Meet Paul, the new FORGE at UA program manager. Paul joins the FORGE team with 14 years of experience in higher education administration, specifically in the areas of experiential learning and community and civic engagement. We couldn't be more thrilled to welcome Paul to our team! We know he will be a powerful asset in helping us deliver entrepreneurial programming to the community to help entrepreneurs thrive.

FORGE founder Brian Ellerman reflects on his recent AMA with be Heifets, co-founder and CEO of Atomwise. "When we spoke, it was clear that Abe relishes diving into the science just as much as balance sheets and financial forecasts. And that’s the mark of a good founder, equally curious about understanding the inner workings of the business he or she is running. In effect, being a nerd." 

At FORGE, we love to celebrate when a member of our community gets a win! In this week’s newsletter, we wanted to share more of SNT’s story as it provides insight into the complex journey on which entrepreneurs embark, and imparts valuable takeaways for other founders, particularly those involved in faculty-led ventures.

FORGE is a proud sponsor and supporter of IdeaFunding and we can't wait to see all the teams compete on April 15th. Over 80 companies applied to this year's pitch competition, and through numerous down-rounds Startup Tucson has narrowed the field down to the top companies. We were especially excited to see that four FORGE teams were selected as semi-finalists!

We are thrilled to announce the teams selected to participate in our W21 Advanced Entrepreneur Program! Our intention is to support female founders by creating a program that both pushes their businesses forward and makes space for conversations that address the reality of sexism in the startup community.

If you’ve been following us on social media, you know that a graduate of FORGE’s startup acceleration programs, Stackhouse, was recently selected for the Techstars Anywhere Accelerator Class of 2021. They were one of only 10 startups chosen from hundreds of applications for this highly competitive program, and we couldn’t be prouder.

(Originally published on Tucson.com) Three startup companies have joined the fast-growing University of Arizona Center for Innovation, in what is hoped will become a new pipeline of startups to the business incubator from the UA’s new entrepreneurial hub, Arizona FORGE.

We, along with the College of Engineering, are excited to announce the winners of the Engineer Your World Challenge! The Challenge, sponsored by the College of Engineering tasked student teams with developing solutions to remote learning challenges through use of technology and 3D models. 

In this week’s newsletter, we’ll introduce you to the TIMESTEP program and share the story one of their interns who worked alongside ELE Optics, a FORGE Ahead resident startup.

In case you missed it, we declared 2021 the Year of the Entrepreneur! Want to know what that means to us? Check out the recap from last week where we created a whirlwind sharing what lies ahead at FORGE.