Viterbi Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Make Your Ideas a Reality
From courses, to minors, to innovation centers, challenges, and the start up culture of Los Angeles, USC has what you need to make your ideas a reality. You will be able to build and execute your ideas for your new tech start up, social entrepreneurship idea, business venue and more.
Entrepreneurship Classes
The Viterbi Student Entrepreneurship Education (VSEE) program teaches entrepreneurial skills to all first year engineering students during two-week sessions in all sections of ENGR 102: Engineering Freshman Academy during the fall semester. Students learn about value propositions, customer discovery, and the lean canvas business model. Each group of approximately three students creates a solution to a problem and pitches it to the rest of the class. A winning group for each section is chosen. Each member of the winning teams will receive an Amazon gift card for $50 at the end of the fall semester.
The Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies is the nation’s oldest integrated entrepreneurship program and is consistently ranked among the top programs in the United States and abroad. With more than 68 courses taught by 27 professors and clinical practitioners, the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies is a leader in entrepreneurship education and research.
A sampling of Entrepreneurship classes
- Building the High Tech Start Up
- Founders Dilemmas
- Digital Playbook for Entrepreneurs
- Entrepreneurial Mindset: Taking the Leap
- Social Innovation Design Lab
- Science of Peak Performance
- Family Business
- Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship
- Practicum in Business Issues (Internship)
- Field Project in Entrepreneurship
- and more!
Minor in Entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurship
- Social Entrepreneurship
- The Digital Entrepreneurship
- Technology Commercialization
- Performance Science
- Media Entrepreneurship & Economics
- Game Entrepreneurship
Student Stories
Hear from USC Viterbi students
Entrepreneurship On The Podcast
Viterbi Start Up Garage
The Startup Garage is a 6 month venture-incubator program that offers an average of $20K in capital in exchange for 4% equity, hands on mentoring and coaching, access to an amazing network of investors, access to the resources of the Viterbi School of Engineering, and working space for the first 6 months of your venture. All students can apply with their ideas and companies to be apart of the program. Prior Garage companies have raised over $8+Mil in investment capital!
The Baum Family Maker Space
Set in the Seaver Science and Engineering Library, the Baum Family Maker Space is home to many of USC Viterbi’s design teams. It occupies approximately 8,000 square feet and includes an open design space, a fully staffed machine shop, a 3-D fabrication lab and an outdoor work area for welding and painting. The space is outfitted with a large variety of hand tools and many large machine tools including mills, lathes, band saws, drill presses, grinders and sanders. The Advanced Fabrication Lab houses numerous 3-D printers and laser cutters.
Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition
MEPC is designed to support both the idea and the innovator through a combination of mentoring by seasoned investors and business professionals, entrepreneurial educational sessions developed in conjunction with the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurship at USC that features $100K in prizes, including a $50K grand prize! The MEPC’s goal is to both make engineering innovators more business-savvy while at the same time to empower them with refined business plans that define an effective go-to-market strategy for their ideas and inventions.
Min Family Engineering Social Entrepreneurship Challenge
This challenge is a competition that provides USC students with the opportunity to use innovations in engineering and technology to develop sustainable and effective solutions to global problems and to positively affect the greater global society. In particular, it aims to address the development of solutions to problems and challenges faced by underprivileged parts of our society or in underdeveloped countries worldwide. The first place winner wins $50k in prize money along with mentor-ship and legal aid.
340000
Given Out to Student Start Ups Every Year through Competitions
Entrepreneurship Student Organizations
Student Organizations build the foundation of the start up culture among Viterbi undergrads at USC. With 1/3 of Viterbi-affiliated student organizations having a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship, there’s an organization to help you develop and grow your idea, or even just learn what this crazy start up craze is all about! Learn more about some of the organizations and what they’re doing below.
Code the Change USC
Code the Change produces free digital products for non-profits and social enterprises, helping these organizations increase their impact through technology. In the process, Code the Change gives student developers the opportunity to use their skills for social change.
Learn more about CTC
Hack SC
Hack SC is a weekend competition among students from schools all over the country at USC where students “hack” a product in 30 hours. They encourage students to be curious and explore multiple disciplines of hacking, including iOS, Android, 3-D Printing, Virtual Reality & Games, and Web Applications.
Learn more about Hack SC
SCilicon Beach
Did you know that Southern California graduates the largest number of engineering and computer science graduate students in the country?
It’s true — more than the Bay Area, more than Boston, more than any other city or region in the United States. This tremendous talent pool is fueling the explosion in the innovation ecosystem in our area, also known as Silicon Beach.
The University of Southern California, and particularly the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, is strategically positioned in terms of both abundant human capital and physical location to creatively shape this environment. With two of our research powerhouses — the Information Sciences Institute and the Institute for Creative Technologies — located in the heart of Silicon Beach, we stand ready to serve as the premier private research university driving technology innovation in Southern California — and to transform Silicon Beach into SCilicon Beach! Innovation and technology entrepreneurship are becoming indispensable pillars of engineering schools around the world.
