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Business Building
MBA students at UC Irvine are encouraged to create new ways of doing business, and many of our students and alumni are using their understanding of information and technology to develop innovative companies.
Our view of business building is broad. With your creativity and motivation, we will position you to build business value not only in a start-up setting, but also in an existing firm that needs recharging and retooling to succeed in a changing business world.
Still, the drive to innovate often brings our students and alumni together to explore ideas and opportunities for new ventures. And they aren't just tinkering. They think big, and they are determined to succeed. For example, there is the team from UC Irvine that won first place in Hummer Winblad Venture Partners' 2000 business plan competition. The creators of a company then called MyDrugRep competed against some 250 other business schools--including Wharton, London Business School, the University of Chicago, Harvard and Berkeley--and won $5 million in venture capital funding.
Now called Lathian Systems, Inc., the company continues to offer the MyDrugRep eDetailing Solution(SM) and focuses on leveraging new technologies that enable life science companies to interact with their customers and reach their business goals. Located in Newport Beach, Calif., and Princeton, N.J., Lathian has hired a number of MBAs from UC Irvine. In addition to Hummer Winblad, investors include Sprout Group and Siebel Systems (total of $14 million), and customers include 12 global and specialty life science companies.
How We Support Innovation
We support this interest in new venture development and help students turn their ideas into action by sponsoring an annual business plan competition and providing a 24/7 facility for business building through our Irvine Innovation Initiative (I³).
Students also develop their business-building skills and ideas in courses focusing on new venture development and innovation in the digital economy. Through academic and outside activities that encourage innovation, you will meet talented people with complementary skills who will challenge you to think in new directions. They may even turn out to be your future business partners.