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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.

      Fulbright supports health care study

      by Sanjay Gupta
      CMU senior wins Fulbright grant to Finland, will study the country’s health care model.
      Mug-Bjork

      Anastasia Bjork, a Central Michigan University senior honors student from Ishpeming, Michigan, has received a prestigious Fulbright public choice master's degree grant to study at Tampere University in Finland.

      The health administration major looks to expand her knowledge of other health care models, an interest that was sparked by a CMU study abroad experience in Stockholm that focused on Sweden's health care system.

      "I was exposed to what you could do with universal or public health care systems," said the first-generation college student of Finnish descent.

      "I started thinking about how we could bring some of those policies to the U.S. without changing some of values we have in our health care system."

      She discovered her passion for health care while working for CMU Student Health Services as a freshman and for a health system in the Upper Peninsula, she said.

      "I had my own struggles with medical costs and trying to get adequate care. I decided that I wanted to go into something that could help change that in the U.S."

      Fulbright student programs are offered in more than 140 countries around the world. Students are selected based on their academic merit, leadership and cultural competency.

      Students interested in applying for funded international opportunities for graduate study can go to the CMU National Scholarship Program page.

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