Penn State President Eric Barron reiterated his love and commitment to Penn State as the keynote speaker for the third annual Invent Penn State Venture and IP Conference Thursday at the Penn Stater.

Invent Penn State held its first conference in 2016 with the goal of promoting innovation and entrepreneurship throughout the Penn State community and the state of Pennsylvania. The initiative has come a long way in its three years of existence, making several tangible impacts on research efforts and startup businesses based in the area.

“I’m happy to keep this job for awhile and I’m incredibly proud of Penn State,”  Barron said.

In 2016, Barron anticipated that Invent Penn State would be able to financially support eight to ten Launchbox startup businesses within three years. Today, incubator or accelerator programs at all 21 Penn State undergraduate communities are supported by Invent Penn State along with nearly 80 other startups. The initiative has grown enough to attract the support of PNC Bank, its largest corporate supporter.

Additionally, Invent Penn State has provided $2 million to 15 different technologies used by the university’s research field. Of these technologies, eight received $75,000 in jumpstart funding. The Smeal College of Business and Penn State Law, among others, have also supported the initiative.

Barron acknowledged Invent Penn State’s many skeptics who doubted the program’s ability to make an impact due to the university’s location. They questioned whether Penn Staters would even be willing to create their own startups. But the university’s many commonwealth campuses have helped its entrepreneurial presence grow in addition to the businesses based in University Park.

These doubters were also incorrect about State College’s location hindering Penn State Invent’s success according to several recent rankings. Forbes ranked the Borough as the seventh-best place to get an education in the United States, and State College was voted one of the 15 best places to live and start a business by Entrepreneur Magazine.

The university has also been recognized for its research capabilities — Penn State and Johns Hopkins are the only two universities in the United States to have ten top-ten research fields. Penn State recently passed the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.)  in this ranking, a distinction Barron hopes to protect.

“They’re in the rear-view mirror,” he said. “We’ll do our best to keep them there.”

Barron attributed the success of Invent Penn State and State College’s entrepreneurial climate to the community’s driven, talented workforce and the energy and enthusiasm surrounding it. Most experts believe that innovation efforts primarily come the east and west coasts of the United States. But Penn State’s recent success proves that these ideas and businesses can grow farther inland as well.