UC Santa Cruz Teams with TiE Global to Help Entrepreneurs

Paul Lopez, co-chair of the TiE University global initiative; UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Cindy Larive; TiE Global Chair BJ Arun; and AGK Karunakaran, President of TiE Silicon Valley Board of Directors.

Originally posted @ US Santa Cruz NEWSCENTER

UC Santa Cruz and TiE Global are establishing the Destination Silicon Valley program to  leverage the Silicon Valley presence of both organizations and create new learning opportunities for university-based entrepreneurs from across the world, including University of California students and innovators, and others from TiE’s 59 chapters. 

Both organizations are seeking to further strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem across the global TiE domain and in California. By providing participants with training programs, industry and investor connections, and with the guidance of world-class mentors, participants will be able to grow their ventures to maturity much more quickly.

UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Cindy Larive praised the partnership. “Leveraging our Silicon Valley campus as the hub for this collaboration will help cement UC Santa Cruz as the UC of the valley,” she said. “Our campus was founded on the tenets of opportunity and access to higher education for all, and we believe deeply that bringing together people with a wide range of life experiences and perspectives is how the world’s most challenging problems will be solved.” 

TiE Global is a nonprofit organization devoted to entrepreneurs in all industries, at all stages, from incubation, through the entrepreneurial life cycle. TiE University helps college startups and founders grow their entrepreneurial ventures into viable and sustainable businesses. They aim to help university startup founders and teams successfully launch and scale their ventures more rapidly.

UC Santa Cruz and TiE aim to take promising teams and provide them with the knowledge, tools, and resources needed on the journey of becoming an ‘investment-ready’ startup. For students, staff, and faculty who want to participate, more information will be available this fall.

B J Arun, Chair of TiE Global said he was excited about this partnership. "TiE has a history of 30 years working with entrepreneurs and creating over $1 trillion of wealth. With our global network of Chapters we can help entrepreneurs connect with the Silicon Valley ecosystem working closely with UC Santa Cruz. TiE Silicon Valley's Charter Members will be great mentors to the teams in this program".

UCSC Silicon Valley Extension and the UC Santa Cruz Innovation & Business Engagement Hub will work with TiE to launch the program in the coming academic year. Teams that successfully complete the Destination Silicon Valley program will also receive a certificate of completion from Extension. 

“This is an exciting moment for our campus innovation and entrepreneurship trajectory. Our partnership with TiE will help ensure that innovators and entrepreneurs from all reaches of the globe have the opportunity to bring their ideas to market,” Chancellor Larive said.