VenturePointe, located just 10 minutes away from Penn State Shenango’s campus, is for both for-profit and not-for-profit enterprises, and includes a co-working space and a Maker’s Studio with multiple 3D printers.
Penn State Shenango Campus Director Jo Anne Carrick said, “This past year has been very exciting as we’ve worked with our business and human development and family studies faculty, as well as the administration and staff at the eCenter, to get Shenango campus students and alumni absorbed in our VenturePointe incubator. As soon as we were awarded the seed grant money, we began implementing our plan and working with the eCenter. We have a strong relationship with them, and we couldn’t be happier with our immediate results.”
Linzenbold said, “I originally attended the eCenter@LindenPointe’s Start-Up Weekend in November 2016, and after that experience, I knew this was a great place to be. Soon after that, I had the opportunity to become a part of the VenturePointe program and gladly accepted. The help and direction of the staff here at the eCenter and at Penn State Shenango create an environment for success.”
“The community support for VenturePointe has been extraordinary, and it has created the type of entrepreneurial environment needed for breakthrough innovations. This is what we envisioned when we launched Invent Penn State nearly two years ago, and I’m thrilled to celebrate the early success with our Shenango students, faculty, staff and community,” said Penn State President Eric Barron.
The final phase of the school’s vision for the startup incubator are the 3D printers, which have now been installed and are ready for use at VenturePointe. This technology will support Penn State students, and other tenants of the eCenter, as they work to develop their own 3D printed product prototypes.
Tech startup programs and incubators like VenturePointe are extremely helpful – even if you have a great idea for a product that uses 3D printing technology, not everyone automatically knows how to take that idea and turn it into a marketable success. The four university graduates who invented the Omni Invent ‘workshop in a box’ come to mind – soon after graduating, the team received its first round of funding from a higher education and skills sectors’ not-for-profit organization, and after spending 100 days in China working on product development, will soon be looking for more investors at the Hax Demo Day in San Francisco. The further along inventors can get in terms of product development and marketability, the more likely they are to win big at startup competitions and continue moving forward to commercializing their products.
Discuss in the VenturePointe forum at 3DPB.com.
[Source/Images: Penn State Shenango]