TEDCO, Maryland’s economic engine for technology companies, recently announced that the Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII) has invested in three entrepreneurship pilot programs at Bowie State University and Frostburg State University.

Launched in 2012 as a partnership between the State of Maryland and five Maryland academic research institutions, the program aims to foster the transition of promising technologies discovered and developed out of qualifying Universities to the commercial sector, where they can be further developed into products and services that meet market needs.

“After 10 successful years of helping to bring numerous university technologies to market, we’re very excited to expand the MII’s reach to these two additional Maryland comprehensive universities, both of which are renowned for their entrepreneurship and innovation,” said Arti Santhanam, Ph.D., MII executive director. “We greatly look forward to building these new relationships and serving these diverse communities of innovators and entrepreneurs.”

Bowie State University’s Entrepreneurship XTreme Pilot will provide students with an immersive experiential learning opportunity and offer a variety of technical support services to startup founders and existing businesses interested in tech-based ventures. Under the program, a team of eight students will be matched with interested founders and business owners for 2-3 month projects, which may include website development, software development, software testing and other tech-based support services.

With MII’s investment, the program aims to jumpstart 2-3 companies and use the lessons learned to build out the program for scale.