Awards will honor student entrepreneurs
Virginia Tech's Apex Systems Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship will present awards to exemplary student entrepreneurs on April 23.
“The Student Innovator and Entrepreneur of the Year Awards will honor students who have demonstrated innovativeness, originality, and entrepreneurial spirit in the development of processes, products, or technologies of commercial potential,” said Derick Maggard, executive director of the center, which is based in the Pamplin College of Business.
The event will be held in the Cube theatre in the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech students, faculty, staff, and alumni are invited to nominate a student for one of the six awards.
“The awards serve as a catalyst for our budding entrepreneurial ecosystem being established at Virginia Tech,” said Maggard. “It will be a night to celebrate the students who are making a difference by creating new technologies and new enterprises.” The awards are sponsored by AT&T.
The event will feature keynote speaker Jennifer VanBuskirk, a Virginia Tech alumna and president of Cricket Wireless.
Maggard said the event also reflects the close partnership between the center and the Institute for Creativity, Arts and Technology, and the goal of Virginia Tech President Timothy D. Sands of continuing to build the university as a world-class education destination “where dreams for positive impact on humanity through innovation, commercialization, and entrepreneurship can be realized.”
“Celebrating our young student innovators and entrepreneurs is one of the most important things we can do,” Maggard said. “These students are changing the world and deserve to be recognized for being inventive, curious, creative, and taking the risk to build and start something from the beginning.”
For more information about the awards and to nominate a student, visit the website or contact Shayne Gipe at 540-231-1328.
