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.

Learn more

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.

Learn more

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.

Learn more

Innovation

Explore your ideas and build your skills.

Learn more

CMU Health receives grant to improve infant safe sleep

by Alexandria Rene

SAGINAW, Mich. – CMU Health announces the receipt of a generous award of close to $20,000 to reduce infant mortality through the purchase of 285 pack ‘n play systems to administer to patients in need.

The funding awarded through the Saginaw County Health Department: Advancing Healthy Births Mini-Grant will provide babies with a safe and separate sleep environment to reduce the chance of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), which accounts for about one-third of all sleep deaths in infants younger than one-year-old.

“Saginaw County has an infant mortality rate of 8.8 infant deaths per 1,000 live births and the city of Saginaw is averaging 13.2 infant deaths,” said President and CEO Dr. Samuel Shaheen of CMU Medical Education Partners. “These numbers are astronomical especially given that the majority of these deaths could have been prevented if the baby had been in a safe and separate sleep environment.”

A safe sleep environment consists of the use of a firm, flat sleep surface where a baby is placed on their back without objects nearby and in a crib, bassinet, or pack ‘n play separate from family members.

This grant also builds upon CMU Health’s coalition partner BWell Saginaw’s initiative to improve maternal and child health challenges in Saginaw County and the goal to reduce infant mortality rates in the City of Saginaw by 50% by December 2026.

Shaheen hopes these sleep systems along with the additional support resources CMU Health offers will encourage patients and the community to understand the importance of this lifesaving education and reduce the number of sleep-related deaths.

Current and new patients interested in these services may contact Kathryn Debo, community outreach and patient wellness coordinator, at 989-558-6428 or visit cmuhealth.org for more information.