The Liautaud Advantage

The University of Illinois at Chicago Liautaud Graduate School of Business is an entrepreneurial school committed to creating new knowledge, business, value and leaders for Chicago and the world beyond. Through its innovative programs, including its research-based MBA program and its nationally-ranked entrepreneurship program, the LGSB provides students with the skills and knowledge they need to compete in the global market.

We are dedicated to providing experiential learning opportunities to our students. These opportunities are the cornerstone of our curriculum and we encourage all of our students to take advantage of making theory meet practice.

Interdisciplinary Product Development

UIC's Interdisciplinary Product Development course was launched in 2002 to help students work effectively in cross-functional teams when developing new products. The course includes students and faculty from three colleges - Architecture and Arts, Business Administration and Engineering. Members of these disciplinary fields work together, along with corporations, to research and develop new product concepts.

Each year, a corporate sponsor provides financial support and serves as the client for the student teams. The sponsor's funding provides an assignment that will result in the research, conception, and development of innovative product concepts. The funding typically is used for professionally conducted market research, team-building exercises, innovation training, rapid prototyping, and materials and supplies.

UIC Technology Ventures Program

The primary goal of the UIC Technology Ventures Program is to create an intensive, challenging, real-world experience for MBA students. The program allows students to learn about business and technology entrepreneurship in a comprehensive, applied way that prepares them for careers in entrepreneurship and business development. The program also provides extensive opportunities for students and faculty to interact with and connect to business leaders.

The program offers MBA students access to UIC technologies with commercial potential. They work directly with the inventors of those technologies and other domain experts, thereby building bridges across the UIC campus and into the Chicago business community. Professionals from the business community mentor teams throughout the process, and students gain valuable experience, skills, and networks as they pitch their plans in competitions judged by venture capitalists, angel investors, and industry partners from around the United States and Canada.

UIC teams compete against teams from other top-ranked universities in regional, national, and international business plan competitions, thereby honing their skills, expanding their networks, and expanding the learning experience beyond that which could possibly be accomplished in the classroom.

The UIC College of Business Administration and Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies host the Concept2Venture Business Plan Competition that aims to stimulate and nourish the entrepreneurial spirit in UIC students campuswide. In particular, C2V seeks to encourage entrepreneurially oriented students to develop and grow new ventures based on their own ideas and technologies or those developed by others, including faculty members and alumni. The competition also aims to provide participating students a forum where they can develop skills in pitching ventures to investors and receive constructive feedback, thereby increasing the probability of successfully launching ventures now and in the future. Finally, C2V will provide the "best" of these ventures with resources to assist the winning student team in pursuing the launch of its venture.

For further information regarding C2V, visit www.concept2venture.org.

"Within a year, we went from writing term papers to signing a term sheet. Anything is possible with a UIC Liautaud MBA".
      -Anna Lisa Somera, MBA/MPH '06, OrthoAccel Technologies, Inc.


CONTACT THE LGSB:

Liautaud Graduate School of Business
815 W. Van Buren (MC 077) Suite 220
Chicago, IL 60607

Phone: (312) 996-4573
Fax: (312) 413-0338

E-mail: mba@uic.edu