History
The Institute’s mission is to improve the human condition through entrepreneurship for the purpose of creating new wealth, jobs, and tax base. This is accomplished with Cooperative Venturing educational programs that transfer experience, knowledge, contacts and capital from the world’s leading business and financial organizations to promising early-stage, companies. Formed in 1983 as the Utah Innovation Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization, the Institute was renamed in 1988 in memory of its founder, Dr. Wayne S. Brown. The Institute has become the most efficient, cost effective economic development organization in the country.
Dr. Brown held positions in mechanical engineering and had served as Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Utah. In addition to his academic postings, he was a founder of Kenway Engineering (HK Systems), TerraTek, NPI (Agridyne Technologies), the Utah Innovation Center (the world’s first venture accelerator/incubator) and Utah Ventures (now UV Partners, Utah’s first and largest venture fund). By virtue of his academic and business background, Dr. Brown was a leading authority in technological innovation and entrepreneurship. Many of the world’s science/research parks, innovation centers and incubators have their roots with Dr. Brown. In addition to his many accomplishments, he affected the role of government in innovation and entrepreneurship as the architect with Roland Tibbitts of the National Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.
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