CSE Undergrad News

Microsoft has a grant program for “tech” start-ups called “BizSpark” (http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark).  The program provides free software and services, including Windows, Office, developer tools, servers, web-hosting, cloud services, and additional support for three years.  The value of the software and services exceeds $500K if licensed separately. To qualify, the business has to have some kind of programming/software development workload including web design and app development.  The business cannot be a public company.  The business has to be newer than five years, and making less than $1M in revenue annually. 

Currently, less than half of the businesses that apply get approved.  However, because of my relationship with your school, I have the ability to “vet” any student start-ups that you are aware of through you and guarantee the award.

Since it is our fiscal year end, and we aren’t certain how long this program will be offered, I wanted to let you know and hopefully give out some awards by month end.  I would appreciate it if you could forward this to any students or faculty that would be potentially interested and qualify.  They can contact me directly with a brief description of their business and how they will use the software and I can send a special enrollment link for them to sign up.

Thanks!

Randy Guthrie, PhD
Microsoft Technical Evangelist [US-West]
blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/MIS_Laboratory
Twitter: @randyguthrie