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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AI meets ethical hacking: Making cybersecurity more accessible

by Teagan Haynes

What if powerful AI tools could help ethical hackers find system flaws faster and without going through many years of training? CMU triple major, in mathematics, cybersecurity, and computer science, Jonathan Gregory is a recipient of the 2025 President’s Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Research and Creative Accomplishments based, in part, on his research of ethical hacking.

A man holding a certificate and smiling at another man.

Ethical hacking, also called penetration testing, helps cybersecurity experts find weaknesses in computer systems before bad actors do. Normally, this kind of work requires a lot of training and experience. But with the rise of smart AI tools, it might become easier.

Gregory’s project used a powerful AI model called Mistral 7B, which runs on a regular computer such as a laptop. He used this model to help with hacking tasks in a safe and legal way. After providing the AI with articles and other information about how to gain access to protected parts of a system, the model was able to successfully "break in" during tests.

This result shows that even free, AI tools can help with ethical hacking. More research is needed to try different kinds of attacks and possibly uncover unknown security flaws in the future.

Gregory credits the mentorship from Qi Liao, Ph.D. and Debraj Chakrabarti, Ph.D., for helping him bring several research projects to publication. Both professors nominated Gregory for the President’s Award.

Liao wrote, “In my 15 years of teaching at CMU, I have never encountered a student like Jonathan. Jonathan has already published five peer-reviewed papers with at least three more in the pipeline – a feat that is nearly unprecedented for an undergraduate.” Gregory looks forward to attending graduate school at the University of Wisconsin after graduation from CMU.