At Jefferson, we believe that innovation is sparked by the constant exchange of ideas, by forging connections among visionaries from various disciplines, professions, and backgrounds. The Innovation Speaker Series does just that, exposing members of the Jefferson community to influential and creative thought leaders in medicine, academia, and industry. It’s a homegrown TED Talk, dedicated to generating conversation and making great ideas accessible to our 40,000–strong workforce and student body.

Philanthropic support of the Innovation Speaker Series is vital to attracting the best and brightest to our campus, sparking discussions and collaborations that could lead to bold new solutions to today’s big challenges.

Jefferson is a preeminent professional university combining a top-20 program in fashion and design with one of the oldest medical schools in the nation. The Jefferson Health Hack celebrates this diversity of disciplines, bringing together individuals from seemingly incongruous fields to “hack” bold solutions to modern healthcare challenges. This high-energy, three-day event attracts innovators and entrepreneurs from a variety of colleges, countries, and cultures in a friendly competition to pitch, prototype, and promote unique innovations to a panel of judges. Winners receive a cash prize to help bring their ideas to life.

Philanthropic support is vital to sustaining and expanding this unique event, catalyzing cross-disciplinary collaborations, big ideas, and novel inventions to effect positive change for the future of healthcare.

The Jefferson JAZ Tank Challenge, a reinvention of the hit show Shark Tank, lets our students, employees, and alumni present their big ideas to a panel of professionals and investors. The prize: cash, mentorship, incubator space, and more to help bring their innovation to life. Whether it’s HealthIT, MedTech, Big Data, or BioTech, we’re helping our homegrown entrepreneurs incubate, accelerate, and cultivate startup companies that focus on health innovation.

JAZ Tank is truly a unique event in academic medicine, one that is definitively Jefferson. With your philanthropic support, we can help more members of our growing community discover their inner inventors and change the future of care delivery, one idea at a time.