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Photo cutline/credit: The University of Vermont has announced a new initiative to fund and support students in launching their business ideas and growing them into successful enterprises in Vermont at a special Grossman School of Business event on Wednesday. Photo courtesy University of Vermont
Vermont Business Magazine The University of Vermont today announced a new initiative that will fund and support students in launching their business ideas and growing them into successful enterprises in Vermont at a special Grossman School of Business (GBS). The Joy and Jerry Meyers Cup is a first-of-its-kind competition in Vermont made possible by a donation to the Grossman School of Business by Chip Meyers, the son of two UVM alumni, representing the Meyers Family Trust.
This business launch competition, which starts in fall of 2023 with funding for the next 10 years, aims to help launch the businesses and careers of outstanding undergraduate entrepreneurs at UVM. Each year, the grand prize winner will receive more than $200,000 in cash along with in-kind services to help grow their business idea in Vermont after graduation.
The Joy and Jerry Meyers Cup is open to undergraduate seniors at UVM from any degree program who are actively starting new ventures in Vermont, preferably with strong social impact.
Guest speakers at the announcement event were UVM President Suresh Garimella, GSB Acting Dean Barbara Arel, Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development Secretary Lindsay Kurrle, Associate Professor Erik Monsen, and Chip Meyers.
“We are pleased to host this first-of-its-kind initiative that will help empower our students to build businesses in Vermont, create more opportunities for in-state innovation, and contribute meaningfully to the state’s economy,” President Garimella said. “At UVM, we take seriously our commitment to advance the economic and social well-being of Vermont. The Meyers Cup is an exciting way for our most innovative students to jumpstart their contributions to our state’s business success.”
Joy and Jerry Meyers met as undergraduate students at the University of Vermont. Their son, Chip Meyers, made this donation from the Meyers Family Trust to the Grossman School of Business in honor of his parents. The donor’s goals are to showcase UVM’s student entrepreneurs, with the top prize launching the winner from concept to reality and help create Vermont-based organizations that will benefit the university and the State of Vermont.
“We are grateful for the very generous commitment to UVM’s Grossman School of Business in memory of Joy and Jerry Meyers that will support UVM’s entrepreneurial students in bringing their business ideas to life,” Dean Arel said. “The Grossman School of Business is the perfect venue to steward an initiative like this. It’s incredibly meaningful to us as a business school because it will bring our substantial portfolio of existing entrepreneurial activities to the next level. The Joy and Jerry Meyers Cup will become a keystone event and point of pride for the university for years to come.”
Several corporate partners have already offered to donate services to participants, including Fresh Tracks Capital, Hula Lakeside, Dinse, VCET, Fuse, and Gallagher, Flynn & Company, LLC. UVM will continue to recruit additional in-kind prizes from Vermont-based legal, accounting, marketing, and other start-up related support businesses.
For more information about the Joy and Jerry Meyers Cup including the competition schedule, visit go.uvm.edu/meyerscup.
About the University of Vermont
Since 1791, the University of Vermont has worked to move humankind forward. UVM’s strengths align with the most pressing needs of our time: the health of our societies and the health of our environment. Our size—large enough to offer a breadth of ideas, resources, and opportunities, yet intimate enough to enable close faculty-student mentorship across all levels of study—allows us to pursue these interconnected issues through cross-disciplinary research and collaboration. Providing an unparalleled educational experience for our students, and ensuring their success, are at the core of what we do. As one of the nation’s first land grant universities, UVM advances Vermont and the broader society through the discovery and application of new knowledge.
UVM is derived from the Latin Universitas Viridis Montis (in English, University of the Green Mountains).
Source: 4.26.2023. University of Vermont
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