<p>This is good for the undergrads. </p>
<p>I think this good. In general engagement with Chicago and the world outside can be good. It is important for them to do this while preserving what is unique about UChicago it will be even better.</p>
<p>More like learning from Stanford and Penn, who have had successful incubators like this adjacent to their campuses for 60 and 50 years, respectively.</p>
<p>I think this is a welcome development and it will be interesting to see how this will evolve given that uchicago doesn’t have traditional engineering department. I am not implying that they are necessary for this center to be successful but it could trigger additional engineering programs in the years to come.</p>
<p>As JHS pointed out, many universities including UW have already setup centers like this. I think Stanford is wayyy ahead of the game. Its Office of Technology Licensing is an institution in itself.</p>
<p>This is not tech licensing or incubation only. It’s an accelerator. Different models.</p>
<p>This project was conceived and first explored at least 7 years ago, and was an initiative of the university leadership. Booth’s involvement, at least then, was indirect, in the form of Booth faculty involvement in the committee exploring this. I suspect the idea came from the current U President, but cannot confirm. </p>
<p>A big challenge with this project was financing it, since the city of Chicago already had an incubator near UIC and since incubators rarely make any money, but often lose tons.</p>
<p>Actually, booths accelerator program just exited its first Billion of deals. And booth owns equity in those. It is profitable.</p>
<p>Booth’s accelerator started in the 90s and ramped up in 2005. 8 years to $1B exit.</p>
<p>FStratford,</p>
<p>Do you have any idea what you’re talking about? FWIW, the Booth accelerator program is aimed at training, not investing.</p>