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| CORE SWARTZ CENTER EVENTS, PROGRAM DEADLINES & ANNOUNCEMENTS
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Join the CMU Swartz Center for CMU VentureBridge ’26 Demo Day, which will be held during a16z New York Tech Week - featuring CMU founders building across AI, robotics, biotech, and infrastructure.
The keynote will be followed by founder pitches.
Investors Only. Limited Spots!
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Complete this marketing survey and make your voice heard on the brand name and associated taglines for an inaugural week of innovation and entrepreneurship in Pittsburgh this September!
Brought to you by 15 partners across the Pittsburgh region.
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| CMU × YC Founder Mixer
We're bringing together CMU’s most technical founders with the YC community—early-stage, deeply technical and actively building. Come spend an evening with others in the trenches. Meet fellow founders, stay close to what others are building, and plug into the community.
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The Swartz Center Has Opened Applications for the 2026-2027 PhD Innovation Commercialization Fellows
The PhD Innovation Commercialization Fellows program is an exciting opportunity for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows working with faculty investigators who are interested in driving the commercialization efforts for their Carnegie Mellon University research based startup companies. Previous Fellows have collectively gone on to receive nearly $114M in follow-on funding for their ventures.
Innovation Commercialization Fellows is a year-long program that begins July 1, 2026. Along with cohort-based educational opportunities and expert one-on-one mentoring, Fellows will receive a $50K contribution from the Swartz Center, contingent upon a $50K match from another source, to support them while they explore the commercialization process.
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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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Kaavio Announces $2.9M Pre-Seed Round
Kaavio, co-founded by Tepper School of Business alumnus Derek Gregg and Sam Bobb, has recently raised a $2.9M pre-seed round led by Baukunst, with participation from Techstars, Looking Glass Capital, and a number of other great investors.
"We're already working with some of the largest manufacturers and distributors in the world, including Fortune 500 companies. We're not just helping them go from thousands of bare-bones SKUs to rich, publishable product pages in weeks instead of years—we're helping them build the agentic future of commerce", says Gregg.
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HeadStrait Labs Takes First Place and $20K at
Duquesne University's New Venture Challenge
HeadStrait Labs, a smart medical device system that prevents secondary spinal injuries during transport, is the winner of the 2025 – 2026 Duquesne New Venture Challenge (DNVC). Co-founded by CMU team Mary Squire and Alyssa Theroux, HeadStrait was one of 15 teams to advance to the competition's semi-final round from more than 150 initial entries.
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The CMU Swartz Center Partners with CMU's LEAP Program and Duolingo Social Impact Group for
Pitch with Purpose Event
This past Saturday, the Swartz Center hosted the Pitch with Purpose: Storytelling for Sustainable Impact event, organized by the CMU LEAP program (joint CMU Dietrich College/CFA) and Duolingo's Social Impact group.
The session kicked off with inspirational words given by Jerome Bettis, Steelers Hall of Famer and Director of the Bus Stops Here Foundation, to the attending 27 CMU LEAP high school students. Bettis shared a few words about his own journey, as well as general advice and guidance on navigating the challenges of creating and running your own business.
Swartz Center Undergraduate Innovation Scholars Thomas Kanz, Caden Chico, Aanya Chidananda, Graduate Swartz Fellows Kousalya Mohan, Edward Chanquín, and Duolingo social impact representatives Sean Beauford and Allison Yu answered questions and shared their entrepreneurship experiences and guidance.
A highlight from the event was the students working in groups to identify Pittsburgh problems that they wanted to solve and pitching sustainable solutions to address them. Proposed projects included addressing food deserts, supporting Pittsburgh farmers raising organic food, building communities and a system for sharing Pittsburgh news in one place. The teams received feedback from their peers, as well as the mini judging panel composed of Jerome Bettis, LEAP Porgram Director Sarah Ceurvorst, and Duolingo Impact Specialist, Allison Yu.
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| In Case You Missed It!
CMU"s CTTEC Announces New and Improved Startup
License Terms
Founder-friendly Updates Designed to Better Support Commercialization
Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation (CTTEC) has updated its startup license terms to better support commercialization and startup formation. These updates are the result of ongoing conversations with faculty, researchers, founders, and staff, and reflect CTTEC’s long-standing effort to make the startup licensing process more responsive to the needs of emerging companies. The revised terms are designed to provide a clearer, more founder-friendly framework for licensing Carnegie Mellon technologies.
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| Dentons 2026 Corporate Innovation & Entrepreneurship Summer Kick-off
Date: May 21, 2026
Time: 5:00 - 7:00 PM | ET
Location: Dentons Cohen & Grigsby P.C.
Jump into summer with an evening hosted by Dentons! We are excited to have you once again join us for our annual summer kickoff networking event among the city's innovation and entrepreneurship community.
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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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CMU Builder Demo Night & Founder Mixer at Foundation Capital (ft. Powell St)
Date: Tuesday, May 12, 5:30-9:00 PM | PDT
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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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