First, as we begin our second decade of innovation, a very warm welcome to our incoming class of MBA students and our inaugural class of Master of Finance students. Our Rady School community continues to grow! As you know, the successes of the Rady community in the first 10 years were exceptional. With your support, we launched the school with a world-class campus. Our faculty created a hands-on learning environment featuring our unique Lab to Market core sequence. This of course has fostered the growth of startup companies and propelled new ideas, products and services within established organizations. Over 75 companies founded by Rady students and alumni are operational today, and Rady alums achieved a nearly $2 billion impact on the innovation economy in the last year alone.
The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well at Rady! It thrives through our StartR Accelerator Program, which will graduate its second class this fall, and the mystartupXX program, which was recently awarded a $50,000 grant from the Small Business Administration. Innovation is what we preach. More importantly, innovation is what we practice as a school!
Our school entered the rankings in 2013 and continues to climb on the local, regional, national and global scale. Our goal – to be among the very best!
We have even greater expectations for the next 10 years! The launch of our Master of Finance is just the beginning. We are planning Master Programs in Accounting, as well as in Business Analytics. A number of new centers are developing to support the strategic initiatives of the school and the UC San Diego campus. It has always been exciting to be a part of the Rady School! It is even more exciting as we move into our second decade!
The Rady School…will never stop starting up!