REDe Entrepreneurship Summit

About

Launched in 2018, the REDe Entrepreneurship Summit is an annual speaker event the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE). Our goal for the REDe Summit is to inspire students with varied academic backgrounds, such as in the arts, engineering, pharmacy, or business, to engage in entrepreneurship.

This summit is created to encourage, celebrate, and enhance entrepreneurial endeavors among Ole Miss students across campus, with a different focus each year.

The 2026 speakers are:

Maryn Sifrit

CEO and Co-Founder of Collegemate

Maryn Sifrit is the CEO and Co-Founder of Collegemate, the nation’s leading platform connecting incoming college students with roommates and friendships before they arrive on campus. What began as an idea during a road trip between the University of Alabama and the University of Mississippi in 2020 has grown into a thriving technology company serving more than 500,000 students across 100 universities nationwide.

Driven by a passion for solving real-world problems through innovation, Maryn has led Collegemate from a startup concept to a nationally recognized business by overseeing the company’s strategy, fundraising, marketing, and growth. When she co-founded Collegemate, the company’s earliest funding came through entrepreneurship competitions, where she earned top honors including first place at the LandShark Pitch Competition, the Charles Doty Entrepreneurship Award, and the Gillespie Business Competition. Those early wins helped transform Collegemate from an idea into one of the largest college roommate and friendship platforms in the country.

Today, Maryn continues to lead Collegemate’s expansion while sharing the lessons she’s learned about building a business from the ground up, embracing resilience, and creating products that create meaningful connections. She is passionate about encouraging aspiring entrepreneurs to take the leap, trust their ideas, and build companies that solve real problems.

Bill Rayburn

CEO and Co-Founder of mTrade

Bill Rayburn is Co-Founder and CEO of mTrade. His primary responsibilities include raising capital, generating revenue and developing the overall strategy with Lois. Previously, he was Co-Founder and CEO of FNC and led the sale of the company to CoreLogic (now named Cotality). Earlier in his career, he was a finance professor in the Ole Miss School of Business and co-founded Seminars, Inc., a seminar and training company. Bill received the Farrington Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2011. He holds a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Memphis and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).