Innovation

After a career in entrepreneurship, Zack Bennett ’99 is now the founding director of the Mines Venture Program and Beck Venture Center on campus.

As Colorado School of Mines progresses into its next 150 years of producing leaders in science, technology, engineering and math, it’s providing new opportunities to help shape an innovator’s mindset and set graduates up for success in industry and business.

Read more about the Beck Venture Center grand opening on Mines Newsroom >>

Located at 17th Street and Washington Avenue in Golden, the facility offers 31,000 square feet of coworking, networking, event and classroom space for Mines-connected entrepreneurs, investors, mentors, companies and students to learn, collaborate and launch.

GelSana was founded in 2020 by Dr. Melissa Krebs, associate professor in chemical and biochemical engineering at Mines. GelSana’s first product is a novel polymer-based gel called Cleragel, designed to improve wound healing by reducing inflammation.

The District is home to one of the largest collections of innovation and maker spaces on any university campus in the U.S.

What do you do with produced water in the Permian Basin? What can be done to make heater treaters more efficient? Colorado School of Mines student teams took on these questions as part of the 2023 Global Energy Future Initiative (GEFI) Innov8x Challenge.

Victoria Bill and Zach Bennett have joined Mines as the inaugural directors of two foundational pieces of the E&I Ecosystem: the Labriola Innovation Hub and Beck Venture Center.

Sponsored by the McNeil Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the Hearts and Gears: Innovating Mobility Challenge offered first-year students an early experience with the entrepreneurship and innovation landscape at Mines: collaborative, forward-thinking and human centered.

Ava Segal’s interactive balance-training system, called Steadiplay, uses body motion on an instrumented wobble board for real-time control of a wireless robot, providing users with feedback and balance rankings, similar to fitness apps like Strava.