$150,000 grant will benefit entrepreneurial FSU students engaged in incubator activities

Entrepreneurial-minded students at Florida State University will have an opportunity to compete for the newly established Genivia Fund for Entrepreneurship, created by Genivia Inc., a Tallahassee-based software company.

Genivia has pledged $50,000 a year for three years to benefit undergraduate and graduate students who engage in entrepreneurial activities at The Jim Moran Institute for Global Entrepreneurship or the InNOLEvation Accelerator in the College of Business.

In addition, outstanding students across campus who focus on entrepreneurship involving computers, information technologies or other innovative technologies are encouraged to apply. Individual grants of up to $5,000 will be awarded to students currently enrolled at the university.

To be eligible, applicants will be required to submit an application that includes a commercialization plan with business goals, state the reason their goals are attainable, and articulate plans for achieving their goals. Selection will be made by a committee based on criteria that include, but are not limited to, the commercialization plan itself and a business presentation.

"This grant, which will be administered by The Jim Moran Institute, will help inspire creativity and entrepreneurship among our students, and we are grateful for Genivia's overwhelmingly generous support," said Randy Blass, director of The Jim Moran Institute. "This is one more opportunity among a range of opportunities, such as the InNOLEvation Accelerator, in the College of Business."

The InNOLEvation Accelerator is a student-centered, low-cost and supportive business incubator that helps new start-ups develop, launch plans and evolve to the point where they can operate independently. The accelerator connects enterprising students with mentors from faculty and the business community, provides professional office space and facilitates business development to help solve myriad problems every fledgling venture faces.

The goal of the InNOLEvation Accelerator is to create a relaxed learning environment in which classroom education is made relevant for student entrepreneurs who are developing new business ideas. This experiential component is crucial to make entrepreneurship a more integral part of Florida State's undergraduate student experience.

Genivia Inc. is a private company founded in 2003 that specializes in software development and licensing, support and consulting. The company is fully committed to the development of advanced Web services tools, such as the gSOAP development toolkit, and provides custom service-oriented solutions for businesses. Genivia has a rapidly expanding base of customers that include Fortune 100 companies. Customers include Adobe Systems, Apple, Boeing, Cisco Systems, Exxon Mobile, Harris, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, Northrop Grumman and Pfizer.

For more information, or to apply for the Genivia Fund for Entrepreneurship grant, contact Marietta Dye of the College of Business at mdye@fsu.edu.

4 April 2012