IIT ANNOUNCES NEW ENTREPRENEURSHIP CENTER

Chicago entrepreneur and philanthropist Jules F. Knapp has donated $1 million to Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) to create a dynamic new center for technology and research-based entrepreneurship. The Jules F. Knapp Entrepreneurship Center will serve as an umbrella organization to strengthen existing and foster new IIT technology-focused entrepreneurship programs.

Knapp’s $1 million gift has leveraged another $1 million in matching funds provided by Chicago business icons and philanthropists Robert Pritzker and Robert Galvin, for $2 million total. IIT President Lew Collens announced the new Center at the annual Chicago Innovation Awards held at IIT’s Hermann Union Building Thursday, Oct. 7, 2004.
“I’ve always wanted to do something special to support entrepreneurship at IIT,” said Knapp. “Businesses are what help to make our country great and help a city like Chicago thrive. This new Center will provide relevant and practical entrepreneurial experiences for IIT students across all academic departments of the university.”

Knapp, a member of the IIT Board of Trustees, is himself a successful entrepreneur. He started his own paint business, United Coatings, in 1962. He was one of the first paint producers to market to mass merchandisers like Wal-Mart. In 1994, United Coatings merged with Pratt and Lambert. The latter was purchased by Sherwin-Williams in 1996.

Knapp remains an active entrepreneur today. In September 2000, he purchased Grisham Manufacturing, a maker of steel security storm doors, and turned the ailing company around by improving production and customer service and establishing new sales relationships with retail giants Home Depot and Lowe’s.

“An entrepreneur is not only a risk-taker. He or she must also have the right people onboard and the ability to communicate the vision to everyone on the team,” said Knapp. “My greatest enjoyment is seeing a new product come to market and the feeling of success it brings to the people behind it.”

For IIT, the Knapp Center puts renewed emphasis on entrepreneurship education, melding IIT’s established reputation in teaching engineering, science, design and technology with expertise in business and entrepreneurial acumen.

“IIT students inherently understand science and technology, but a solid grounding in entrepreneurship, including business plan development, fundraising, sales, marketing, finance, product development and operations is crucial to making more effective use of that technology,” said Dennis Roberson, vice provost for new initiatives.

A key component of the techno-entrepreneurship curriculum is real-world experience applying business principles and practices to solving actual engineering, science and technology problems. Students will participate in and be challenged by IIT’s innovative Interprofessional Projects (IPRO) program, where they will work on small multidisciplinary teams to build technical and management skills by tackling current challenges facing corporations, entrepreneurial ventures, non-profits and government agencies.

In the Entrepreneurial Projects (EnPRO) program, student teams initiate broader business planning through conception, development and marketing of an actual new product or service, potentially launching their own start-up businesses in the process.

The Center’s reach will integrate and extend the existing entrepreneurship programs at IIT’s Stuart Graduate School of Business, Chicago-Kent College of Law, the Ed Kaplan Entrepreneurial Studies Program in the Institute of Business and Interprofessional Studies and the efforts of the Coleman Chair of Entrepreneurship. The new biomedical business incubator, which recently received $5 million in Illinois state funding, will also be included in the Center. This incubator is being developed along 35th Street, on the southern edge of the university’s Main Campus.

“With the various programs offered through the Jules F. Knapp Center our techno-entrepreneurship students will graduate with a unique portfolio of academic and practical experiences that solidly prepares them for the exciting entrepreneurial opportunities that exist in today’s volatile economy,” said Roberson. “Everything we teach, from case studies to strategies, and the non-classroom experiences we provide will be centered on technology-based start-ups or technology-centered areas of established companies, setting this Center apart from other entrepreneurship programs.”

Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting technological university awarding degrees in the sciences, mathematics and engineering, as well as architecture, psychology, design, business and law. IIT’s interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum prepares the university’s 6,200 students for leadership roles in an increasingly complex and culturally diverse global workplace.