Membership FAQ

Innovate@UCLA leads the SoCal technology community with exceptional networking, quality professional education and informed insights into innovative and disruptive technologies. Innovate@UCLA’s programs are delivered through close collaboration with world-renowned UCLA faculty, Silicon Beach entrepreneurs and tech leaders from member organizations.

Membership benefits include the following:

• Staff Development: Corporate membership provides a unique staff development opportunity for Technology leaders to allow their direct reports and other high-potential staff members from the entire organization to interact with their peers and leaders across diverse industries.

• UCLA: A connection to, and an affinity with, one of the world’s leading teaching and research Universities, and supporting its mission of Education, Research and Service, through collaborative initiatives.

• Faculty: The ability to participate in leading-edge engineering research projects, and to partner with University resources to co-develop innovative solutions for your business/industry.

• Students: The ability to engage with high-potential students in the engineering, data analytics and business process disciplines, to connect with low-cost student resource teams to help solve business problems, and to participate as mentors and judges in student workforce development programs, such as the annual ASA DataFest hackathon and the Young Tech Professionals Bootcamp.

• Education: Technology executives and thought leaders share experiences and gain insights to understand the relevance of emerging tech solutions, and how to guide and implement them in their rapidly transforming business environments.

• Networking:  Friendly, collegial settings where you and your team can network and collaborate with an engaged SoCal community of leading technology practitioners and providers, world-class University educators and researchers, emerging technology originators, and a talented student population.

We have 3 quarterly events (Spring, Summer, Fall) where we invite renowned speakers/panelists to present innovative tech topics (CyberSecurity, Blockchain, Data Analytics, etc). We also organize quarterly CIO Exchange Dinners geared towards CIOs and senior tech leaders to hear a UCLA Faculty member or researcher present their latest research on technology related topics. In addition, we organize Tech Bootcamps for students as well as support many student clubs and events on campus. The last event of the year is the Executive Leadership Awards Dinner where we select 3 awardees (Public Sector, Enterprise, Emerging Tech) from So Cal companies or organizations that have leveraged innovative technology to advance the mission of their organizations. We also offer virtual programs on a regular basis.

We organize Tech Bootcamps twice a year where the students learn how to ideate and build an MVP using Google Venture’s Design Thinking framework. The participating students are split into teams with each team having its own industry coach. In addition, session speakers and experts from the industry are in attendance to present soft skills topics such as project management, presentation and communication skills, innovation for social good, delivering customer value, etc.

The SoCal Community can engage with UCLA via either becoming a corporate member of Innovate@UCLA; sponsoring Innovate@UCLA programs and conferences; volunteering to speak at events and conferences; volunteering to coach Innovate@UCLA Tech Bootcamps for students and participating at other Innovate@UCLA sponsored programs such as Datafest, LA Hacks, etc.

Membership is organization/corporation based. Once the organization/corporation becomes a member, then all its employees can attend Innovate@UCLA events, workshops and programs at no additional cost. The membership levels are dependent whether the entity is a practitioner, provider or non-profit. If you like to become a member, please visit our Membership page and complete the membership application.