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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Professor Wins Fulbright Scholar Award

by Henry Heller

Professor Nailya DeLellis, from the School of Health Sciences, received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program Award in the field of Public Health from the U.S. Department of Health and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. 

During most of the 2023-2024 academic year DeLellis will work on-site in Central Asia at the Karaganda State Medical University in Karaganda, Kazakhstan.  Intermittently, she will fulfill part of her Fulbright mission online from her office at Central Michigan University. 

Her Fulbright mission will focus on teaching and consulting on research design, research methods, and research ethics. This includes accessing and employing publicly available databases of the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control. In addition, she will offer seminars on selected aspects of the U.S. health system. 

This is the second major Fulbright Award received by DeLellis. Previously she received a Fulbright Specialist Award in the field of Global Health. At that time, she taught and consulted with faculty and graduate students at the West Kazakhstan Medical University in Aktobe (2016) and at the Karaganda State Medical University (2019). DeLellis joins an extraordinarily small group of Americans who have received both a Fulbright Scholar Award and a Fulbright Specialist Award.  

 DeLellis indicated that upon her return to CMU, she will be pleased to aid other faculty throughout the university who wish to apply for Fulbright Awards or who wish to explore such possibilities with their students. 

She stated further that her upcoming Fulbright service in Central Asia will provide her with fresh new insights to incorporate into her teaching, advising, service, and research agenda. DeLellis is inspired by the knowledge that mutually benefits healthcare professionals in the United States and their peers abroad during international visits and exchanges. 

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