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June 05, 2023 | Tom Ballard

UC San Diego launches new start-up program with blue chip mentors

The school's new Policy and Strategy Entrepreneurship Lab Venture Program will provide founders with concrete advice on the activity and direction on which their start-ups should be focused.

San Diego is known for its entrepreneurial ecosystem. After all, the city birthed the Springboard program which is the model that is used by the various Launch Tennessee-supported mentor networks.

Now, a new venture program being launched by the University of California San Diego (UCSD) is expected to help translate innovative ideas into high-value companies and nonprofits. To support the new initiative, a blue chip cadre of current or former corporate executives has been recruited to serve as mentors.

According to this news release from UCSD, the new Policy and Strategy Entrepreneurship Lab (PSE-Lab) Venture Program will be led by GPS Associate Professor of Management Elizabeth Lyons and is tailored primarily for early-stage ideas that have promise but have not yet been brought to market.

“The objective of the program is to provide founders resources to support this early stage of their ideas and businesses, with guidance on how to put one foot in front of the other, where to focus their attention, and, as a result, how to make progress in the face of what can seem like insurmountable uncertainty and workload,” Lyons said.

The program will provide concrete advice on the activity and direction on which the venture should be focused, provided by a full team of industry leaders in their respective fields. The members of the Council of Mentors providing this feedback were selected based on their breadth of experience, ability to think critically and thoughtfully about novel questions, and demonstrated commitment to the startup community. Members include (1) James Cross, Co-Head of Private Investing for Franklin Equity Group; (2) Kirti Gupta, Vice President and Chief Economist at Qualcomm Inc.; (3) James Lambright, a Professor of Practice at GPS and former Senior Vice President of Sempra Energy; (4) David Mallery, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Paradigm Diagnostics; and (5) Don Rosenberg, recently retired Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary at Qualcomm.

The lab will also provide accounting and legal resources, personalized management advice, finance and marketing training, and ongoing guidance as well as feedback on reaching milestones. In addition, program participants will have the opportunity to expand their networks through the connections they will make in the PSE-Lab Venture Program and will have the opportunity to be introduced to angel and venture capital investors in their respective industries at whatever point they are ready to fundraise.

The program is accepting its first round of applications until July 31 and is open to everyone — no affiliation with UCSD is required, but candidates in the Southern California and Baja California regions are preferred.


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