Innovation at Carnegie Mellon Gets $10M Boost
Entrepreneur James R. Swartz and his wife Susan have pledged a $10 million gift to Carnegie Mellon University to aid the university’s goals of enhancing the scope and impact of its innovation and entrepreneurship, the school announced Thursday.
Swartz, who graduated from the business school in 1966, is a venture capitalist and founding partner of Palo Alto-based Accel Partners. The gift will support CMU’s cutting-edge research, learning technologies and interdisciplinary collaboration.
This major donation builds upon the $67 million gift made in November from the charitable foundation of investor David A. Tepper (MBA’82). These gifts will be used for the construction of a 295,000 square-foot facility in the newly named Tepper Quadrangle that will house the university’s Tepper School of Business, the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, The Simon Initiative and quality of life enhancements for the entire CMU community.
CMU President Subra Suresh noted that the contribution sets the stage for coordinated programs aimed at entrepreneurship and technology-enhanced learning for the business school and for the entire university.
“At Carnegie Mellon I learned to master management science, constructing business models to solve challenges that were completely new to the marketplace and unleashing the power of data for smarter business decisions,” Swartz said when announcing the news.
As a director of more than 50 successful companies in five decades as a venture capitalist, Swartz has been closely involved as a lead investor of numerous pioneering technology companies.
“Those lessons, and the skills that I developed as a result of them, have greatly benefited me throughout my entrepreneurial career. I recognize the university’s new vision for the future of business education and entrepreneurship and I am pleased to contribute toward their efforts to the benefit of new technologies and future generations of students,” he added.
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