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The Institute supports outstanding programs in Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Please click on a link below to learn more about our major programs.
Please see the Institute’s Events and Student Supportpages for more programs in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The Management of Technology Program also supports activities in Innovation and Entrepreneurship; MOT’s contributions are described in the Institute’s Technology Development and Management pages.
These programs are housed and supported in the Institute of Management, Innovation, and Organization as described in About the Institute.
Center for Open Innovation
The Center for Open Innovation (COI) conducts scholarly research on more open, distributed models for organizing and managing technology and innovation. This research ranges from close observation of the practices of companies in technology-intensive industries, to large sample surveys of practices in a variety of industries.
Formerly the Center for Technology Strategy and Management, the new name provides greater focus to the activities of the Center. It also helps to differentiate the center’s work from the many other entities at Haas and Berkeley that study innovation. Henry Chesbrough is the first Executive Director of the COI.
To date, the COI has raised research funds from foundation, industry and government sources. Its funds have been used to support MBA and Ph.D. student research, as well as research of faculty here at the Haas school. The largest grant received to date is from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York, which was awarded to the Center for the study of the globalization of R&D in the semiconductor industry. Smaller gifts have been received by the IBM Corporation for the study of innovation in services, from Dell Inc. for the study of innovation in standards-based industries, and from METI in Japan for the study of spin-off organizations to commercialize technology.
For more information on the Center and its activities, please visit the COI’s website or send an e-mail to coi@haas.berkeley.edu.
Lester Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation
The Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation was founded in 1991 through a gift from W. Howard Lester, Chairman of Williams-Sonoma, Inc., and is the primary locus for the study and promotion of entrepreneurship and innovation in management and new enterprise development at UC Berkeley
The Lester Center:
- fosters teaching of successful entrepreneurship and innovation,
- encourages Berkeley students in the creation of new businesses,
- creates and disseminates knowledge on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial finance to the business and university communities,
- facilitates interaction between the entrepreneurial community and the university.
The center's constituency beyond the university consists of the founders, owners, and managers of innovative and high-growth companies, their investors and advisers, and young entrepreneurs. Within the university, it is an interdisciplinary, campus-wide research center with public programs designed to be a resource to the campus and beyond. Over the years, students and faculty, especially those in business, engineering, computer science, law, and the biosciences, have led in developing the center's programs.
For more information, please visit the Center website or send e-mail to lester@haas.berkeley.edu.
Berkeley Entrepreneurs Forum
The Berkeley Entrepreneurs Forum is a major program of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. For nearly fifteen years, the BEF has provided an intimate and informative setting for students and the public to meet with and hear from seasoned professional entrepreneurs. Each month, a specific topic in entrepreneurship and innovation is presented and discussed by the leading Bay Area professionals in that field. The purpose of the forum is to foster the growth and success of entrepreneurial ventures through the exchange of information and the development of productive relationships among entrepreneurs and those who finance and advise them. It allows professionals to meet each other and to meet the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders.
The Forum meets monthly during the academic year: September to November, and January to April. All meetings are:
Thursdays, 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Arthur Andersen Auditorium
Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley
For more information, please visit the program website or send e-mail to Stephanie Tibbetts at tibbetts@haas.berkeley.edu.
Business Plan Competitions
The Lester Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, an affiliate of the Institute, oversees a variety of premier business plan competitions for the benefit of Haas MBA and other Berkeley graduate students. These competitions have helped to identify and promote promising business ideas through the education and exposure afforded by the competition’s events, mentors and judges.
Entrepreneurship Causes & Consequences Project
Professor John Freeman, Helzel Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of Research for the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, is leading the " The Causes and Consequences of Entrepreneurship in the United States" research project. This supports professors in the Political Science, Sociology, Public Health, Economics, and City and Regional Planning Departments as well as Boalt Law School and Haas Business School in their research on entrepreneurship. The grant supports the first two years of a four-year project where the funding is expected to total $1.2 million. Fourteen professors from various departments on UC Berkeley's campus have received funding through the Lester Center. The Lester Center received this funding from a $600,000 two-year grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City in order to investigate the causes and consequences of entrepreneurship in the United States.
Researchers are examining the effects of entrepreneurial activity on a broad array of areas, including job creation and destruction, the impact on the broader pool of "stakeholders" beyond the founders themselves, and the differing processes through which companies are started and developed.
For more information, please visit the program website or contact Stephanie Tibbetts at tibbetts@haas.berkeley.edu.
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