The University of Texas at Dallas and the Addison TreeHouse are teaming up to serve students in the entrepreneurship program at the university.
Under the partnership, the TreeHouse will provide startups from within the entrepreneurship program at UTD space at the TreeHouse for six months, with the goal of helping provide real-world and practical entrepreneurship support through tools, resources, mentorship, and community.
“It is our aim to work with student business concepts from idea to launch. Once they launch, we want to see them connect and grow in the entrepreneurial community,” said Jeremy Vickers, executive director of the institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UTD. “This partnership with the Addison TreeHouse is aimed at facilitating that hand off from university environment to a robust, collaborative environment where these young entrepreneurs can thrive.”
“It is our aim to work with student business concepts from idea to launch. Once they launch, we want to see them connect and grow in the entrepreneurial
community.”
_ Jeremy Vickers, UT Dallas
The program will help the student entrepreneurs take their companies to the next level of development.
The Addison TreeHouse will be promoted across the university, and its entrepreneur programs will be touted as a great place for entrepreneur to start, build, and grow a business.
One of the UTD companies, Kwest, already has moved into the TreeHouse. It was founded by Masters of Science in Entrepreneurship students Omeed Shams and Andrew Brown.
They went through the Startup Launch program at the university and received $5,000 in startup capital from UT Dallas.
Kwest is an interactive mobile app with more than 1,000 users. It gamifies the exploration of a city or entertainment district through a series of puzzles, riddles, and challenges. It is the first UT Dallas startup to land at the Addison TreeHouse through this partnership.
The partners project that a half dozen companies a year will join the program in coming years.
Addison TreeHouse signed a similar deal with Baylor University in Waco prior to the launch of The TreeHouse.
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