About UMSL Accelerate Entrepreneurship Courses


ShareLike most people, I used to think that entrepreneurship was narrowly defined as the process of starting a new business. Like most people, I could not have been more wrong. The truth is that the talented artists, biologists, sociologists, computer scientists, social workers, education majors, and quite literally every other discipline on campus have as much to offer the field of entrepreneurship as do our business students and future entrepreneurship majors. Business students and self-identified entrepreneurs are critical, but we also need the artists’ ability to create something out of nothing. We need the biologists who are consummate systems thinkers […]

Why All Students Must Enroll In the Entrepreneur Certificate


SharePatrick Davis is in his last year at UMSL and working on his own business called Illlumenessence that focuses on custom automotive lighting. His story perfectly showcases an entrepreneurial journey. Hi Patrick, could you tell us a little bit about you? Hi, absolutely! I am graduating in the fall with a major in marketing and a minor in digital media. I will also earn my Certificate in Entrepreneurship. In addition to my academics, I work on my own custom automotive lighting company. Which entrepreneurship classes did you take? What have you learned from them? I have taken the Introduction to […]

Custom Automotive Lighting from an UMSL Student Entrepreneur


ShareEntrepreneur enthusiast Yaniv Dudaie grew up with interests in soccer, travel, business, and a love for different cultures. As a child, he wanted to own a hotel in Italy with a pizzeria attached to it. Now that he is college bound, Yaniv wants to learn how to develop and grow companies so his childhood dream could still come true. What will his next dream vision look like? He was born in Mexico, Grew up in Israel, and currently goes to school in St. Louis. Asides from his heavy involvement at UMSL Accelerate, his triple major in Finance, Logistics, and International […]

The Dream Catcher



ShareFor entrepreneurs my age or older, there was really only one way to learn about entrepreneurship and innovation: The Hard Way. Knowing what to do and what not to do in a startup was an expensive process of trial and error, in real-time, in the real world, with real investors and real customers. If we were lucky, we might have picked up a mentor along the way who could provide occasional perspective and advice but, other than that, we were all pretty much on our own. Fast-forward a decade and a dozen or so startups later to 2016. A group […]

UMSL’s Cutting-Edge Entrepreneurship Courses