Notre Dame and our ESTEEM Program is putting our money where our mouth is by not only teaching students how to become entrepreneurs but now, through a $3.5 million fund, Notre Dame will be investing in student-led ventures.
The fund, donated by John Jeuck, former dean of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and in honor of his close personal friend, Philip J. Purcell III, a member of the Notre Dame Board of Trustees, has been coined as the Irish Innovation Fund and will be invested in businesses on an annual basis based on a proposal and a formal review process. Business plans will be accepted from any undergraduate or graduate student enrolled at the University of Notre Dame and will be reviewed by the ESTEEM class as a part of this review process.
Purcell, who will chair the advisory board, said of the fund, "it will provide a unique opportunity to make a significant economic impact by investing in companies that have developed out of the cutting-edge science and engineering research that is being explored and nurtured at Notre Dame.” The advisory board will also include other University Board Trustees and current director of the ESTEEM program David Murphy.
According to Murphy, "Notre Dame is ideally suited to not only provide a unique educational framework for our STEM-educated graduate students to learn how to commercialize research and develop viable business opportunities, but also to help create and advance an ecosystem of entrepreneurship and innovation that drives the long-term creation and commercial success of new ventures that are launched — and do it in a way that delivers on Father Sorin’s vision for this great university to be a ‘powerful force for good in the world,’”