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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Army scholarship may deepen CMU’s ROTC pool

by Vivek Rawat

The U.S. Army’s new cadet scholarship incentive award is expected to boost the number of freshmen entering CMU’s ROTC program.

A new tuition award program will make Central Michigan University more competitive in admitting three-year U.S. Army Cadet Command national scholarship winners into its Reserve Officer Training Corps program.

The Cadet Command awards three- and four-year scholarships to qualifying high school seniors. The new USACC National Scholarship Incentive Award will enable CMU to match other Michigan colleges and universities that cover freshman tuition and fees for the three-year scholarship winners.

Beginning in fall 2020, the award for the first 10 qualifying freshmen will cover the balance of fall and spring tuition and fees after all other merit-based institutional scholarships are applied.

To be eligible, students must receive a three-year USACC award, be accepted into CMU's program and also:

Enroll in at least 12 credit hours each semester.
Stay enrolled in CMU's ROTC program.
Keep at least a 2.5 GPA.
Not enlist in any branch of the U.S. armed forces.

"This scholarship represents CMU's commitment to attract the best and brightest students to our ROTC program and continue to advance a tradition of excellence that was established in 1952," said Lt. Col. Donald Pratt, military science and leadership department chair in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.