Skip to main content
University of Nebraska Omaha logo University of Nebraska Omaha
APPLY MY UNO DIRECTORY

Students Faculty Staff Community
University of Nebraska Omaha logo
College of Business Administration
APPLY MY UNO DIRECTORY
Students Faculty Staff Community
  • About Us Backback to Main menu
    • About CBA
    • Why Choose the UNO College of Business Administration?
    • Mission, Vision, and Societal Impact Aspiration
    • Dean's Message
    • AACSB Accreditation
    • Faculty and Staff Directory
    • Advisory Boards
    • Our Alumni Network
    • News and Events
  • Academics Backback to Main menu
    • Academic Programs
    • Graduate Programs
    • Undergraduate Academic Advising
    • Collaborative Leadership Minor & Minors for Non-Business Majors
    • CBA Scholars Academy
    • CBA Capstone Cup
  • Admissions Backback to Main menu
    • Undergraduate Admissions
    • Graduate Admissions
    • Scholarships
    • Graduate Assistantships
    • Financial Support
    • Request Information
  • Student Involvement Backback to Main menu
    • Student Involvement
    • CBA Student Organizations
    • Study Abroad
    • CBA Internships
  • Outreach Backback to Main menu
    • Outreach
    • Genius of Buffett
    • High School Business Competition
    • Prep Academy
    • Maverick Investment Camp
    • Maverick Young Entrepreneur Bootcamp
    • CBA Career Outfitters
    • International Outreach
  • Centers and Programs
    Centers
    • CBA Career Center
    • CBA Center for Real Estate and Asset Management
    • The Center for Collaboration Science
    • UNO Center for Economic Education
    • Center for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Franchising
    • Center for International Business Initiatives
    • Koraleski CAB Lab
    • Nebraska Business Development Center
    Programs
    • Executive and Professional Development Program
    • NSF I-Corps
    • Financial Literacy Program
    Students work in the Jack and Stephanie Koraleski Commerce and Applied Behavioral Laboratory
    CBA students are doing amazing things.

    Explore the possibilities - contact us today.

    Email CBA(Opens an external site in a new window)
  • Resources Backback to Main menu
    • Tutoring
    • Undergraduate Academic Advising
    • CBA Career Center
    • UNO Support Services
    • Mammel Hall
    • Mammel Hall Technology Services
    • Magazine and Newsletter
    • UNO Speech Center
  • Executive Education Backback to Main menu
    • Executive and Professional Development Program
    • index
  1. UNO
  2. College of Business Administration
  3. News
  4. 2025
  5. 09
  6. A Vision Shared: The Symbolism and Future of the Maverick Technology Venture Alliance

A Vision Shared: The Symbolism and Future of the Maverick Technology Venture Alliance

Some of UNeTech’s most enduring success stories start not in a lab, but with a conversation. This one began years ago in a campus conference room, over coffee and whiteboards, when the question was first asked: "What if we didn’t just file patents? What if we helped students, researchers, and entrepreneurs build companies?"

  • published: 2025/09/29
  • contact: UNeTech
A group of five people are sitting around a rectangular conference table in a meeting room. One person on the left is speaking with hand gestures, while others listen and take notes. Papers, laptops, notebooks, and water bottles are on the table. A large screen at the end of the room displays the time "2:25" with a red background and a logo. There’s also a whiteboard behind the group with some writing on it.

MTVA meeting with industry expert for upcoming technology.

Several people are seated around a large wooden table in a modern meeting room. In the foreground, a person in a black hoodie is working on a laptop and writing on a tablet. Others sit further back, facing a wall-mounted screen, and appear to be listening attentively. Laptops, notebooks, and a microfiber cloth are on the table. The room has large windows with natural light and a ceiling-mounted camera above the table.

MTVA meeting in the Entrepreneurship lab at UNO’s Mammel Hall.

Five people wearing matching black polo shirts with the MTVA logo stand outdoors in front of decorative metal bike racks. Two people in the front are smiling and holding onto the racks, while the others stand in a line behind them. Trees and a building are visible in the background.

Maverick Technology Venture Alliance students and advisors outside of Mammel Hall at University of Nebraska Omaha

A collage of three professional headshots of men in suits, arranged with two portraits at the top and one below. All are smiling and posed against softly blurred indoor backgrounds.

