Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship

The Berthiaume Center supports innovation and entrepreneurship efforts across campus, in the Pioneer Valley, and throughout the commonwealth.

When chemical engineering student Connor MacFarlane ’23 arrived at UMass Amherst, he had an idea to improve the lives of people who, like him, live with Type 1 diabetes.

MacFarlane sat in on one of the weekly boot camps hosted by the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship. Though he was initially hesitant to speak up, the facilitator encouraged him to share his idea for an insulin delivery system and offered advice. Over the months that followed, MacFarlane was connected to resources all around the Pioneer Valley, including the Berthiaume Center’s boot camps and incubator space, the NSF-funded I-Corps @ UMass Program, VentureWell’s E-Team, the nonprofit startup booster FORGE, and the university’s Technology Transfer Office. Berthiaume administrators also put him in touch with the executive-in-residence and a faculty sponsor at the College of Engineering.

He ultimately entered and placed in the Berthiaume Center’s 2020 Innovation Challenge, earning over $27,000 in equity-free seed money to take his idea for the Improved Insulin Delivery (IID) device to the next level.

“Connor is someone who came in and took advantage of the whole innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem on and around campus to advance his venture from a simple idea to a stage where he is now working on moving his prototype into manufacturing options in anticipation of acquisition,” said Gregory Thomas, executive director of the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship.

MacFarlane’s story is exemplary of the transformative power of the innovation and entrepreneurship environment cultivated by UMass Amherst and the Berthiaume Center.

The center was established in 2014, thanks to a gift from Doug Berthiaume ’71 and his wife, Diana, to the Isenberg School of Management, where its programs support the dean’s priorities for business education, including innovation in teaching and learning, attracting exceptional students, and creating global citizens and inclusive leaders. Berthiaume spent more than two decades leading the Milford, Mass.-based Waters Corporation, a multinational laboratory analytical instrument and software company, after organizing an investor group to purchase the assets of the Waters division from its parent company, Millipore Corporation, in 1994. He found that his willingness to work independently paid off with record growth in sales and profits.

“Being an entrepreneur requires taking risks and embracing a broader type of thinking—about costs, marketing, human resources, and so much more,” said Berthiaume. “I wanted to help build opportunities for UMass Amherst students to develop that entrepreneurial spirit and skill set.”

His view is widely shared by leaders in corporate America, who prize such skills in their employees.

“Chancellor Subbaswamy’s vision for the Berthiaume Center is to have it be an umbrella organization, promoting an entrepreneurial mindset in all our students, regardless of their field of study,” said Gregory Thomas. “We know that gaining experience with entrepreneurship early in life helps students develop skills in problem-solving, idea generation, design thinking, and creativity. It teaches them to collaborate effectively with people who approach problems differently, and not to be afraid to reach out to others for help with an idea.”

And a university full of people with this mindset—people who say “we can” and “yes, and”—has enormous potential to change the dynamics on campus, generate economic power in the commonwealth, attract investment, and more, Thomas added.

In 2014, Birton Cowden was part of the team that started to implement this vision.

“How could we leapfrog instead of just trying to copy existing models of top entrepreneurship centers?” said Cowden, who today is assistant professor and research director of the Shore Entrepreneurship Center at Kennesaw State University.

The Berthiaume Center is different from other centers at UMass. While housed in Isenberg, its mission aims to promote entrepreneurship across the university, serving faculty, recent alumni, and students of all levels in every school and college.

This poses some challenges in gaining buy-in from other parts of the university. The center’s leadership takes a “bottom-up” approach and directly engages students to participate in programming. Cowden recalled a series of Idea Jams—low-stakes pitching and networking events open to students across campus—held during the center’s first year. While only 20 students came to the first event, the number of attendees doubled and then tripled in subsequent sessions. Word of mouth among students led to exponential growth in 2015.

In 2016, the center inherited from the Office of Research and Engagement the Innovation Challenge, the multi-stage competition that awards equity-free seed money and coaching to ventures like Connor MacFarlane’s. According to Cowden, incorporating

For the Berthiaume Center’s signature annual series of pitch competitions, interdisciplinary teams— consisting of students at all levels, faculty, and graduates of the last decade—develop products with a focus on customer base, scientific and technological design, and a compelling business strategy.

During the fall semester, the Berthiaume Center hosts a series of competitions and co-curricular programming open to all UMass Amherst students. Participants are coached to develop their ideas, create startup plans, and scale their startups through bootcamps, advice from industry experts, guidance from mentors, and feedback from celebrity judges at competitions:

The spring semester brings an elevated competition with participants from the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Academy and other UMass startups that apply to compete in a preliminary round for a coveted spot in the final round of the Innovation Challenge. Winners are awarded larger amounts of equity-free funding:

Minute Pitch

60-second pitches made in front of audiences; $2,500 distributed to the winning teams.

Executive Pitch

Boardroom sessions that include Q&A with judges; $15,000 awarded by the judges.

Tech Challenge

Technology Invention-based competition, evaluated by judges; $15,000 awarded by the judges.

Hult Prize

Social impact startup competition; campus winners proceed to regional challenge with the opportunity for international competition.

Business Plan Competition

Our no-pitch event; online submissions evaluated by judges (starting fall 2022).

Preliminary Round

Teams pitch and engage in Q&A with judges, with the goal of winning entry to the Final.

Final

Finalists take the stage at a live event to present and engage in Q&A with judges; $65,000 awarded.

this event lent credibility to the burgeoning center and opened doors for other important partnerships, such as with the UMass Technology Transfer Office.

The center won the USASBE Model Emerging Program Award in 2016. It also began offering a forcredit commercialization incubator course over two semesters, open to students campus-wide. In 2017, the center started a summer accelerator program, and acquired a dedicated space in Bartlett Hall for offices and students incubating their ventures.

Today, the center serves more than 250 students per year. According to Program Manager Carly Forcade, students get involved with Berthiaume at various stages; some are deep into developing a venture, while others have a seed of an idea and are seeking guidance in getting it off the ground.

“We meet students where they are,” said Forcade. “Sometimes they come in a little unsure. We try to give them the confidence to dive in and explore, and the resources and tools to advance their idea.”

The Berthiaume Center offers weekly startup boot camps and several seminars each semester. For students ready to put their ideas to the test, the center continues to host the Innovation Challenge, which is open to all students as well as recent alumni. Thomas aims to grow its tradition of collaboration across all the university’s schools and colleges and other organizations dedicated to innovation and entrepreneurship in the region, through co-sponsored events and co-curricular activities in person, hybrid, and online. He points to the Collegiate Summer Venture Program (see page 8) as a success story of such a partnership: It combined separate summer accelerator programs previously hosted by UMass Amherst and Valley Venture Mentors, and today serves all 14 colleges and universities in the Pioneer Valley.

For Thomas, another important goal for the

future is finding a permanent physical home for the Berthiaume Center.

“What makes a good program great is space,” he said. “We need a central, modern space that links to makerspaces so students can take advantage of campus resources to advance their ideas. A place where student entrepreneurs can collide, share ideas and receive advice, and build on their respective areas of strength.”

Finally, Thomas wants to continue to spread the word around campus about the resources available through the center and its partners.

“I think there are many more students like Connor—in every school and college—who have ideas that could be commercialized,” he said. “They just need support.”