From Food to Tutoring to Technica (or Online Events), Student Entrepreneurs Take Home More Than $70K in Seed Funding Drones helped two University of Maryland undergrads fly away with the grand prize at last night’s 2021 Pitch Dingman competition.

The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship is pleased to announce that it has accepted 16 University of Maryland student teams into its Terp Startup Accelerator summer program. This is now the program's seventh consecutive year, with the largest cohort to date. The Dingman Center also received its highest number of applicants, with 37 student venture teams vying for a spot in the eight-week program.

The University of Maryland will launch a new business development arm to nurture quantum-focused startups, President Darryll J. Pines announced last night at an event honoring the institution’s inventions, startup, mentor and student entrepreneurs of the year.

On April 16, 2021, the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at Maryland Smith hosted the virtual semifinal round of the Pitch Dingman Competition, featuring 12 student-run businesses from across the University of Maryland, College Park. Each team who advanced to the semifinals was vetted through a quarterfinals round by a panel of alumni judges.

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.

Being an entrepreneur, especially a Black entrepreneur, is about hustle and courage. That was the theme of Maryland Smith’s Being Black in Entrepreneurship event. Hosted by the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, the event featured a panel discussion with notable entrepreneurs who spoke about their setbacks and successes.

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.

Education regarding injustice and inequality is necessary for hopes of creating a better future for all. As part of her role as vice president of inclusion and professional development of the MBA Association (MBAA), MBA candidate Jasmine Snead is helping to further emphasize diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

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.