Holmes Center, MN Cup Gain National Recognition

The Gary S. Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship and its flagship program, MN Cup, garnered national honors recently.

The Holmes Center was named one of the five finalists for the “Outstanding Contributors to Venture Creation” at the Global Conference of Entrepreneurship Centers. The center was also recognized in the State of University Entrepreneurship Centers’ Fall 2020 Report, with MN Cup specifically spotlighted in the survey of more than 100 entrepreneurship centers.

“It’s a great honor for the Holmes Center and MN Cup to be mentioned in conversations of the best entrepreneurship programs in the country,” says John Stavig, the center’s program director. “I’m extremely proud of the work we’ve done to shape the lives of so many entrepreneurs.”

With its reach, MN Cup also ranked as one of the top 10 university-sponsored collegiate entrepreneurship competitions in the nation by the George Washington University Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

MN Cup is the country’s largest statewide new-venture competition—supporting and accelerating the development of breakthrough business ideas across Minnesota. In the 16th annual MN Cup competition, two University faculty-led startups took home top prizes. BlueCube Bio, which won first prize, created the first-ever safe, non-toxic means for preserving biological cells used for cell therapy—a method that treats diseases such as leukemia and melanoma. The runner up was Counterflow Technologies, which invented a new type of spray nozzle that operates more efficiently and may lead to energy savings and reduction of CO2 emissions.