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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Alumnus earns first professional lead broadcaster job

by Jason Fielder

As professional baseball gets ready to begin the 2023 season, so too, does CMU alumnus, Riley Edwards (’21). The former voice of CMU baseball will soon begin his first season as the play-by-play broadcaster/media relations and broadcasting manager for the Bowling Green Hot Rods, the High-A minor league affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays.

“I think everything I did since I arrived at CMU set me up to take advantage of opportunities like this,” Edwards says. “I know there’s a lot more work to do after this, but it feels good.”

As a freshman, Edwards got involved with the student radio station and began broadcasting local high school football games. He then worked on broadcasts for the CMU women’s basketball, baseball, and softball teams, adding even more sports to his resume as his time at CMU wore on.

“It didn’t matter what sport it was,” Edwards says. “I just did as many things as possible that would become available. TV, radio, it didn’t matter. Volleyball, wrestling, basketball, gymnastics…there wasn’t much that I’d turn down.”

Edwards eventually became the sports director at the radio station and used his summers to intern with minor league baseball teams across the Midwest and East Coast. One team he worked with was the Hot Rods, and when the main broadcaster took another job, he got the call to move up from the number two role, to number one.

“Where I’m starting now, I think, is perfect,” Edwards says. “I’d really like to end up in the Major Leagues somewhere. That’s a goal I don’t have a timetable for because it’s not easy to move up in this business. But it doesn’t really matter which team. I’ll go anywhere.”