Pre-Seed Workshop is a community event where teams build companies—not the physical structures, but the foundational plans. And it all happens in two and a half days.
The PSW was started in 2004 and is now being held about eight times a year in various Host City locations throughout New York State including Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Ithaca, Geneva, Albany, NYC, and Long Island. With 77+ major participating organizations, it is one of the largest grass-roots initiatives in the state facilitating the growth of entrepreneurship and the creation of start-up companies across the region. More about the PSW-NY Consortium.
The PSW rallies highly-skilled community talent and resources around academic researchers with patented inventions. Six to eight teams are created per workshop. The teams are led through a series of structured hands-on sessions where they investigate and transform potentially commercializable technologies into pre-seed stage companies. Teams leave the workshop with a thin commercialization plan for a new start-up.
Growing Pool Of Success
As of Dec 2009 we have held:
- 29 Pre-Seed Workshops
- with 1075 Participants
- in which 174 “hi-tech ideas”
- were analyzed
- by 174 teams
We have created or strengthened about 60+ high-tech for-profit ventures across the state that have the potential to create wealth and jobs in both the upstate and downstate regions. Many have gone on to win local, national, and international business plan competitions. Many have received SBIR funding or secured seed and venture capital.
