The Michigan Tech College of Business Collegiate DECA Chapter brought a record 13 students to the state Career Development Conference in Bay City, Michigan last month, where nine were recognized as finalists. Five Business Huskies were top-three competitors and now move on to global competition at the International Career Development Conference in San Francisco, California in April.
Students brought groundbreaking ideas that spanned technology, sustainability, and social impact to the 2024 Husky Innovate Pitch Competition.
By Jon Leinonen, College of Business
At Michigan Tech, entrepreneurship happens across campus. “Entrepreneurial capacity and success continues to grow at MTU. It’s a great experience for the students,” said Husky Innovate director Jonathan Leinonen, assistant dean and teaching professor in management in the College of Business.
Husky Innovate, a collaboration between the College of Business, Office of Innovation and Commercialization, and Pavlis Honors College, is Michigan Tech’s resource hub for innovation and entrepreneurship. The program works to develop a campus where entrepreneurial spirit thrives throughout the university and across all disciplines. Among other activities, Husky Innovate hosts workshops, competitions, and other entrepreneurship-related activities. View this fall’s schedule of events, which culminates with the Husky Innovate Business Pitch competition on November 20.
Elham Asgari, assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship in the College of Business, and co-authors Richard A. Hunt and S. M. Abidul Islam were awarded the Tariq Farid Franchise Institute Award for Best Paper on the Topic of Franchising at the 2024 Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC). The award will be presented at the 2025 BCERC Conference, June 4-7 at Babson College.
The award-winning paper is titled, “Franchising in the Metaverse: Entrepreneurial Pathways for Virtual and Mixed Reality.” An abstract of the paper is below.
Asgari’s research interests include corporate entrepreneurship, technological innovations, star employees, and the small satellite industry. She is a Charles C. and John G. Gates Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Elham (Ellie) Asgari, the Charles C. and John G. Gates Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation, is at the leading edge of entrepreneurship research, studying the formula of success in this high-stakes sector of business. Last month, Dr. Asgari was selected as a recipient of the Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning Instructional Award for Innovative or Out-of-Class Teaching. Asgari’s selection was based on her innovative teaching strategies, including use of crowdfunding campaigns to help Huskies gauge startup interest, and working with students individually to help them prepare for regional and global investment pitches. During the 2022-23 academic year, Michigan Tech student teams collected $67,000 in pitch prize money.