ACTiVATE, a program of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) that trains mid-career women to start and manage technology ventures, was honored by a leading national entrepreneurship organization on Saturday, January 12, 2008. The program received the U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship's (USASBE) award for Best Specialty Entrepreneurship Education Program. Presented at the organization's annual conference in San Antonio, Texas, the award was based on each program's innovativeness, uniqueness, quality, effectiveness, comprehensiveness, sustainability and transferability.

Julie Kirk, lead instructor for ACTiVATE, Vivian Armor, director of UMBC's Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, and Stephen Auvil, director of UMBC's Office of Technology Development, represented ACTiVATE at the conference.

"The winner is the one program that demonstrates a fresh approach to adding new meaning to entrepreneurial education," said judging panel member Stan Mandel, an executive professor at the Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University and director of the school's Angell Center for Entrepreneurship. "This was clearly demonstrated by UMBC in the ACTiVATE program--a great concept, implemented well, with outstanding participants."

"The program validates the premise that women are fully leaders and innovators in technology and business development, not just consumers," said Claudia Morrell, Executive Director of CWIT and the visionary behind the idea to make this program focused exclusively on women. "Women are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the country. That combined with the rich technology resources in the region, provided all the ingredients for the success we are seeing."

ACTiVATE is a year-long program that utilizes technologies developed by Maryland's universities and research institutions and trains women with significant technical or business experience to start companies based on those technologies. In the first three years of the program, ACTiVATE has trained 72 women. To date, 15 companies have been founded by ACTiVATE graduates.

An acronym for Achieving the Commercialization of Technology in Ventures Through Applied Training for Entrepreneurs, ACTiVATE is a joint program among Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology Park, Office of Technology Development and the Center for Women in Technology (CWIT). Sponsors include the National Science Foundation, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Maryland Technology Development Corporation, Whiteford, Taylor and Preston, Constellation Energy, Wachovia Bank, Lion Brothers and Corporate Office Properties Trust (COPT).

Classes are held on Monday evenings, from January through December, and one Saturday per month at the bwtech@UMBC Incubator near UMBC's main campus in Catonsville. Six of the companies founded by ACTiVATE graduates have entered bwtech@UMBC's incubator program.

For more information, see the ACTiVATE web site.