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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.

      New National Science Foundation grant helps students find their fit in STEM careers

      by Henry Heller

      Jennifer L. Weible, Ph.D., a professor at Central Michigan University, has been awarded an iTEST grant from the National Science Foundation for her project “Making Wearables for High School Learners”. This two-year project has been funded from Summer 2023 to Summer 2025 and centers around sparking curiosity in STEM using computational thinking, coding, and electronic textiles. 

      Along with collaborators from Penn State and Upward Bound (a program for under-served students), she is designing and teaching a camp this summer and hopes to provide opportunities for high school students to explore career options in STEM fields. This will be done through activities such as designing and coding a digital game and using electronic textiles, conductive thread, and circuits to create a controller to play their game.  

      Jennifer Weible is supporting these activities through the NSF grant awarded to her and her collaborators. This grant allows the team to fund several student researchers, buy camp supplies, collect data, and analyze it. The teams’ goals are 1) to improve the way that students learn about computational thinking and coding, 2) to explore the role of curiosity in making, and 3) to open doors to careers in STEM fields.  

      This story is brought to you by the  Office of Research and Graduate Studies.

       

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