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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. 

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.

      Bound for Belgium

      by Sanjna Jassi
      CMU computer science major adds Belgium to his study abroad resume.

      Fueled by a passion for travel, Dorien Smith, a Central Michigan University junior from Sterling Heights, Michigan, majoring in computer science and minoring in mathematics, was investigating possible study abroad possibilities for summer semester.

      “CMU makes it pretty easy to study abroad,” he said. “It does a great job of trying to push students to go beyond the regular coursework.

      “I studied abroad the summer of 2017 in Japan, I really liked going somewhere completely different from what I was used to. I wanted to have another internship this summer, and I wanted to go somewhere abroad at least one more time before I graduate.”

      After meeting with a study abroad advisor, Smith learned about the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience Association. IAESTE is a nonprofit association that brings together more than 4,000 students, 3,000 employers and 1,000 academic institutions for professional internships abroad, social and intercultural programs, and international networking in more than 80 countries.

      With only 50-75 internships available worldwide each year, the competition is intense.

      “They told me it was pretty rigorous, and I was like, all right, I’ll try it,” Smith said.

      He sent in his resume and was invited to come in for an interview. “Then suddenly I was told I had been nominated for a position.”

      Smith was placed with Inmanta, a technology and solutions provider in the telecommunications industry, based in Belgium.

      “They have this virtual lab system that they use to test products before they push them out to the customers, so I’ll be doing some work on their virtual lab environment, basically software engineering on where they do their simulations and tests,” Smith said.

      “When I worked on campus, we had a rudimentary version of that through our active directory. It’s pretty much just like a virtual computer inside of a network. Conceptually, it’s all the same, so I’m going to be programming on that.

      “My goal is job experience and to make the connections to allow me to do something like this indefinitely.”

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