The University of Tennessee Research Foundation, in partnership with the College of Business Administration’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation(CEI), the Center for Entrepreneurial Growth (CEG) and OutOfTheGarage.com, has launched a 9 seminar series called Vol Court.  The series is open to students and faculty from the University of Tennessee who are interested in starting their own businesses.

 The one-hour seminars will be held on Tuesdays, beginning on Feb. 9. Some of the sessions will be held at the University of Tennessee Research Foundation Technology Business Center while others will be held in the James Haslam II Business Building.  

 “Our goal is to create an entrepreneurial culture on the UT Knoxville campus,” said Tom Graves, CEI director of operations. "Participation in Vol Court is an exceptional opportunity to network and develop skills that also can be applied in competing for the additional $20,000 in prizes to be awarded to winners of the Annual Undergraduate Business Plan Competition this April. I strongly encourage interested competitors to attend." 

 Joy Fisher, UTRF director of marketing  and business development, said those interested in attending the seminar should include people  who’ve got great ideas, but no business know-how, as well as  people who have business know-how, but are looking for great ideas.  “This is a perfect way to bring people together to see if they can merge their talents and turn them into businesses,” she said.

 The first session of the series is "Going Pro".  We have two entrepreneurs, Chuck Witkowski, President and CEO of Protein Discovery, and and Andrew Dougherty, President and CEO of Medinteract both sharing their experiences to date... a few war stories, things they would do differently and generally how great is is to work building your own dream company.