INSTITUTE-SUPPORTED COURSES SOLVING BUSINESS CHALLENGES IN REAL-LIFE SETTINGS
BIOINNOVATION
The Center also actively develops or supports alumni and student entrepreneurship groups and networks, such as Darden’s Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club—Darden’s most active student organization—and the E*Society, a group that connects entrepreneurs from various schools across the University of Virginia.
BATTEN SCHOLARSHIPS Ten full scholarships are awarded annually to incoming Darden MBA students
A multidisciplinary course
interested in starting their own ventures or becoming innovative leaders at
drawing students from
established companies.
Darden, U.Va.’s Department of Biomedical Engineering,
Lucas Rogers (Class of 2013) spent the summer
and the schools of nursing,
of 2012 in the Darden Business Incubator further
architecture, engineering,
developing Mobile Motions, his venture that will offer
and medicine. Students col-
a smartphone app which allows the user to perform
laborate across disciplines
various functions through motion control by tapping
to identify and frame clini-
into technology native to the phones. Rogers’ Batten
cally based challenges at
Scholarship and acceptance into the Incubator program provided the funding,
the U.Va. Health Center.
time and space needed to create a prototype. In coming to Darden after working as an engineer for General Motors, Rogers has “always envisioned myself as an entrepreneur .… I keep a journal of ideas and a list of problems with solutions. This was an opportunity to work on one of those.”
THE TECHNOLOGY ACCELERATOR Students master the process of adapting technology to the needs of the market, creating an actionable strategy, and developing the skills necessary to launch a start-up.
Lendstreet, a peer-to-peer lending venture, was founded by R. Jerry Nemorin (MBA ’08) and developed in the Darden Business Incubator during the summer of 2010. Unlike other peer-to-peer lending operations, Lendstreet provides loans to distressed debtors to help them restructure their debt. “People can’t get equity loans anymore to pay off credit card debt,” said Nemorin. Batten Scholarship recipient Jordhy “J.V.” Ledesma (MBA ’12) joined with Nemorin to further Lendstreet’s growth in the summer 2011 Incubator. “The scholarship gives you more leverage to work on your business and takes the risk out of being an entrepreneur,” Ledesma said. Anticipation for Lendstreet’s launch is growing: it has been featured in Forbes and discussed in leading financial blogs. Nemorin believes that Lendstreet will further serve its users by teaching good spending habits and helping them establish a higher credit rating, “This is a way to help people who are distressed minimize the future impact of their debt,” he said. Learn more: www.batteneship.org
10 | ANNUAL REPORT 2011-2012