Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship

We are a dedicated institute for student entrepreneurs across campus and beyond. We aim to maximize your success by fostering your entrepreneurial mindset, promote inter-disciplinary collaboration and provide support for the creation and development of your new ventures. Jumpstart your ideas and get involved today!

Tune in for excitement!

Passion. Potential. Pitches. Don't miss any of the 2025 New Venture Challenge excitement.

Tune in Friday, April 11 at 1 p.m. for great ideas and fierce competition. Then, join the judges, mentors, spectators and teams as they see who is going home with thousands of dollars in venture financing. The awards broadcast begins at 6:30 p.m. and one team will walk away as the overall best venture.

2025 NVC Competition Live Stream

2025 NVC Awards Live Stream

Start your entrepreneurial journey

Central Michigan University’s College of Business Administration is the home of the Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship and the first Department of Entrepreneurship in the state of Michigan. We are a student-centric hub where experiential, curricular, and external entrepreneurial opportunities intersect.

Our mission is to maximize student success by fostering a campus-wide entrepreneurial mindset that promotes inter-disciplinary collaboration and the creation of new ventures.

We aim to create innovative programming, boost cross-campus and ecosystem collaboration and provide a comprehensive mentoring program.

Our institute provides extracurricular opportunities and is open to all undergraduate and graduate CMU students.

Student opportunities

Meet experienced alumni, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors, and other business and political leaders.
Learn practical skills, innovative thinking, and connect with mentors and entrepreneurial resources.
Attend skill-building workshops and compete in pitch competitions and Hackathons.
Take part in special scholarship programs and travel experiences.
Pitch your venture at our signature New Venture Challenge event and compete for up to $20,000 in cash awards.

Find your path

Are you interested in becoming an entrepreneur?

Every journey is unique. Explore the opportunities that interest you.

A student standing with a faculty member holding big winning checks from the New Venture Challenge 2024.

Start up

Build up your venture idea.

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A student smiling and standing in front of his venture display at the 2024 New Venture Challenge.

Family business

Explore the Alternative Entrepreneurial Pathways category at NVC.

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A close-up of the Prusa i3 MK3 printer in the entrepreneurship makerspace, the IDEA Den in Grawn Hall 166.

Product and prototype design

Create and patent your ideas.

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Innovation

Explore your ideas and build your skills.

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A champion for all students

by Sarah Buckley

Central Michigan University alumnus Jason Westra-Hall, '18, is being recognized as an advocate for marginalized youth through young adult literature as a 2024 recipient of the Bill Konigsberg Award for Acts and Activism for Equity and Inclusion through Literature.

Westra-Hall is an English teacher at Grand Ledge High School and a graduate of the CMU English Education Program. Through his work both in and out of the classroom, he supports his students through academics and extracurriculars, giving his students a safe space in which to feel that they belong.

Established in 2018 by the Assembly for Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English, the Bill Konigsberg award is presented annually to an individual who has acted in selfless advocacy of marginalized youth through the creation, teaching, funding or other form of promotion of young adult literature.

Westra-Hall says he is elated and honored to receive the Bill Konigsberg award and to be nominated by a CMU aspiring teacher.

“At times, education can feel difficult, especially as a queer person, so when recognitions like this award happen, it’s so nice to know I am doing the right thing. At the same time, I also am in awe of being awarded because my instruction is informed by just trying to reach students and support them every step of the way. To fight for students and to support them is just an everyday thing that I aim to do," said Westra-Hall.

"It’s amazing to know that I’m having an impact that is far beyond the classroom in ways that I don’t always think about.”

He says CMU’s teacher education program not only provided consistent, robust, and immersive pedagogy that prepared him to work with all students, but also allowed him to be creative in his craft.

“I felt like I had my footing as a teacher before I even stepped into student teaching. The professors and courses at CMU have made it so much easier for me to succeed in this profession.”

Congratulations to Jason Westra-Hall for this honor; he is a shining example of a CMU alumnus who is using his skills to serve young people as an educator, and to be a model for future teachers.