The U.S. is facing significant challenges in bringing innovations based on emerging scientific discoveries into the global market. While the U.S. remains the world leader in scientific and engineering research and education, it can do much more to commercialize its best discoveries and catalyze the creation of ecologically beneficial products and ventures by increasing opportunities for the practical translation of research discoveries into inventions and technology innovations that will improve society and create economic benefits. For university research to achieve greater impact, academic researchers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines need tools, knowledge, and access to networks and resources that support and enable those outcomes. This symposium brings together leaders of programs that engage researchers, students, and faculty in engineering and science in pursuing innovative and entrepreneurial learning and doing. Panelists will discuss the creation of effective educational ecosystems for stimulating and supporting emerging STEM innovators and courses/programs designed to assist academic researchers to evaluate their technology’s readiness for translation into practical applications and eventual commercialization. The symposium will discuss the process of developing a healthy innovative and entrepreneurial ecosystem; “training the trainers”; and guiding students as they bring their inventions and innovations out of the lab and into the hands of the communities those solutions are designed to benefit.