Professor Karl Okamoto, director of the Entrepreneurial and Business Law Program, received his sixth Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Science Foundation.

Okamoto will use the $172,000 award to continue developing the learning platform used by the company he co-founded, ApprenNet.  The company has developed an innovative online learning platform that enables students to polish their professional skills by creating videotapes of their responses to questions posed by hypothetical clients, students, etc.   Their performance is then evaluated through crowd-sourcing, and top-performers receive individual reviews by experienced professionals in different fields.

To date, Okamoto has received a total of $1.04 million in NSF grants.

In 2010, Okamoto launched Transactional LawMeets, which were the first competition anywhere to  allow law students to demonstrate their mastery of deal-making skills.  The popular competitions have expanded, with regional rounds sponsored around the U.S. at schools including Boston College Law School, Northwestern University Law School and the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.