Excerpt from news article on The Student TALENT Program
IMSA's TALENT Program Open for Business; Will Develop Budding Entrepreneurs
Think talented teenagers can conceive, design, develop, test, evaluate and market ideas and products to change the world? IMSA does - and has launched the Total Applied Learning for Entrepreneurs (TALENT) program for students with a dream of starting their own tech-based business.
In brief, IMSA TALENT will provide on-campus, off-campus and virtual learning experiences and resources to stimulate and encourage entrepreneurial applied science and technology projects by IMSA students and other TALENTed Illinois students. TALENT also will support their understanding of the entrepreneurial process required to take a concept from idea to market. All IMSA students in good academic standing are eligible for TALENT. (...)
The TALENT program got off to a rousing start when Joshua Gerlick, IMSA class of 1999 and founder/CEO of EADevices, Inc., engaged more than 100 interested IMSA students in an introductory discussion in the fall of 2005. "I'm encouraged by the level of response to the TALENT program because entrepreneurship is a team sport," says Gerlick. "IMSA has the smartest people around, and putting smart people together in search of answers to big problems - the possibilities are boundless."
"Becoming an entrepreneur requires time, experience, and a toolkit of basic knowledge in each fundamental business discipline," Gerlick continues. "What TALENT provides to students is an opportunity to master the basics of business, develop a sizable toolkit, and places entrepreneurship into the context of their future educational blueprint. Participation in TALENT will minimize the time required for students to make significant contributions by starting companies that benefit humanity. I suspect TALENT will also assist a few ambitious students in creating successful businesses before they graduate from IMSA."
More Alumni Perspectives
IMSA alumni like Gerlick agree and see TALENT as one way of ensuring that IMSA remains at the forefront of science, mathematics and technology education.
"Currently students with potentially commercial ideas not only lack the means to explore the idea, but also lack training in the basic building principles needed to take a product to market," said David Joerg (IMSA '89). Joerg knows firsthand the struggles and rewards of doing so, having been the president and co-founder of Vindigo, which makes personal navigation tools and applications for today's most popular handheld devices.
"It will be interesting for students to explore how scientific discoveries create new business landscapes and allow new companies to take over -- and examples where upstarts are beaten back when established players quickly adapt," Joerg said. "The impact of IMSA TALENT will be students who are wise beyond their years in the ways of the business world."
Jennifer Ellis Ward (IMSA '93) wishes TALENT had existed when she was at IMSA. "Two of the hardest parts of being a scientist learning to be an entrepreneur are that business thinking is very different from thinking as a scientist and getting funding for good ideas is very difficult," she said. A founding scientist of Meiogen Biotechnology, Inc., Ward began her research during her IMSA years, working with Dr. Leonard Maroun at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield. Eventually, the mouse studies that were part of Ward's project became proof of concept for a series of patents to use anti-interferons to treat Down Syndrome.
To translate their idea from lab to clinic and get promising drugs to market, Meiogen was born. The company's proprietary products and methods center on cytokine-related neurological diseases like Down Syndrome, Alzheimer's and AIDS dementia. "While the science is going really well," Ward says, "attracting venture capital can be taxing. Unfortunately, many investors do not feel that a drug for Down Syndrome is very marketable. We are trying to change that misperception," she said.
Ben Chelf (IMSA '96) is one of the founders of Coverity Inc., which provides state-of-the-art source code analysis technology. His work was featured in the April 2004 issue of Linux Magazine. The technology is considered breakthrough because it can detect many types of bugs extremely efficiently in real systems such as Linux.
"Through starting a company, I learned so much about how technology can be taken from academia and applied in the real world", Chelf said. "The fact that IMSA is now taking steps to assure that students ten years my junior can learn these same lessons is encouraging. Initiating the TALENT program solidifies my belief that the Academy is on the cutting edge of educating our future leaders to guide Illinois, our nation and the world."
Eric McLaren, IMSA vice president for academic programs and principal, looks forward to IMSA's expanding role in nurturing budding science and technology entrepreneurs. "We eagerly anticipate that more of our graduates and other TALENTed Illinois students will follow in the footsteps of pioneering IMSA alumni like Dave, Jenn and Ben," he said.