Bruincubate provides access to entrepreneurship resources
By Kenneth Surajat
April 4, 2014 1:16 a.m.
A group of students dedicated to fostering collaboration among UCLA entrepreneurship organizations plans to hold a launch party Friday for their website – a project that took about a year to develop.
The UCLA Entrepreneurship Council, which consists of 14 entrepreneurship organizations, recently launched Bruincubate, an information website aimed at providing students, faculty and the Los Angeles community with better access to entrepreneurship resources and services at UCLA.
The website is meant to be a one-stop shop for those who are looking for all entrepreneurship resources at UCLA, said Norris Tie, the president of UCLA’s Technical Entrepreneurial Community and a fourth-year aerospace engineering student.
The Entrepreneurship Council, which was formed in February 2013, includes groups such as the Technical Entrepreneurial Community and Startup UCLA, Tie said.
Shyam Natarajan, a program manager at the UCLA Business of Science Center, which is a member of the council, said he thought entrepreneurship efforts were highly disorganized and there were overlaps between events held by the different entrepreneurship organizations before the council formed.
“We wanted to create a communication platform where entrepreneurship organizations can share resources and information to further promote entrepreneurship on campus,” said Brian Shedd, a UCLA alumnus and technology transfer licensing officer at UCLA’s Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Sponsored Research, which is also a member of the council.
Shedd said Bruincubate was a product of that goal.
In addition, the website lists entrepreneurship-related courses and workshops available at UCLA, Shedd said. He added that the website also compiles information about the different UCLA entrepreneurship organizations and their events into one calendar.
Aside from the Bruincubate project, the council is also currently working with the UCLA Alumni Association on creating a mentorship program for aspiring entrepreneurs.
“We took a survey of entrepreneurship event attendees recently and determined that mentorship is important to the entrepreneurship community here,” Tie said. “We wanted to create a platform for that process to happen.”
To do so, the council is planning to utilize UCLA Alumni Association’s existing alumni mentorship program by adding an entrepreneurship module to it, Tie said.
“The council has done a lot for cross-promotion and information sharing between the different organizations,” Natarajan said. “We now have a much more coordinated effort since all resources on campus for entrepreneurship are getting pooled together in a more meaningful way.”
