How Universities Can Better Support Student Founders Without Building Another Program Webinar
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Event Details
Webinar Details:
Student founders often have access to more resources than they realize, but many still struggle to navigate funding, mentorship, customer discovery, intellectual property, prototyping, and early-stage validation. This session will focus on practical ways colleges and universities can better support student entrepreneurs without needing to build an entirely new program from scratch.
Drawing on my experience building a regulated startup as a student and creating Student Founder, a free resource hub for college entrepreneurs, I’ll share what student founders actually need at the earliest stages, where they tend to get stuck, and how faculty, staff, and administrators can make a meaningful difference through better guidance, introductions, and access to existing resources.
The session will also introduce practical tools and free resources that attendees can share directly with student founders on their campuses.
Webinar Takeaways:
- Understand where student founders get stuck most often and how to better support them around funding, mentorship, customer discovery, IP, prototyping, and early validation.
- Learn practical ways faculty and staff can help student entrepreneurs through targeted introductions, clearer resource navigation, and support that does not require launching a new entrepreneurship program.
- Leave with free resources you can immediately share with students, including funding opportunities, guides, and tools designed specifically for college founders.
About the Speaker:
Miles Lanham
Miles Lanham is a biomedical engineering student at the University of Virginia and an entrepreneur with experience across pharmaceutical development, medical devices, and early-stage company building. He founded Métopi, a pharmaceutical drug-device startup, where he advanced proprietary technology from concept to functional prototypes, secured patent protection, raised more than $250,000 in non-dilutive funding as a sophomore, and later secured nearly $500,000 in institutional and angel investor commitments toward a pre-seed round. He built and worked alongside a multidisciplinary team spanning pharmaceutical development, regulatory strategy, engineering, and commercialization while leading market validation and commercialization efforts across multiple therapeutic programs. Miles is also a former Division I track and field athlete at UVA and the founder of Student Founder, a free platform providing resources, funding opportunities, and practical guidance to aspiring student entrepreneurs.