It starts with an idea.

Jesse Lafian’s idea promotes more efficient soil irrigation. Caleb Adams and Graham Grable’s idea translates high-performance computation into everyday uses. And UGA’s Entrepreneurship Program helped these ideas go from hasty math—on a napkin in Adams’ case—to viable prototypes.

“We are providing a mechanism where students who have an idea can experiment, try it and see how it works,” said Bob Pinckney, director of the Entrepreneurship Program. “Really, with entrepreneurship, it’s not taking a risk, it’s managing the risk.”

Approximately 400 students have learned how to manage those risks through the university’s Entrepreneurship Certificate Program, according to Pinckney. Many, like Lafian, Adams and Grable, also use other entrepreneurial initiatives at UGA to further develop their ideas. Read More.