The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business is looking south for the next big startup idea. Booth is partnering with the University of Illinois College of Engineering in Urbana-Champaign to bring students from both schools together to work on startups.
Because the University of Chicago has no engineering school, the partnership seems like a natural fit.
“We have a number of people who come to business school who have business ideas but don’t have the technical skills to make them happen,” said Ellen Rudnick, executive director of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Booth. “And there are U of I students who have ideas for new companies but don’t have the business skills to figure out if there’s a market.
University of Illinois has one of the 10 best engineering schools in the country but a business school that’s ranked 35th by U.S. News & World Report. The university is also trying to give top graduates a reason to stay in state.
“When they’re presented with job offers, if they don’t have options here, they go to Silicon Valley or somewhere else,” said Andreas Cangellaris, dean of the College of Engineering. “If there were a more robust startup ecosystem here, they’d choose that. There are a lot of things going on in Chicago, and we’d like to see more of it highlighted (for them). This a way to do that.”
Booth students and senior engineering students from University of Illinois will collaborate on potential startup projects– Engineering students taking a yea rlong senior design class must come up with a product idea and produce a prototype while MBA students who participate in the New Venture Challenge program have to come up with ideas for a startup.
When Booth offered up the idea of this collaboration, 130 MBA students expressed interest within 48 hours, said John Flavin, executive director of the Chicago Innovation Exchange at University of Chicago. One to two dozen Booth students will head to Urbana to pitch U of I engineering students.