The University of Delaware Board of Trustees unanimously voted to establish the Neil Book School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship within the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics at its semiannual meeting on Monday, May 11.

Alec Boyd is a fall 2025 entrepreneurship grad with a minor in professional selling and sales management and a familiar face in the Venture Development Center. When he tried to transfer a few community college courses back to the University of Delaware to save time and tuition, he hit a wall of PDFs, emails, and outdated processes. Alec leveraged his coursework plus VentureOn, Pitch Party, and Hen Hatch to turn a personal frustration into a tool that can save students real time and real money: Equivly.

Relay Manufacturing was founded by Rich Hayburn, a University of Delaware Class of 2020 graduate who studied Mechanical Engineering with an Integrated Design minor, along with a math minor and manufacturing concentration. While at UD, Rich leaned into Horn Entrepreneurship through Summer Founders, NSF I-Corps, and VentureOn, experiences that helped him turn hands-on problem solving into a growing business.