Economics & Entrepreneurship

Aramco, one of the world’s leading integrated energy and chemicals companies, has made a financial gift to Colorado School of Mines’ burgeoning Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystem.

For companies like GelSana Therapeutics, Mines is helping solutions developed in the lab find a path to market.

Chris Tolton and Ken Liang, who also founded space startup Orbital Mining Corp., developed power storage and transmission solutions for lunar exploration.

Geothermal energy startup GTO Technologies, founded by Colorado School of Mines faculty, has closed an initial seed funding round, securing $1.7 million towards its goal of raising $5 million. To

“We got to see (the building) go from a sketch on notebook paper to the real thing,” said Lindsey Nenne, one of the team’s construction leaders, who graduated in May with her bachelor’s degree in civil engineering.

After a career in entrepreneurship, Zack Bennett ’99 is now the founding director of the Mines Venture Program and Beck Venture Center on campus.

As Colorado School of Mines progresses into its next 150 years of producing leaders in science, technology, engineering and math, it’s providing new opportunities to help shape an innovator’s mindset and set graduates up for success in industry and business.

Mines students in the Spring 2024 Cornerstone Design Competition took on the challenge to make existing objects more useful and less wasteful.

The student-designed and -built powertrain will be used by mechanical engineering students in an automotive lab class at Mines.

Leading the way was Mines’ Concrete Canoe and Surveying teams, both of which won first place and a bid to nationals in their respective events.