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| CORE SWARTZ CENTER EVENTS, PROGRAM DEADLINES & ANNOUNCEMENTS
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Meredith Meyer Grelli Named Vice Provost for Entrepreneurship and Associate Vice President
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Meredith Meyer Grelli has been appointed Carnegie Mellon University's inaugural vice provost for entrepreneurship and associate vice president, effective July 1, 2026.
A longtime leader in CMU's entrepreneurship ecosystem, Grelli will help shape and expand entrepreneurship education across the university while strengthening connections among students, faculty, researchers, industry partners and investors.
In her new role, she will lead the planning and implementation of a scalable, university-wide entrepreneurship curriculum designed to provide students with pathways to engage in entrepreneurship education. In collaboration with internal and external partners, she will develop governance structures, academic programs and sustainable funding models that support entrepreneurship across the university.
Since joining CMU in 2020, Grelli has played a central role in significantly expanding the university’s entrepreneurship initiatives, growing their scale and national standing. She launched Deep Tech Venture-Ready, a cohort-based program connecting 40 founders with 40 leading venture firms that has soft-circled $250 million in capital for participating companies, and raised $4 million in new non-dilutive and friendly-equity funds for research-based startups. She created CMU Startup Week, now the university's flagship entrepreneurship event, which drew more than 2,000 participants and 200 investors and is expanding into a regional initiative in fall 2026. She also launched the nation's first NSF I-Corps cohort in AI and robotics and built the investor and founder infrastructure, including a network of more than 4,500 investors, that connects CMU founders directly to capital.
She will continue to serve as an associate teaching professor of entrepreneurship in the Tepper School and as interim executive director of the Swartz Center while the search for the center's next executive director is underway.
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Appy for the Fall 2026 CSL Project Course and CSL Fellows Program by August 1!
Applications for the CSL Project Course and CSL Fellows for the Fall 2026 are now open! Click the links below to learn more about each program and apply! CSL programs are offered to all Carnegie Mellon University Graduate Students (Project Course is restricted to Pittsburgh campus students).
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Sprinklr Acquires ViralMoment to Define the Next Era of Multimodal Customer Intelligence
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| Sprinklr, the definitive, AI-native platform for Unified Customer Experience Management (Unified-CXM), has announced the acquisition of assets of CMU-founded ViralMoment, an AI-powered social video intelligence and analytics solution, strengthening Sprinklr’s leadership in modern, multimodal customer intelligence.
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Skild AI Partners with Vietnamese Firm to Explore Integrating AI Into Humanoid Robots
Skild AI has signed a memorandum of understanding with VinDynamics. The partnership will focus on validating humanoid robotics systems and integrating Skild's AI model into VinDynamics' platforms. The deal comes months after a partnership with Nvidia.
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Ecotone Renewables Co-Founders Share How the Pittsburgh-based Company Has Diverted 400K Pounds of Food Waste From Landfills in WPXI-TV Interview
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Ecotone Renewables co-founders Dylan Lew and Kyle Wyche share how the company has solved commercial food waste in a recent interview with Pittsburgh's Bill Flanigan. The company has successfully launched a full retail partnership with Giant Eagle, who is carrying their Soil Sauce organic plant food in 100% of Market District locations, and produced from their fleet of commercial biodigesters.
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How a Shared Passion for Entrepreneurship Brought
Two Tepper School Alumni Together
Through the Tepper School and the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, Grant and Emily Vandenbussche (both alumni James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellows) found opportunities to collaborate, innovate and launch careers dedicated to health, food innovation and venture investing.
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STARTUP JOB OPPORTUNITIES
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| National Player Index ~ Hiring Founding
Engineer & Architect
CMU undergraduate/graduate Engineering talent is invited to join the NPI team, a new AI-driven sports evaluation and player development app for youth/high school atheletes. There is an equity opportunity for the right candidate.
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2026 Media Lab Open Day!
Date: Saturday, June 13
Time: 9:00 AM
Location: Swartz Center, Tepper Quad Building, 3rd Floor
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| Apply To Drive's Fall 2026 Accelerator Cohort By June 26
Twice a year, Drive accelerates 10 groundbreaking scientists or early-stage startups by connecting them with life sciences business curriculum, mentorship, industry connections and visibility opportunities during an 8-week program. The CMU community is invited to apply to this hybrid program. Curriculum and mentoring meetings are virtual, while networking events and Demo Days in Boston and Charleston take place in person. Since launching in 2022, Drive has accelerated 70 companies.
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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/START SMART Legal Seminars will resume in the
Fall 2026 semester.
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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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