Clockwise MTVA Faculty and Advisors: Dr Brent Clark, Stephen Hug, Lamonte Russell

Some of UNeTech’s most enduring success stories start not in a lab, but with a conversation. This one began years ago in a campus conference room, over coffee and whiteboards, when the question was first asked: What if we didn’t just file patents? What if we helped students, researchers, and entrepreneurs build companies?

The Maverick Technology Venture Alliance (MTVA) was born from that question—and from a shared desire to make sure great ideas didn’t just collect dust on a shelf. Today, MTVA is not only a testament to how far the University of Nebraska (NU) System has come in building a culture of entrepreneurship; it’s a vision of where we’re going together.

The Roots of the MTVA: A Problem Worth Solving

Born out of the Omaha Medical Technology Pipeline and UNeTech’s early commitment to bringing innovation out into the world, the Institute needed a partner to find best practices in entrepreneurship, strategy and voice of customer. Going back to its roots as a shared institute between UNO and UNMC, UNeTech saw the college of business as a natural home for its programs but struggled to find a partner.

That’s where Brent Clark, an associate professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), entered the story. His academic research and teaching focused on startup theory and lean business model development—and he brought that vision to the table when he collaborated with UNeTech and OMTP to create what would become the Maverick Technology Venture Alliance.

Together, they started piloting the idea: could graduate and undergraduate students from UNO build commercialization pathways for inventions coming out of UNMC and beyond? Dr. Clark, along with Stephen Hug, UNeTech’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence, and Erik Peterson, a seasoned entrepreneur and UNO instructor, brought the program from theory to practice. They led MTVA’s early cohorts, coaching students as they built feasibility studies, market analyses, and business models for real biomedical innovations. Lamonte Russell was hired as UNeTech’s Manager of Strategy and Ventures and replaced Peterson in 2023.

Clark, Russell, and Hug work directly with MTVA students so they can gain real-world experience with UNeTech startups. The work they do is customized and detailed for each startup, and it’s the kind of research new companies spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to generate.

According to Hug, student development of the Business Model Canvas and external market analysis are the most crucial items students develop for clients. “These tools provide startup companies with a clear strategic framework and a grounded understanding of their market landscape, enabling them to make informed decisions and accelerate their path to viability,” Hug said.

For Clark, the most important research the MTVA generates is most often customer discovery. Customer discovery includes calling potential clients to ask unbiased questions about the day-to-day jobs customers do to determine if there truly is a need for an invention. Customer discovery helps determine if the problem an invention has been created solve, truly is a problem worth solving. “This sort of data is embedded within people and can’t be generated simply by comparing numbers of looking up industry data,” Clark said. “It only comes by engaging with potential customers and having conversations about subjective value and personal experience.”

A Symbol of Collaboration

MTVA is, in many ways, more than a program—it’s a symbol.

UNeTech itself is a joint institute between UNO and UNMC. That partnership is easy to overlook in the day-to-day, but MTVA makes it visible. While our UNMC office is nestled in Annex 32, at UNO our home is Mammel Hall, surrounded by the faculty, students, and mentors who give this program its energy. That physical split mirrors the strength of the partnership: two institutions, one purpose.

For several years now, generations of students—many of whom may never have set foot in a lab—have worked on medical device and software innovations coming directly out of the clinical and research work of Nebraska’s medical community. They’ve sat in the same room as surgeons and biomedical engineers, asked tough questions, and proposed viable business plans.

MTVA offers students more than a class or internship. It offers them a chance to step into a real-world problem and contribute to something tangible. And in doing so, it reminds Omaha what UNO and UNMC can achieve when they work together—something our community sees more of every year.

“This partnership connects academic insight with practical application, preparing students for their future careers and enabling them to make meaningful contributions to Nebraska’s innovation ecosystem,” Hug said. “It represents a strong collaboration that boosts the educational and research missions of both institutions. For me, it highlights the immense value of offering UNO students real-world experiential learning opportunities, guided by experienced entrepreneurship faculty and business leaders.”

From Grant to Growth: A Bold New Chapter

Like many programs at UNeTech, MTVA began with support from the Economic Development Administration (EDA). Those early grant dollars made it possible to pilot new ideas, support students, and prove the value of the work. It was EDA funding that allowed MTVA to grow from a hypothesis into a flagship program.

But as of this year, something meaningful has changed.

