The Lehigh Entrepreneurship Community Celebrates the Entreprecurious
“Curiosity is the real heart of entrepreneurship. It's the drive to ask 'Why?' The courage to ask 'What if?' And the persistence to find out what is truly real in our world and brings value to others.”
With these words, Lisa Getzler, vice provost for Entrepreneurship at Lehigh University opened the 2026 Innovate! Celebrate!, an annual celebration of the makers, founders, and mentors who shape the university’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The annual Innovate! Celebrate! event was less a ceremony than a demonstration. On the evening of April 28, Lehigh University's Office of Entrepreneurship filled the room with confetti, applause, and something harder to manufacture: proof. Proof that curiosity, when given the right ecosystem, becomes something real.
In 90 minutes, the evening moved through every stage of Lehigh's entrepreneurship pipeline: from remarks by President Joseph Helble '82 and Provost Nathan Urban — whose words connected Lehigh's Future Makers strategy and its growing research enterprise to the entrepreneurship ecosystem — to students pitching their first tested ideas in the Eureka! Grand Prize competition, to Ventures Lab alumni who have raised millions and completed exits, to the debut of the brand-new Venture Studio and its first imminent spinout.
“We call them the ‘Entreprecurious' — the future makers whose relentless need to know leads somewhere genuinely meaningful,” Getzler said, “Tonight is their night."
The first half of the evening featured Innovation Alley, where 15 student entrepreneurs displayed their ventures during the networking reception. Attendees used their 5 million in faux Founder Fund$ to vote for their favorites, with the team accumulating the most earning the People's Choice Award and a real $1,000 cash prize.
“Curiosity is the real heart of entrepreneurship. It's the drive to ask 'Why?' The courage to ask 'What if?' And the persistence to find out what is truly real in our world and brings value to others.”
Woven throughout the evening was the event's annual highlight: The Joan F. & John M. Thalheimer ’55 Eureka! Grand Prize Pitch Competition, where three Baker Institute Eureka! program finalists made their case for the $5,000 Thalheimer Grand Prize: Kindware (Walker Blair '27 & Logan Galletta '27), Ciatta (Jennifer Maxwell '26), and SmartFlow Inventory (JR Perez '27). This year’s competition was judged by Dr. Andreea Kiss, Professor and Director of the Entrepreneurship Minor at Lehigh, and alums Jamie Flinchbaugh '94, P'24, P'26, P'29 and Mitchell Katz '23. See sidebar to learn more about the finalists and learn who took home the Grand Prize.
Student achievement took center stage as several prestigious prizes were awarded. The Davis Projects for Peace Prize, presented by Bill Whitney, assistant vice provost for Experiential Learning Programs recognized two teams working on public health initiatives in Sierra Leone. Additional honors were presented in entrepreneurship, teaching, scholarship, and venture creation — a full accounting of this year's recipients appears in the sidebars and award callouts throughout this piece.
Pathways that Lead to Entrepreneurial Success and a Stage Full of Winners
The student awards segment of the 2026 Innovate! Celebrate! Entrepreneurship event underscored the breadth of Lehigh's entrepreneurship reach, from early-stage social impact projects headed to Sierra Leone this summer, to a clinically validated pediatric health venture, to a card game that has already cleared six figures in sales.
Innovate! Celebrate! also recognized outstanding faculty contributions to entrepreneurship education.
Dr. Michael Lehman, director of the Technical Entrepreneurship Master's Program in the Rossin College of Engineering, received the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Faculty Achievement Award, while Dr. Michael Rivera, assistant professor of Business Information Systems in the College of Business was honored with the John B. Ochs Teaching Award.
The Classroom as a Startup: Recognizing the Educators Behind the Ecosystem
Two faculty awards were presented during the evening. And both, in different ways, told the same story: that entrepreneurship at...
The evening also marked a milestone for Lehigh's newest entrepreneurship initiative.
Chris Kauzmann ’13 M’14, Innovator in Residence and Venture Studio Proof-of-Concept Lead, and Frank Balcavage '01, Entrepreneur in Residence, took the stage together to report that the Venture Studio — described as a "bench to market factory" that de-risks university IP and builds a business case around it for new startups to license and take to market — has cleared a significant threshold: its first startup package, based on technology out of the Gilchrist Lab, has attracted interest from a two-time Lehigh alumnus, with a new company expected to form in the coming weeks.
Balcavage enjoyed additional recognition as he was presented with the Farrington Award for Outstanding Commitment to Entrepreneurship for his longtime, steadfast dedication to Lehigh’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The Farrington Award for Outstanding Commitment to Entrepreneurship
The Farrington Award for Outstanding Commitment to Entrepreneurship, named for Lehigh's 12th president and given annually to recognize sustained, all-in dedication to the university's entrepreneurship community, has a short but distinguished list of past recipients, including Dexter Baker, John Thalheimer, Joan Thalheimer, Jamie Flinchbaugh, Joshua Cohen, and Pat Costa. This year, Frank Balcavage, class of 2001, joined them.
Lehigh Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Showcase
This year’s Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Showcase featured The Lehigh Ventures Lab. Director Michael Rinkunas ’02 M’08 spotlighted Unchain, Offline Wine, Atano and Splink, four alumni startups in varying stages of their journey.
From Validation to Growth: The Ventures Lab at Year Four
Lehigh's Ventures Lab isn't where ideas are born — it's where they grow into fully formed companies. Now in its fourth year, four Ventures Lab founders were highlighted at the 2026 Innovate! Celebrate! awards ceremony.
A Celebration of Curiosity
"We started tonight with a single word: curiosity. And you've seen tonight exactly where it leads," Getzler said as she invited all the evening's honorees to the stage. "Every person you see here tonight took a risk. They asked a question no one had answered. They built something from nothing. And they stood up in front of all of you and made the case for why it matters."
By the time the confetti cannon fired at the end of the evening with a stage full of award winners — it was clear that, indeed, curiosity is woven into the very fabric of Lehigh’s Future Maker ethos.
Six hundred million in Faux Founder Fund$ — and One Very Real $1,000 Winner
Each year, before the formal Innovate! Celebrate! program begins, attendees spend the reception period in Innovation Alley — a showcase of student ventures who compete for Founder Fund$, the event's faux investment currency. The prize is a REAL $1,000 cash prize!
![5 million in Lehigh [faux] Founder Fund$](/sites/entrepreneurship.lehigh.edu/files/styles/square_thumbnail_xs/public/images/news/5x3a0111-ic-20260428-sme226.jpg?h=804dd421&itok=X23WoiAw)