You no longer need to be an experienced programmer to build working software. With AI-powered development tools, University of Utah students from any major can describe an idea in plain language and turn it into a real app, website, or service in a matter of hours. The practice has a name, “vibe coding,” and it […]
Owen Lombardi and his girlfriend kept a shared calendar and updated it religiously. Every entry meant typing out what the event was, setting the time, and color-coding it by hand. “Every time I added an event, whether it was for work, a family event or a dinner, it took forever,” Lombardi said. Lombardi, a freshman […]
Have you ever thought about who plans concerts, manages bands, and captures the energy of live events? For Amelia Weyerstall, a sophomore at the University of Utah, those roles all come together through her company, Weyerwolf Productions. What began as a passion for concert photography quickly grew into something much larger. Through her experiences in […]
In my senior year at the University of Utah, I sat in a classroom where business, science, and engineering students debated for two hours whether a novel computer imaging technology should go after the oil and gas market or the medical imaging market. I had led the design of the course the year before, as […]
This is my second post responding to Paul Graham’s essay on university entrepreneurship centers. In the first I focused on what he gets right, while defending what I see as the best of what we do at the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. Then I read the responses of people I respect — particularly Bill Aulet, managing […]
Paul Graham, a co-founder of the influential Y Combinator startup accelerator, just published an essay arguing that universities should not build entrepreneurship centers, should not hire “deans of entrepreneurship,” and should hand any spare money to the people teaching computer science and mechanical engineering and molecular biology (agreed, btw). At one point he asks — as […]
The University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business announced Anne Bastien as the senior director of the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, serving alongside executive director Scott Holley, recently. Bastien has nearly 16 years of experience at the institute and is a double alum of the University of Utah, where she earned her Bachelor of Science […]
At Lassonde Studios, we have a tradition of asking our residents and student leaders to submit inspirational quotes at the end of the year. We then select the best ones to install permanently in the stairways. We hope these quotes will inspire many more students to do dream big and change the world. We also […]
A roundnet company in Utah selling equipment to customers in Germany. A Ghanaian founder turning coconut husks into engineered wood panels and finding his way into European sustainability networks. A Brazilian founder living in Belgium, building an AI platform to help teenagers choose a career. Three companies, three continents, one graduate program. That was the […]
The Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute events calendar for fall 2026 is now available in print and online formats. See links below. We have many events and opportunities planned for the semester. We have Make Space hours, workshops, mentor hours, grants, entrepreneur classes through the Department of Entrepreneurship & Strategy, and more. All University of Utah students […]
