Welcome to the Office of Inclusive Innovation and Entrepreneurship. We are excited that you found us and are committed to transforming the trajectory and mindset of our diverse underrepresented students on this campus and in our community. During this COVID-19 pandemic please rest assured that our work continues and we are moving our operation to remote and online communication. While we can’t meet in person, we can still inspire young minds through technology. The classes we offer, Product Prodigy Institute and WIELD Texas will be moving online. We will keep the same class schedule and we will be making our office hours virtual.
We have traditionally held office hours on Friday mornings from 9 am – 12 pm. This will continue, but now we will need to expand and open this up. Therefore we are adding a 1 pm to 3 pm slot on Fridays so that we might be able to serve more of our students and community.
If none of those times work, please email inclusiveinnovation@utexas.edu and we will coordinate a time that best works for you.
In order to sign up for our office hours please visit www.calendly.com/inclusiveinnovation.
We look forward to talking to you and we will get through this together. Please stay tuned for additional online events we will offer.
Thank you,
Rubén Cantú
Executive Director
Office of Inclusive Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Division of Diversity and Community Engagement
Assistant Professor
College of Education
The University of Texas at Austin
rubencantu@austin.utexas.edu
The Office of Inclusive Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at UT Austin will focus on addressing the income inequality gap for overlooked communities by helping them learn the tools of wealth creation, innovative thinking, community stewardship, and social impact.
It will work with both UT students and nontraditional students along with community leaders, government, private enterprise, and NPO’s to help create strong networks upon which new for-profit sustainable ventures can be launched and uplift communities.
Mission
- Innovate and launch startups from underrepresented founders
- Include overlooked communities in the process of creating wealth and prosperity
- Invest in our young people and empower them to build solutions that impact their community in a positive manner and drive economic development and upward mobility.
Background
Launched in the fall of 2018 by Vice President, Dr. Leonard Moore, for the main focus of creating a space within the University’s reach that can serve as a bridge and an example for the entire community on how both private and public interests can work together to address the disparity and inequity wealth gap between communities. Learn more about this initiative.
Founder
Ruben is a first-generation college graduate raised in East Austin as a son of immigrants. He holds a B.S. in Radio-TV-Film from the Moody College of Communications and an M.S. in Technology Commercialization from the McCombs School of Business, both from The University of Texas at Austin.
He has founded various startups and as a social entrepreneur, his ambitions are focused on establishing a platform through media and entrepreneurship that allows society to reflect on its condition and spur progressive change. Learn more about Ruben.