For the first time, MTVA is jointly funded by UNO and UNMC themselves. Not through a grant or foundation, but as part of their own investment in innovation. That shift matters. It signals that the value of this program isn’t just experimental—it’s essential. External funding helped to create the program, but the grant cycle doesn’t always line up with the needs of students, innovators, entrepreneurs or investors. The work of the MTVA needs reliable support.

“This partnership has been a homerun in so many ways,” Clark said. “The impacts to students and inventors have been far reaching for many years now. To see UNO and UNMC come together to fund the program into the future is clear evidence that the benefits are highly valuable to both sides. It’s really been satisfying to see leadership on both sides recognize this.”

This shift in funding reflects both the symbolism and the spirit of MTVA. It marks a maturity—a moment where we, as a university system, are no longer testing the waters of innovation and entrepreneurship. We’re swimming in them.

It also reflects a bold vision: that the programs UNeTech starts can—and should—find permanent homes in the community, in classrooms, in citywide ecosystems. That the spark of a grant-funded idea can ignite lasting institutional change.

What Comes Next

The work isn’t done. The future of MTVA lies in the next cohort of students, the next generation of UNO innovators, and the next big idea that walks through UNeTech’s doors. But if you walk the halls of Mammel Hall during an MTVA session, or peek into a Zoom call where students are pitching prototypes to clinical inventors, you’ll see something rare: belief in possibility. And the potential for growth.

“I would love to see the MTVA expand to provide services to community technology startups in addition to our current focus on university tech startups,” Clark said.

Hug said he would like to see expansion in customer discovery. “Deepening engagement with potential users and stakeholders will not only validate ideas early but also sharpen product-market fit—significantly increasing the likelihood of success for UNeTech startups,” he said.

Wherever the future leads the MTVA, we’re proud of the roots of this program. We’re proud of the people who built it. But more than anything, we’re proud to share this space between two great institutions, and to keep building what comes next.

News Sections

  • College of Business Administration News Center
  • UNO News Center
  • Maverick Daily
  • The Bullseye
  • Campus Events

Featured

  • UNO Future of Work Symposium Spotlights Business Mavericks Shaping Tomorrow’s Careers
  • A Vision Shared: The Symbolism and Future of the Maverick Technology Venture Alliance
  • When Hail Meets High Finance: Nebraska's Insurance Crisis Points to America's Climate Future
  • Real Madrid Graduate School Universidad Europea and UNO Launch Dual Degree in Sports Management

Contact Us

If you have a story idea, news tip or inquiry, please contact:

College of Business Administration
unocbainfo@unomaha.edu • 402.554.2303


About the College of Business Administration

College of Business Administration

Address
  • College of Business Administration
  • 300 Mammel Hall
  • 6708 Pine Street
  • Omaha, NE 68182   map
  • unocbainfo@unomaha.edu
Social media
Contact Us
  • Dean's Office: 402.554.2303
  • Academic Advising: 402.554.3419
  • AACSB Accreditation
  • Nebraska Business Development Center
US News and World Report Best Colleges Business Program 2022

Next Steps

  • Visit UNO
  • Request Information
  • Apply for Admission
  • The UNO Advantage
  • Our City (Omaha)

Just For You

  • Future Students
  • Current Students
  • Work at UNO
  • Faculty and Staff
  • A-Z List

Popular Services and Resources

  • my.unomaha.edu
  • Academic Calendar
  • Campus Buildings & Maps
  • Library
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Course Catalogs
  • Internships & Career Development
  • The Maverick Store
  • MavCARD Services
  • Military-Connected Resource Center
  • Speech Center
  • Writing Center
  • Human Resources
  • Center for Faculty Excellence

Affiliates

  • University of Nebraska System
  • NU Foundation
  • Buffett Early Childhood Institute
  • Daugherty Water for Food Institute
  • National Strategic Research Institute
  • Peter Kiewit Institute
  • Rural Prosperity Nebraska
  1. University Policies
  2. Privacy Statement
  3. Accessibility
  1. 402.554.2800

University of Nebraska Omaha
University of Nebraska Omaha, 6001 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE, 68182
  • ©  
  • Emergency Information Alert
  • MavsReport

Social Media


Omaha Skyline

Our Campus. Otherwise Known as Omaha.

The University of Nebraska does not discriminate based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and/or political affiliation in its education programs or activities, including admissions and employment. The University prohibits any form of retaliation taken against anyone for reporting discrimination, harassment, or retaliation for otherwise engaging in protected activity. Read the full statement.