Celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit

_{William Brown, a graduate student in the Master’s of Business Administration Program, speaks at Startup Texas, held Dec. 14 in the eBridge Center for Business and Commercialization in Brownsville. PHOTO COURTESY DAVID FLORES}

The Brownsville Community Improvement Corp., in partnership with UTRGV’s Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Center, will host the Rio Grande Valley’s first Startup Week.

The events will be hosted May 3-10 at the eBridge Center for Business and Commercialization in Brownsville.

Nelson Ivan Amaro, director of marketing and communications at BCIC said the corporation is one of the “economic development organizations in Brownsville that offer incentives to organizations, people and businesses to grow and strengthen the community.”

The eBridge center is a “hub” for business and entrepreneurship located in the old La Casa del Nylon building at 1304 E. Adams St. 

“The eBridge Center is focused not just on tapping into the human capital of our community or commercializing scalable businesses, but establishing entrepreneurial equity in developing and advancing an open and inclusive ecosystem for all entrepreneurs,” according to its website.

 RGV Startup Week is an opportunity for entrepreneurs to showcase their business and learn about entrepreneurship.

The main location will be the eBridge but there will also be events happening across the Rio Grande Valley. 

Amaro said the center serves as an “incubator and accelerator” for businesses. 

“This is one thing that ties it all together into one big week of events on which all these little events that we already have going on can live,” he  said. 

The event will kick off with a business bootcamp from May 3 to 5. 

Participants will go through an intensive bootcamp to learn how to start their own business. By the end of the course, the idea will be pitched to the judges. 

Funds will be allocated to the best businesses decided by the judges. 

Besides business sessions, there will be mixers, networking events, markets and music events. 

Amaro said economic development and letting people know about the resources available are some of the benefits of this event for the community. 

He said participants have three paths to choose from: starting a business, growing a business, and taking the next step.

The Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Center at UTRGV will also be part of the Startup Week. 

Linda Ufland, director of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Commercialization, said the function of the center is to “provide our community and our industry resources to start a business, grow a business and kind of scale, you know, and venture.” 

The center has three pillars, “innovate, foster and advance,” Ufland said. 

“And the way that we do it is through different programs that we offer,” she said.

The center offers entrepreneurial development, education programs that allow the community to learn the foundations of starting or growing a business.

Ufland said the ECC is involved with students through “experiential learning, internships, job creation and special projects.” 

She said Startup Week is a “great event” for the community. 

“I mean, literally, this event is the platform for us to really ignite entrepreneurship in the Rio Grande Valley,” Ufland said. 

Anyone can participate in this event by being a sponsor, a volunteer or by hosting a session.

Brownsville company APYCO Telecomm LLC presented the iBed in the 2023 Startup Texas Emerging Industries Pitch Competition. 

Pilar Caudillo, sales and innovation managing director at APYCO, said iBed is a “therapeutic” system for elderly patients, bariatric patients, “people who don’t have the ability to move very easily.” 

“The product is focused to be recovering at home,” Caudillo said. “So that’s the main purpose – it’s not a hospital bed, it’s a home hospital bed.” 

Agustin Martinez, CEO of APYCO, said participating in this event is a “very good strategy” to create real business in Brownsville. 

Martinez said Startup Week is helpful for people who are trying to do business because it offers “a whole environment.” 

“I think that the most important thing is that it gave us exposure and now we have the attention from other areas of the university that would like [to work] together to improve our product,” Caudillo said. “And also we started having some interest from people in the Valley to be able to continue our promotion and sales.” 

She encourages businesses and entrepreneurs to participate because it helps them “learn more about how to approach the market.”

Ufland encourages everyone to register on the website for the event. 

“The event is free,” she said. “You will receive a tag and then you have entrance to all the workshops and training and networking events and so forth that will be available that week.”

Amaro said not everyone has to be an entrepreneur to be part of the event. 

“This event is about celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit of the RGV,” he said. “So, maybe, just come to a session and figure out if entrepreneurship is something that you would like to do.” 

Visit rgvstartup.com for more information. 

_{Sylvia Robles, an assistant professor of Practice-Entrepreneurship at the UTRGV Robert C. Vackar College of Business and Entrepreneurship, serves as a judge during Startup Texas, held Dec. 14 in the eBridge Center for Business and Commercialization in Brownsville. PHOTO COURTESY DAVID FLORES}