pub will be on Thursday, April 25, from 9-10 a.m. in the commons area of UNMC’s Durham Research Center. The event is free and open to all, and complimentary coffee and doughnuts will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis.
In addition to networking, Morning Edition will feature a 10- to 15-minute talk by a community partner that is involved in the innovation ecosystem.
Charlie Cuddy, co-founder and managing partner of MOVE Venture Capital, will headline the first Morning Edition. Cuddy also is executive director of the Nebraska Startup Academy.
MOVE is a pre-seed and seed venture capital firm focused on investing in Nebraska technology startup companies. The Nebraska Startup Academy is a mentoring program for startup founders, investors and the local entrepreneurial community with the aim of building Nebraska into an innovation hub in the Midwest.
Morning Edition will continue on the last Thursday of every month, featuring a new speaker each time. Each Morning Edition also will feature “Office Hours,” by MOVE and UNeMed. Office Hours creates the opportunity for faculty, students and staff to have one-on-one time with MOVE or UNeMed professionals to discuss new technologies or startup potential.
The May Morning Edition will be held on Thursday, May 30, and the featured guest will be Josh Nichol-Caddy from the Nebraska Business Development Center, who will speak about the federal government’s small business loan and grant programs.
Additional planned speakers include:
- Ben Kuspa, Nebraska Department of Economic Development: Securing state matching funds and prototyping grants
- Brent Clark, NSF I-Corps Great Plains Region Hub: Why you should’ve done customer discovery yesterday
- Ben Walker, Innosphere: How you can benefit from a life sciences incubator program
- Scott Henderson, NMotion: When should you apply to the NMotion accelerator?
- Ben Williamson, Invest Nebraska: What are VCs looking for?
- Jay Lund, Catalyst: How you build a medtech startup ecosystem
- Stephen Hug, UNeTech: Adventures in faculty/entrepreneur matchmaking
A more complete and detailed schedule will be released in the coming weeks.
Morning Edition is the latest addition to UNeMed’s growing suite of entrepreneurial networking events, which includes Innovations & Libations and Startup Showcase.