Nurturing the Business Ecosystem

RRAPHAEL LEPERCQ is an engineer and an entrepreneur. He completed his bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering in May and plans to finish an accelerated master’s this academic year.

Lepercq worked in real estate and founded a sugar cane juice company before pursuing his engineering education. For his senior Interdisciplinary Capstone project, and through the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship New Venture Development Program, he created his own product and business, Gesund Me, a biomedical device company.

an unusual student, but college leaders want more engineering students moving in this direction.

“There’s a renewed push,” said Larry Head, director of the Craig M. Berge Design Program, who helped Lepercq set up the capstone project.

That push is giving engineering students increased exposure to startup companies and easy access to a business community for science, technology, engineering, art and math, or STEAM, students.

students see how to craft entrepreneurial versions of themselves,” he said.

Students and Startups

Lepercq’s business wasn’t the only startup to get a boost from the efforts of a student design team over the past year. Several more were part of the capstone program thanks to a grant from the Technology and Research Initiative Fund, which is overseen by Research, Innovation and Impact at the University of Arizona.

New Paths

Head, Van Dyke and other college leaders are intent on building these on- and off-campus partnerships so that engineering students can acquire business experience and knowledge within the college as part of a four-year degree program.

Lepercq competed as a finalist in the McGuire Center’s New Venture Competition in April. At Craig M. Berge Engineering Design Day in May, his team won the $1,000 Mensch Foundation Award for Best Use of Embedded Intelligence.

Lepercq’s decision to develop a capstone project around his invention and serve as both the project advisor and a team member makes him

Arizona FORGE, which stands for Finding Opportunities and Resources to Grow Entrepreneurs, is the university’s entrepreneurial umbrella organization. FORGE and the College of Engineering partnered to open a STEAM FORGE office in the electrical and computer engineering building in October 2022.

One of three campus FORGE locations, the office offers mentoring, programming and space for solo and group study. FORGE is open to students at any stage in an entrepreneurial journey, said Paul Valdez, Student Venture Pathways program manager.

“Placing a FORGE office in the ECE building helps

Mark Van Dyke, associate dean of research, describes the situation as a win-win, both for startups that may lack sponsorship capital and students in need of realworld experience.

“Students get to see more of the operations of a company. For engineering students this is really important, because a lot of times they are deep into the engineering aspect of it and may not see the larger context of a business or product development,” Van Dyke said.

Another funding source, an experiential learning allocation made by the Arizona Board of Regents for this year, is helping create paid internship opportunities with small companies.

“We want to collaborate more with and support the startup and economic development community in and around Tucson,” said Van Dyke.

With the help of options like the Eller-Engineering Entrepreneurship initiative, McGuire Center programs, FORGE services, and business-focused internships, Van Dyke hopes to see more students graduate with confidence in their ability to take their inventions to market. Some might even consider launching companies just after graduation, if not before.

“The grand vision here is that it all comes together and gives these students pathways that didn’t exist before,” Van Dyke said.