ISR Alumni Symposium is rousing success

A packed house of ISR alumni, industry and government professionals, faculty and students shared insights about entrepre- neurship at Entrepreneurs, the first ISR Alumni Symposium.

The event was held on Friday, April 19, 2013 at the Inn and Conference Center on campus. More than 100 people were in attendance to hear four distinguished ISR alumni talking about why and how they created and grew their companies, lessons learned from both successes and failures, and the role systems engineering plays in their operations. The alumni speakers represented a diversity of views and topics related to the entrepreneurship experience; their experiences starting companies in different sectors of the economy both instructed and challenged the audience---especially current ISR students thinking of becoming entrepreneurs in the future.

Alumni speakers included:

-- Shravan Goli, president of Dice.com
-- Vikram Manikonda, president of Intelligent Automation, Inc.
-- Raj Mittu, CEO and co-founder of ESCgov
-- Carole Teolis, CTO and chair of TRX Systems, Inc.

ISR faculty also shared their experiences in starting companies, while university officials talked about the wide range of resources available for students and faculty interested in entrepreneurship.

Faculty speakers included:

-- Professor Carol Espy-Wilson (ECE/ISR), founder of OmniSpeech, LLC
-- Professor Neil Goldsman (ECE and ISR affiliate), co-founder of FlexEl, LLC
-- Professor John Baras (ECE/ISR), co-founder of AIMS, Inc.

University speakers included:

-- Peter Sandborn, Director, Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute
-- Dean Chang, Associate Vice President for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (University of -- Maryland Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the NSF I-Corps Program)
-- Reuben Mezrich, Professor, University of Maryland School of Medicine (Maryland Innovation Initiative)

Breaks, receptions and lunch was designed to give speakers and audience members time to interact with each other, discuss entrepreneurship, and even recruit students for summer and permanent positions. Alumni were able to reconnect with their former advisors and encourage current ISR students. There weas wide agreement among attendees that this symposium should be just the first of an ongoing series bringing ISR alumni and current faculty/students together for networking and mutual benefit.

Published April 24, 2013