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| CORE SWARTZ CENTER EVENTS:
APPLICATIONS & DEADLINES
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Pictured above: David, Lindsay, and Gary Morgenthaler
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McGinnis Venture Competition Unveils $375,000 in Prizes, Backed by David and Lindsay Morgenthaler Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund and AWS
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The Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship and the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University announce the establishment of the David and Lindsay Morgenthaler Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund, creating a new endowed $50,000 annual Morgenthaler Prize to support the CMU’s flagship
McGinnis Venture Competition.
This visionary commitment increases the competition’s total cash investment awards to $125,000 and contributes to an overall $375,000 prize package, which also includes $250,000 in AWS Activate credits for winning teams.
The newly endowed Morgenthaler Prize will be awarded annually to the competition’s first-place team, providing transformative early-stage capital at a critical moment in venture formation and growth. The endowment ensures that generations of Carnegie Mellon student entrepreneurs will benefit from the Morgenthalers’ enduring commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship.
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Lunch will be provided to all registered attendees!
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| Apply by April 4!
2026-28 Undergraduate Innovation Scholars Program
Attend the next virtual Info Session:
Wednesday, March 11 - 12:00 PM ET
Register
*APPLICANTS MUST ACTIVELY BE WORKING ON A STARTUP TO APPLY!
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| Apply by March 20!
2026 VentureBridge Funding
Are you a CMU Founder working full-time on your venture? Apply to VentureBridge (VB), CMU's pre-seed fund and flagship accelerator for founders building bold, technical companies.
Acceptance to VB provides funding, access to 1:1 support, founder roundtables, weekly talks with VCs and introductions to mentors and advisors. Learn more and apply for funding for the 2026 cycle.
Attend the next info session on March 6th to hear from the team directly.
If you know a CMU Founder working on something exciting, let us know with this brief referral form!
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McGinnis Venture Competition & Social Enterprise Prize Final Round Celebration ~ Tuesday, March 17!
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Join us as we celebrate the McGinnis Venture Competition & Social Enterprise Prize Final Round Celebration on March 17! Help cheer on the final round graduate and undergraduate teams to victory and attend the award ceremony and networking reception. Enjoy opening remarks from Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor, County Executive Sara Innamorato, and U.S. Senator Dave McCormick.
NEW THIS YEAR! We are excited to introduce a new prize structure totaling over $125K! See the prize breakdown here.
Tuesday, March 17, 2026
2:00 - 4:45 p.m. | Final Round Team Pitches
5:00 - 6:30 p.m. | Award Ceremony & Networking Reception
**Win a pair of AirPods! Register & attend the Final Round Team Pitches in person where three pairs of Airpods will be raffled off at the event by Dentons. You must be present to win!**
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AI in Action: Meet the 2026 Imagine Cup Semifinalists
Two founders from Carnegie Mellon University are semifinalists in the Microsoft 2026 Imagine Cup. Surya Kukkapalli, Tepper School of Business MBA and James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellow, founder of Revora Health and Vivaan Sawant, CMU's College of Engineering, co-founder of SpoilSafe. Surya and Vivaan are both working out of the CMU Swartz Center.
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|  | Surya Kukkapalli (left) and Vivaan Sawant
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CMU Health Startups That Could Improve Patient Care
At Carnegie Mellon University, breakthroughs in robotics, materials science and bioengineering are increasingly shaped by a shared goal—making health care more precise and less burdensome for patients and providers. Meet four CMU-affiliated startups that are translating academic research into tools that could improve health care for millions of Americans:
Humotech (Josh Caputo), Edulis Therapeutics (Spencer Matonis, VentureBridge 2025), FluidFormBio (Adam Feinberg) and Advanced Optronics (Jay Reddy, VentureBridge 2022).
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| Carnegie Mellon Team Launches Startup, Looking for Users
A team from Carnegie Mellon University is currently building LaunchProd AI, a platform designed to help monetized content creators launch their own consumer products to sell directly to their audience. The team has years of experience launching products from scratch from sourcing, manufacturing, positioning and bringing them to market.
The team seeks to connect with creators who are already generating revenue (ads, sponsorships, courses, memberships, etc.) and are interested in launching physical or private-label products.
Learn more and join the early access waitlist!
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STARTUP JOB OPPORTUNITIES
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| Co-founded by CMU ECE student Vivaan Sawant, SpoilSafe is building an industrial IoT system focused on predictive quality assurance in factory and warehouse environments. The company is seeking an intern to assist with designing and setting up the IoT network infrastructure that connects sensor devices across large industrial spaces.
Find out more and see the job description here (pdf). Contact Vivaan at vsawant@cmu.edu with questions.
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OTHER UPCOMING CMU EVENTS
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Family Entrepreneurship by Design (Not by Accident)
Featuring: Michael Bernstein, Managing Partner, Woodland Management and Partners Edge Fund ~ Board Chair, Tree of Life, Inc.
Thursday, March 12, 2026
12:00 - 1:00 p.m. EST
CMU Swartz Center, Tepper Quad, 3rd Floor, 4765 Forbes Ave.
Lunch will be provided. Open to the public!
