Kozel StartUp News

Formerly known as the RIT Student Accelerator, the Bernard Kozel Startup Program @ Saunders aims to empower students across all majors at RIT by offering hands-on learning experiences, networking opportunities, and strategic mentorship from RIT advisers, industry experts, and investors.

With more than 2,500 students exploring entrepreneurship in some way each year, the university is committed to establishing RIT as a world-recognized leader in the field.

According to a 2023 Bloomberg article, over 5 million startup companies are founded each year in the United States. At RIT’s Albert J. Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, students are working together to turn their dreams of starting companies into reality.

RIT’s Albert J. Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, created to help students invent and problem solve through experiential learning, offers multidisciplinary student teams a stipend for the unique opportunity to examine their businesses and, for some, move them to the next level of development.

Four multidisciplinary student teams got the opportunity to pitch their business ideas to potential investors at the RIT Student Accelerator Investor Demo Night earlier this month, each one hoping to jumpstart its ventures and transform its commercial concepts into real companies.