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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CMU poet’s words transformed into music

by Sarah Buckley

Central Michigan University English professor and poet Robert Fanning visited Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, January 20^th to lecture with nationally-prominent composer David Biedenbender about the emotional impact of poetry and music.

Inspired by Fanning’s recent poem “Infinity Room,” Biedenbender composed “in a field of stars,” a new 7-movement piece. Following their talk, Khemia Ensemble, an esteemed contemporary classical collective, performed the piece before a packed audience.

Fanning said his poem was sparked by the “infinity room” installations of internationally-renowned Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, one of which is on permanent display at Crystal Bridges. The piece also appears on an album called “Intersections,” recently launched on Ravello Records and available on all streaming services.

“It is an incredible honor, to hear one’s own words set to music and sung in such a breathtaking setting,” Fanning said. “The poem was inspired by music and visual art, and takes on a whole new life translated again into new music.”

This isn’t the first time Biedenbender found inspiration in Fanning’s work. They also collaborated on “Severance,” a concerto based on Fanning’s book of the same name. It was commissioned by the U.S. Navy Band and has been performed nationally, including for an audience of several thousand in Chicago December 20^th at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic.

Their most recent collaboration, “All We Are Given We Cannot Hold,” features compositions of seven of Fanning’s poems and shares its title with his new manuscript. Premiering recently in Texas, it will be performed March 13^th at Michigan State University’s Cook Recital Hall.