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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Making connections with cotton

by Sanjna Jassi

An industry grant will bring Central Michigan University students new lessons in the ways of social media influencers.

An industry grant is bringing Central Michigan University students new lessons in the ways of social media influencers.

And they're putting those lessons to work in a competition to create their own promotions on Instagram, with $2,700 in prize money at stake.

Winners of the Ultimate Cotton Influencer Challenge will be presented April 6 at the Threads fashion show.

Human environmental studies faculty members Joy Lee and Ian R. Mull received a $33,000 grant from Cotton Inc. to support the competition and online learning modules. Students will learn how to create effective images and videos for Instagram and increase followers' engagement.

The challenge is open to all current CMU students and provides an opportunity to create social media content for a worldwide trade organization, Cotton Inc. This platform gives CMU students — especially in fashion, business, marketing, advertising or art — a chance to demonstrate their skills and social media savvy.

The competition deadline is March 31. Rules and learning modules are on the competition website.

Mull, Lee, graduate student Lauren Agnew, and undergraduate students Nick Sullivan and Natalie Zainea began devising the challenge in January.

"The objective of the challenge is for the students to incorporate the learning modules by creating impactful and compelling posts that can be uploaded to Instagram to promote cotton," Mull explained. "Students will submit their images, hashtags, emojis and written content to be entered in the competition."

The challenge kicked off March 14 with a campus visit from Kia Marie, the New York-based beauty and fashion influencer known as The Notorious KIA, on Twitter as @theNotoriousKia.