Echoing a national trend, entrepreneurially minded students at the UO are increasingly gravitating toward innovation-related activities and finding an array of new courses, seed grants for new business ideas, hackathons and other initiatives.

A recent installment of the “Entrepreneurs” column in The Register-Guard details the phenomenon and introduces readers to a group of University Innovation Fellows who are working to bring even more of an innovation focus to campus.

 “It’s more than just a fad,” Andrew Nelson, a professor of management in the Lundquist College of Business, says in the story. “These students are increasingly demanding interdisciplinary offerings that will prepare them to flourish and contribute in startups and in innovative large organizations.”

“Entrepreneurs” is a regularly occurring feature that highlights innovation-related events happening in Eugene, Springfield and at the UO that is produced by RAIN Eugene, the local branch of the Regional Accelerator and Innovation Network. The UO is a key partner in RAIN.

Look for future Entrepreneurs stories on the UO’s innovation hub known as 942 Olive Street, which will open in downtown Eugene in May. The building will house the Tyler Invention Greenhouse — which seeks to catalyze the exchange and growth of green product ideas stemming from basic research discoveries and build on UO successes in green chemistry and green nanoscience — along with the RAIN Eugene Accelerator and a UO Product Design Studio.

Entrepreneurs runs every two weeks in the Sunday Business section of The Register-Guard. For the most recent article see “College students embracing entrepreneurial activities” in the Sunday, March 20, edition of The Register-Guard.