The next Mark Zuckerberg may be staffing a booth at the Convo at UTSA for the University's annual Student Technology Venture Competition, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Corey Hallam, Director of the Center for Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship at UTSA says the competition allows engineering and business seniors to compete to win $100,000 in funding and start up services for a wide variety of outside the box ideas.
"Everything from prosthetic limbs that have cooling devices built in to pipeline inspection companies out there looking at lower cost ways to insure pipeline security," he said.
More than a dozen patent applications have ben filed as a direct result of the competition, which two winning teams from previous competitions already moving toward commercializing their products, Hallam said
."For $100,000 in start up packages to help them launch the companies," he said
.One previous winner, InfraVein, has alrady received a $50,000 National Science Foundation grant to help bring their medical device to market.
Hallam says today's engineering students have so much more at their disposal to come up with groundbraking ideas on their own, and this competition gives them a spirit of entrepreneurship which will serve them well in their future careers.