Sessions
Young Entrepreneur's Academy Investor Panel
5:30 PM - 9:00 PM Tue
Spark Conference Panel- "Where Are They Now"
10:00 AM - 11:15 AM Thu
Spark Conference Panel- "It Takes a Community to Raise a Startup"
1:30 PM - 2:45 PM Thu
Spark Conference- Lightning Round Reception and Poster Showcase
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM Thu
Spark Conference- iLaunch Competition
9:00 AM - 12:30 PM Fri
"Discoveries to Impact" Week Closing and Awards
1:15 PM - 2:15 PM Fri
Kimberly Gramm became Senior Managing Director of the Innovation Hub at Research Park (Hub), April 2016 at Texas Tech University where she leads the overall operation of the Hub. The Hub supports economic growth of the state and region fostering startups and meaningful relationships with industry. Her primary focus is startup creation, building an innovation and entrepreneurial pipeline. She believes a multi-disciplinary approach to academics, co-curricular programs, research projects and a world class LEED facility(s) is the foundation to build a knowledge-based economy. She works with leadership to strategically attract technology clients from around the world to collaborate with the university system in Texas. She has 10+ years of early stage technology venture development with over 266 startups created under her management in university environments. Her passion is to develop, implement, and find resources to support Innovation and Entrepreneurship programming for students, faculty, and entrepreneurs. She has been awarded $9.5M+ grant and industry sponsored program funding.
Currently she manages Texas Tech's GLEAMM (renewable technologies) proof of concept and accelerator early stage seed funds. As a co-investigator, TTU was recently awarded a $3.4M National Science Foundation Southwest Node I-Corps renewal grant focused on supporting Texas Tech commercialization from research. The grant de-risks technology deepening the success of the startup pipeline. In addition, in 2018, she and her co-PIs were awarded a National Science Foundation Site award. Director of the Texas Tech Accelerator she currently manages 6-10 startups per year who receive $25,000 seed grants. Prior to joining TTU, she was at Florida Atlantic University for eight years as Director of the Adams Center for Entrepreneurship & Assistant Dean of the College of Business developing strategies for entrepreneurship programs. In 2014, as Associate Vice President at Florida Atlantic University, she co-founded the University accelerator called FAU Tech Runway. She and her co-founder raised $4.5M initial investment from the university and state of Florida Governor’s office. She has extensive expertise in angel and venture funding.