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| Special Talk: Financial Tools for Tech Business
Startups and Beyond
Hosted by Financial Executive International Pittsburgh
Date: Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Time: 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. EST
Location: Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, Tepper School of Business, 4765 Forbes Avenue, 3rd Floor
Learn crucial financial knowledge that will help your startup businesses and growing businesses. Speakers will include Chrissy O' Hara, CFO and Ben Taylor, Owner, from SoftLedger, as well as a Q&A panel from FEI.
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Search, Buy, Build: Entrepreneurship Through
Acquisition (ETA) Seminar
Date: Saturday, March 14, 2026
Location: Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, Tepper School of Business, 4765 Forbes Avenue, 3rd Floor
Join hosts Len Caric and Chris Cynkar for this curated and practical intensive for professionals ready to acquire and operate their own business. This seminar is built for anyone interested in learning how to acquire and run a small business.
Send questions to Timothy Watts at timothy.watts@scottiefetch.com.
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| Pear VC at CMU | Wednesday, March 18!
Pear VC is a pre-seed and seed-stage VC firm that was an early backer of DoorDash, Dropbox, Gusto, Vanta, Listen Labs and more. PearX, their exclusive small-batch accelerator program, provides funding of $500K-$2M, office space in the heart of San Francisco and hands-on mentorship from their Partners, who have started and sold over a dozen companies.
Contact jiyag@andrew.cmu.edu with any questions!
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CMU Energy Week | March 17-20!
The Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University would like to extend a personal invitation to you to be a part of our energy innovation ecosystem by participating in CMU Energy Week 2026, which will be held March 17-20, 2026, in CMU’s Cohon University Center.
With participation from academia, industry, and government leaders, the theme Reinventing the Grid for Our Electrified Future seizes on the momentum of innovation and research that surrounds the United States’ power grid as its infrastructure ages, contends with extreme weather events, and supports new energy demands from artificial intelligence and electrified buildings, vehicles, and factories.
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CMU APPLICATION DEADLINES
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| Apply for the CMU Investor Forum &
Startup Pitch Showcase by Feb 27!
Join the Carnegie Mellon University Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at the CMU Investor Forum & Startup Pitch Showcase on Wednesday, March 18, which is part of CMU Energy Week 2026, March 17-20. The Forum is organized in partnership with the Resilient Energy Technology and Infrastructure (RETI) Consortium.
This is an opportunity for Energy and Cleantech companies from the Mid Atlantic and Midwest regions to meet one-on-one with many investors drawn from a national pool of those interested in this space.
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| CONNECTS/START SMART LEGAL SEMINARS
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| Can't make a CONNECTS? Watch on our YouTube channel.
See the full schedule and register for ALL of the seminars here!
The CONNECTS Seminars will resume in the Fall 2026 semester.
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**SPRING 2026 START SMART LEGAL SERIES (Virtual)**
ALL virtual sessions held at 5-6:15 PM | ET
March 24 & April 7
How to Structure Your Capital Raise | Part 2 Workshop
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CMU ENTREPRENEURSHIP CLUBS
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| Click the images to find out more about each of the Clubs!
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| The CMU T&E has a jobs board, available for people across the community to share and seek new opportunities in the startup and entrepreneurship ecosystem. Find out more and visit the website here.
The CMU Tech & Entrepreneurship group aims to build a bridge between CMU students and alumni across the startup and tech continuum. With main chapters in NYC, Pittsburgh, and SF, we offer a range of in-person and online events and programming in the form of panels, workshops, founder/investor engagements, startup support, and socials to foster collaboration, innovation, and networking opportunities.
Join 7,000+ Tartans on our Slack workspace and mailing list for resources and updates on how you can engage in the community and CMU entrepreneurial ecosystem.
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The following companies help directly support our programming and entrepreneurs.
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Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
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Legal Services Weekly Virtual Office Hours with Matt Kirmayer
Mondays 1:00-3:00 PM ET (10-12 PT)
Matt Kirmayer of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, is offering office hours for newly established startup and emerging companies. Matt specializes in representing technology startups and emerging growth companies, assisting with entity formation, fundraising and overall growth needs. Startup companies with a founder who is a CMU graduate, undergraduate or alumni is eligible to register for
an appointment. Complete the Signup Form for a 30 minute session by the Thursday prior to your
desired appointment.
Contact Daria Stokes or Sean Mawhinney for office hours outside of these regular hours.
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PwC
Our purpose—to build trust in society and solve important problems—is at the core of everything we do. It guides how we serve our clients, our people and the world. To help our clients build trust and deliver sustained outcomes, PwC provides professional services across two segments: Trust Solutions and Consulting Solutions. Within these segments we bring a range of capabilities to help organizations solve faster, solve more and realize more value. These capabilities include cloud and digital, deals, ESG, cybersecurity and privacy, governance/boards, risk, transformation, tax services and much more. Across our global network of more than 295,000 professionals in 156 countries, we are committed to advancing quality in everything we do.
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| HOW TO WORK OUT OF THE SWARTZ CENTER
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Swartz Center Education and Resources
No matter what phase of the entrepreneurship cycle you're in, there are programs and resources at the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship that will take your idea to the next level.
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COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITIES/RESOURCES
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FIND OUT WHAT OUR PARTNERS ARE DOING
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Have startup news or opportunities to share? Have questions about the Swartz Center Weekly Bulletin? Send news, opportunities or questions to Sonya Ford, Program Manager.
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Carnegie Mellon University Swartz Center For Entrepreneurship
5000 Forbes Avenue | Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 |
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