Featured Centers & Initiatives
Funding & External Competitions
Seeking funding for your sustainable innovation or program? These are prime opportunities for students.
Southwest Angel Network (SWAN)
The angels at the SWAN Impact Network are bound together by a passion for making the world a better place. The Network supports dynamic startups that are striving to address serious challenges that our society faces. Companies are expected to deliver measurable social or environmental impact and to have solid plans for financial success.
Capital Factory
Capital Factory is the place where the technology community comes together to learn and connect. They gather the most promising entrepreneurs in Texas and introduce them to their first investors, employees, mentors, and customers.
Genesis
Genesis is a student-alumni partnership that provides student startups with equity-free funding to pursue their ventures. They have over $1.8 million in funding to distribute to UT Austin startups, along with the time and talent of a diverse and entrepreneurial leadership team. Genesis has helped founders develop their businesses, build their products, generate revenue, recruit co-founders and early employees, brainstorm ideas, and raise future funding from top investors.
Academic & Collegiate Competitions
Local, national, and global competitions provide a variety of support mechanisms for students interested in sustainability. Students can test their ideas in a safe environment with the support of mentors and peers. Some competitions even offer cash prizes.
Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition
Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs (JBTVL) hosts the Investment Competition and is a campus-wide initiative at the University of Texas at Austin that accelerates startups, helps take innovations to market, and transforms graduate students into entrepreneurs and business leaders.
SEED
The Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge is an impact venture pitch competition held each summer at the University of San Diego and University of St. Thomas. Our SEED winners represent UT Austin at this competition. Other teams are welcome to apply through their open call process in the Spring.
TCU Richards Barrentine Values and Ventures Competition
Values and Ventures is a social venture pitch competition for undergraduate students held at Texas Christian University. Applications open in October and the competition is held from February-April.
International Business and Ethics Case Competition
The International Business and Ethics Case Competition at Loyola Marymount University enables students to apply ethical reasoning to practical issues and address the moral imperative of sustainable development. This compeition takes place in April.
Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge
Every year, the Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge, hosted by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, invites teams of graduate students from around the world to develop and pitch creative financial approaches to tackle pressing social and environmental challenges. Applications close in January and the competition takes place from February-April.
Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge
The Fowler Challenge is a global impact venture pitch competition held each summer at the University of San Diego and University of St. Thomas. The Texas Social Innovation Challenge winners represent UT Austin at this competition.
Network for Business Sustainability
The Network for Business Sustainability (NBS) is a consortium of individuals and academic centers housed at the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario that contributes educational resources to a shared pool.
HKEC, TVLIC, and KS WELI
Accellerators, Incubators, and Co-Working
This is where startup founders and their teams find the resources to build their technical infrastructure, human resources, customer base, production capacity, marketing system, and more.
Divinc
Divinc generates social and economic equity through entrepreneurship focused on early-stage tech founders. This organization is laser-focused on building the programs and infrastructure that remove any barriers for underrepresented founders to build investable tech startup companies.
Notley
Notley uses knowledge, collaboration, human capital, and financial capital to catalyze innovative organizations’ growth and expansion, making positive change in the world.
Mission Capital
Mission Capital is an Austin-based non-profit accelerator that equips and connects mission-driven leaders, organizations, and networks advancing equity and opportunity through their work.
VUKA Workspaces
VUKA Workspaces offer shared spaces, private offices, and dedicated desks at two locations in Central Austin.
Texas Venture Labs Accelerator
The Texas Venture Labs Accelerator provides an opportunity for Texas startups to take their ventures to the next level with the unique benefit of leveraging UT resources and talent, including graduate student consultants across many disciplines.
News, Podcasts, and Learning Tools
Learning is not just for the classroom. Listen to, read, and interact with the wisdom of Subject Matter Experts and practitioners.
Impact Alpha
Stay updated on sustainable investing and entrepreneurship trends through Impact Alpha. The Impact Alpha community also hosts exclusive events and podcasts. GSLI pays for limited student subscriptions. Contact Sandi Ruddick to secure your access today.
Bloomberg Green
Bloomberg Green offers authoritative reporting on Energy & Science, Finance, Climate Adaptation, Politics, Culture, and Design as well as real-time updates on issues affecting the global economy.
Sustainability Defined
Each episode of the Sustainability Defined Podcast focuses on a single topic that pushes sustainability forward. Issues are explained with the help of experienced industry pros, placed in context, and addressed in detail in every episode.
ESG Now
This podcast explores the world of ESG through a rotating cast of environmental, social, and governance researchers with hosts Mike Disabato and Bentley Kaplan. Listen to ESG Now on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts.
Dollars and Change
On Dollars and Change, hear about corporate social responsibility, impact investing, impact entrepreneurship, and more. Guests on this podcast range from the head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Starbucks to the CEO of the Gates Foundation.
Degrees
Degrees is a podcast from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) that focuses on real talk about planet-saving careers.
Money + Meaning
The Money + Meaning Podcast highlights stories of innovators leveraging the power of capital markets to create a more just and sustainable economy. The series explores the conversation around impact investing and explores strategies to finance and support social change.
Threshold, Sustainalytics ESG in Conversation, Climate Rising, S&P All Things Sustainable, ESG Decoded, and Bloomberg Zero
MSCI
MSCI is a leading provider of critical decision support tools and services for the global investment community.
Stanford Social Innovation Review
The Stanford Social Innovation Review features articles, webinars, and other reseources that explore social issues, such as education, health, and security as well as solutions including advocacy, funding, and leadership. Their resources cover government, non-profit, private, and other sectors.