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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Nature in Words

by Sarah Buckley

Central Michigan University student Weston Wise, a double major in Anthropology and English with a Creative Writing minor, has won the coveted Pierce Cedar Creek Institute Nature in Words Fellowship. He is the fifth CMU student writer to win this award in four years.

Department of English Language and Literature faculty member Robert Fanning is thrilled to hear this news.

“We are incredibly excited that Weston has won the Pierce Cedar Creek Fellowship—especially being the fifth CMU student writer in recent years to receive this award,” said Fanning. “Having the chance to write in nature will deepen his already-strong connection to the natural world, and inspire more of his fantastic poems.”

Pierce Cedar Creek Institute is an environmental education center located ten miles south of Hastings. It offers a competitive Creative Fellowship program that lets students spend five weeks at the institute, immersed in Michigan’s breathtaking natural environment. Fellows are given opportunities to work with mentors and be inspired by the beauty around them.

Weston Wise stands at a podium in front of glass windows to read from his poetry at Art Reach of Mid Michigan.

“I felt thrilled when I found out I had won,” said Wise. “This is an amazing opportunity and I feel lucky to be offered it. Through this fellowship, I hope to learn more about the natural world, make new friends, and produce writing that I'm excited about.”

This fellowship is another accolade added to Wise’s already overflowing portfolio. Wise is the author of two chapbooks that have been published in the last two years.

The first, "A Gentle and Modern Ape," was selected by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (NFSPS) in their College Undergraduate Poetry Competition as a winner of the Edna Meudt Memorial Award in the spring of 2023. His second chapbook, "The Songs of the Long Land," was published by Beyond Words Magazine in February of 2024.