As the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) has begun encouraging entrepreneurship among students as well as faculty, the President’s Symposium and White Paper Project completed a year-long exploration of how best to encourage innovation.  

A keynote presentation of the findings capped UMB’s first Entrepreneurship & Innovation Expo, a day of workshops, exhibits, and panel discussions held April 3. The event was organized primarily by students who are members of the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Network (EIN).

Speakers at the Expo from UMB included President Jay A. Perman, MD; Natalie D. Eddington, PhD, FAAPS, FCP, professor and dean of the School of Pharmacy (UMSOP), Rana Quraishi, PhD, director of new ventures, Jenny Owens, ScD, MS, director of academic and student affairs; Scott Thompson, PhD, professor and chair of physiology in the School of Medicine (UMSOM), and Sara Menso, MBA, MS, business analyst in the UMSOM Office of Student Affairs.

Perman reviewed several initiatives growing out of state legislation passed last year to create the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State. It strengthens a preexisting partnership between the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) and UMB.

“We’re going to launch a student innovation center, where students, faculty and staff from the University and schools from across the University System of Maryland can come together to commercialize important research,” Perman said.

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