Polsky Center Receives Outstanding Contributions to Venture Creation Award at the 2024 Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers Conference

Published on Tuesday, November 19, 2024

The Polsky Center’s Barbara Agyapong and Lucas Peralta at the 2024 GCEC Conference

The award recognizes centers that creatively support the process of launching and accelerating university-affiliated startups through competitions, incubators, accelerators, and other programs.

At its annual conference over the weekend, the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC) awarded the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation the Outstanding Contributions to Venture Creation Award.

The Polsky Center received the award for its expertise and robust suite of programming across entrepreneurship, education, and science and technology, including:

Deep Tech Ventures’ work translating innovations into startups that bring world-changing products and services to market through its accelerator programs
The Build and Launch accelerators, which provide students the opportunity to work intensively on their ventures in a collaborative environment with access to coaching, programming, and funding.
The five tracks of the top-ranked New Venture Challenge, which has graduated over 300 active companies that have raised more than $2.3 billion in funding and generated more than $15.4 billion in value.

In addition, the Polsky Center was recognized for its work supporting traditionally underrepresented communities in starting businesses through the Polsky Exchange. With more than 270 active members – 83% of which identify as BIPOC and 55% as women – the Exchange offers services to support its members through workspace access, more than 450 annual programs and workshops, and mentorship from more than 100 specialists. It also is home to a Small Business Development Center, providing no-cost, one-on-one confidential business advice to pre-venture entrepreneurs and existing business owners.

“This award is a recognition of the hard work, passion, and dedication of the entire Polsky Center team,” said Samir Mayekar, associate vice president and managing director of the Polsky Center. “Every day, our team goes above and beyond to support innovators at every stage of their journey, and these efforts have built a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem that brings transformative, world-changing ideas to life.”

The recognition comes following a successful year* for the Polsky Center, in which it supported 146 ventures and 1,140 community businesses, facilitated more than $4.5 million in investments through accelerators, funds, and programs, hosted 248 events, and issued 93 patents and 231 invention disclosures.

The GCEC is the premier academic organization addressing the emerging topics of importance to the nation’s university-based entrepreneurship programs. It is comprised of more than 600 individual members from approximately 300 schools and colleges.

*From July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024.