The gift is meant to support experiential learning and research in the program, which the university announced last fall as the country's first-of-its-kind to allow applications from incoming freshmen. More than 3,500 applied for the inaugural class of 50 students.
"High school maker spaces are filled with some of the most intelligent and creative students in our country, captivated by the possibilities of robotics," Gurley said in a news release. "Providing the financial resources to expand and strengthen Texas Robotics will ensure it attracts the most talented students — those with the greatest potential to become our nation's future innovators and disruptors."
The donation will fund freshmen research and updates to lab equipment, computing power and materials, according to the university. It also establishes the Amy and Bill Gurley Endowment for Texas Robotics, providing a matching source for future donations that create endowments.
"Our state and our university have always been on the frontier of innovation with a shared goal to be the best," UT Interim President Jim Davis said. "Bill's gift drives that excellence."
Texas Robotics is an interdisciplinary program for graduate and undergraduate students across the colleges of engineering and natural sciences. Those students pair their research with majors or fields such as aerospace engineering, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering and computer science. About 200 students participate, with 50 of them in an undergraduate minor formerly open exclusively to upperclassmen.
Gurley's gift will help support an additional 50 freshmen. Those students will gain entry to an honors residential living program, a freshman research initiative, and eventually the minor.
"This gift is really going to launch us to the next level," said Peter Stone, founder and director of Texas Robotics. "We're already in the conversation as one of the top robotics (programs) in the country, and this is going to allow us to really go toe to toe with anybody."
Gurley received his master's in business administration from UT's McCombs School of Business. Students in Texas Robotics are conducting research that hasn't been commercialized, but they're exploring how robots might help in a number of settings, including aiding nurses in a hospitals, replacing humans in hazardous environments, and providing physical therapy for patients recovering from strokes or injuries.
Kyle Morgenstein, a fifth-year doctoral student, said he has sometimes seen younger students lacking hands-on experience before taking graduate-level courses. The expansion of the undergraduate program should help those students get a better foundation, he said.
"It'll be really amazing for them to have dedicated programs where they can learn, because they have so much passion," Morgenstein said. "By the time they decide to either go into the workforce or apply for grad school, they're going to be a lot more prepared than what we're currently seeing."
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