Accelerate Your Business with gener8tor St. Thomas
The classroom teaches the foundation. Then we get to work. That’s how it’s always been done in the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. Now, there’s another tool in our kit to build on the foundation and turn your work into a launch.
Welcome to gener8tor at St. Thomas. The nationally ranked startup accelerator gener8tor, set up its gBETA and gALPHA programming on the University of St. Thomas St. Paul campus to exclusively serve students and alumni bringing their ideas to reality and launching a business. There are two distinct programs:
gALPHA
Develop your own startup venture idea or create one from scratch! gALPHA at St. Thomas is a free, four-week venture creation program that helps entrepreneurially minded students and technologists create startup businesses. Participants can bring an existing startup idea/invention, receive a problem from a local company to solve, or create something from scratch.
This is for current St. Thomas students, recent alumni and faculty, and their teammates.
The program runs January 2021, during St. Thomas’s J-term. Students can participate in gALPHA while taking a class. They’re expected to commit 10 hours each week to the program, including weekly team meetings and large group sessions. There are two events that feature guest speakers and a pitch party to close out the month. Interested in learning more? Meet with director Jake Smith during his office hours. Click here to apply.
gBETA
gBETA St. Thomas offers a suite of opportunities to engage with mentors, coaches, investors and the like, for all students and alumni with an idea for a business. It requires no fees and takes no equity.
The free, seven-week gBETA accelerator is for early-stage companies from any industry or business model. It must be founded and led by St. Thomas students or alumni. The director of the program opens doors for participating companies to gain access to a community of entrepreneurs, coaches, formal relationships with at least two mentors, and provides introductions to investors, venture capitalists and technologists.
The gBETA accelerator runs a cohort five teams at a time. Each team must be led by a current St. Thomas student or alumnus and can come from any field of study. Students can apply here.