UMBC’s ACTiVATE Program Named Stevie Awards Finalist

UMBC’s ACTiVATE program is a finalist in the “Women Helping Women” category in the third annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business. The program’s entry, “Empowering Women into High-Tech Entrepreneurship,” was chosen for recognition from the more than 600 entries submitted across 40 categories. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony in New York City in early March.
The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor women executives, entrepreneurs and the companies they run – worldwide. The Stevie Awards have been hailed as “the business world’s own Oscars” by the New York Post .
ACTiVATE (Achieving the Commercialization of Technology in Ventures through Applied Training for Entrepreneurs) is an innovative, year-long program sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation to train women to become technology entrepreneurs. Since its inception, UMBC’s ACTiVATE program has helped more than 50 mid-career women in the sciences and business take patented technology from university to market and three new technology-based start-up companies have been created.
“The mission of the ACTiVATE program, which is empowering women in entrepreneurship, is in perfect synch with the purpose of these awards,” said Julie Lenzer Kirk, the program’s lead instructor. “We have exceeded our 3-year goal for the number of new technology start-up companies midway through our second year. We are confident that we will continue that trend.”
Finalists were chosen by business professionals worldwide during preliminary judging. Members of the Awards’ Board of Distinguished Judges & Advisors and their staff select Stevie Award winners from the finalists during final judging.
Details about the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the list of finalists in all categories are available at www.stevieawards.com/women.