UC Regents Make Campus Visit for Special Committee on Innovation Transfer & Entrepreneurship

On April 6th, UC Santa Barbara hosted a special meeting of the University of California Board of Regents, which included a meeting of their Special Committee on Innovation Transfer & Entrepreneurship. During the visit, UCSB had the opportunity to present its status as an engine of innovation and economic activity on the Central Coast.

During the morning meeting, the UC Regents heard from the campus community via public comments about the impact that programs and resources like the CNSI Incubator and the CNSI Innovation Workshop have had on their personal experience with innovation on campus. The Regents also heard from the Chancellor, Henry Yang, and the Vice Chancellor for Research, Joe Incandela, who presented an overview of innovation and entrepreneurship programming and resources across campus and future plans for growth.

In the afternoon, the attendees were invited to a special showcase at Henley Hall with UCSB’s I&E support programs and UCSB-affiliated startups, AviAI, Cadense (formerly BrainE Labs), Next Energy Technologies, PseudolithIC, SciKare, and Vine Medical. The committee meeting and showcase was an extraordinary display of all that UCSB has to offer as a leader in supporting innovation across the Central Coast. Sherylle Mills Englander, CNSI Executive Director for Strategic Initiatives and Operations, commented “It was a special opportunity to demonstrate that the entrepreneurial spirit runs deep at UCSB. Many showcase participants remarked on the high quality of startups and innovation that we enjoy."

The California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), was proud to organize the Showcase and highlight UCSB’s leadership in innovation and entrepreneurship along with the Technology and Industrial Alliances office, Technology Management, and the Eco-Innovation & Entrepreneurship program at the Bren School. The participating startups represented themselves and UCSB extraordinarily well.