Each year, the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship hosts Pitch Dingman Competition, an opportunity for University of Maryland student entrepreneurs to pitch their businesses shark tank style to an expert panel of judges to compete for a total of $30,000 in seed funding. Pitch Dingman applications open at the beginning of the academic year, with a short quarterfinals phase in late September. A vetting process from alumni entrepreneur judges leads to a selection of 10 semifinalists. The Pitch Dingman Semifinals on Nov.

The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship produces Bootstrapped, a podcast featuring founders, investors and serial entrepreneurs. The podcast is hosted by Elana Fine, Managing Director of the Dingman Center, and Joe Bailey, Associate Research Professor at the Smith School. Each episode brings a different startup story to life with special guests offering advice and lessons learned on topics that range from fundraising and marketing to team formation and customer acquisition.

Rising to a Pop-Up Challenge: Smith Online MBA Students ‘Experience Entrepreneurship in a Tangible Way’

Serial entrepreneur Jason Cohen ’96 is an aspirational figure to student entrepreneurs at University of Maryland. The journey Cohen took after graduating in marketing from the Robert H. Smith School of Business led him to a brief stint in selling life insurance until he realized his knack for locating opportunities in the snack food industry. Now as the co-founder and CEO of Halen Brands, with partner Leigh Feuerstein, he has made multimillion-dollar deals and controls a $300 million investment fund, backed by Clearlake Capital.

The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship produces Bootstrapped, a podcast featuring founders, investors and serial entrepreneurs. The podcast is hosted by Elana Fine, Managing Director of the Dingman Center, and Joe Bailey, Associate Research Professor at the Smith School. Each episode brings a different startup story to life with special guests offering advice and lessons learned on topics that range from fundraising and marketing to team formation and customer acquisition.

The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship produces Bootstrapped, a podcast featuring founders, investors and serial entrepreneurs. The podcast is hosted by Elana Fine, Managing Director of the Dingman Center, and Joe Bailey, Associate Research Professor at the Smith School. Each episode brings a different startup story to life with special guests offering advice and lessons learned on topics that range from fundraising and marketing to team formation and customer acquisition.

The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business has helped power UMD to sustaining high placements in the 2017 “Best Schools for Entrepreneurship” rankings by the Princeton Review and Entrepreneurship Magazine.

According to the recently released “Women in the Workplace 2016” study conducted by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey, women remain underrepresented at every level in corporate America, from entry-level to c-suite positions. They are also underrepresented in the entrepreneurial world, launching only 41 percent of new businesses on average in the last two decades, with that number falling. But the Robert H. Smith School of Business is committed to helping boost the numbers of women in business and women creating startups.

The Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland has appointed Liz Sara as Chair of its Board of Advisors for the 2016-18 academic years. She becomes the first female chair in its 30-year history. She officially took the helm at the Oct. 5, 2016, board meeting.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Startup founders looking for customers eventually run out of friends and relatives. "Once they get past that first handful of contacts, they don’t know how to get in front of the market in a bigger way," says Liz Sara, an angel investor and founder of consulting firm Best Marketing.