The Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence (IEE), the unit of the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship dedicated to providing small business entrepreneurs throughout Western Pennsylvania with education, consulting, and networking opportunities to help them launch, grow and transition their businesses.
The adage goes, it takes a village to raise a child. To translate a technology developed from Pitt research to market takes a thriving, expanding innovation ecosystem.
When it comes to academic innovation and entrepreneurship, Pitt is blessed with an overflowing roster of 5-star recruits. They are putting points on the board, submitting a new invention disclosure to the Innovation Institute, part of the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, every single day of the year on average; being issued more than 100 patents; and having their technologies licenses more than 130 times in the last fiscal year.
The Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship staff are dedicated to helping Pitt faculty and student innovators and regional small businesses make an impact for their ideas and research in the wilder world beyond the university. We will be introducing you to some of those people who work day in and day out to protect and promote intellectual property, provide innovation commercialization education, mentoring and funding opportunities, and engage with industry, investment, economic development, and other external innovation partners.