Earlier this year I had a chance to give a talk at the Duke Startup Challenge, Duke’s annual $50,000 startup competition. As part of the program, I talked with several students to learn about entrepreneurial initiatives on Duke’s campus. Locally, I’ve been thinking about Georgia Tech and how to get more startup activity on campus (albeit I don’t have a good feel for Georgia Tech since I never attended but I do it as a big opportunity for Atlanta).
Here are some ideas to promote entrepreneurship on college campuses:
- Annual startup competition with prize money (Rice has the largest prize money of any school)
- Student business incubator (Duke has DUHatch)
- Technology incubator that isn’t associated with students (Georgia Tech has ATDC)
- Advertising program to promote successful alumni entrepreneurs (flyers, website, press releases, etc)
- Entrepreneurship week on campus with a number of events
- Organization for alumni interested in entrepreneurship around the world (Duke has the Duke Global Entrepreneurship Network – DukeGEN)
- Dorm room fund for students to invest VC dollars in student ideas (Penn has the Dorm Room Fund)
- Internship and career fairs connecting startups with students (see Hypepotamus and their Summer Startup Academy)
Infusing startups into the fabric of college life poses a great opportunity for helping our future entrepreneurs.
What else? What are some other ideas to promote entrepreneurship on college campuses?
David Cummings on Startups 
Some of your ideas are already in practice at GeorgiaTech. In fact, the Class of 1973 is raising money for an Entrepreneurship Program Endowment as part of our 40th Reunion Class Project. Johnson Cook should be able to tell you more, or I would delighted to help you get better connected with some key folks at Tech.
Reblogged this on SG Rat Pack Blog and commented:
Singaporean Universitities should have more of these schemes. Entrepreneurship is, after all, a key driving force of Singapore’s economy.
David,
Here are a few additional ideas on collegiate entrepreneurship:
1) I wrote a piece on the Duke InCube program, an apartment on central campus that houses about 20 student entrepreneurs. To be eligible, the students must be actively running a business. This type of themed housing seems valuable in creating a peer support system.
2) Most universities have substantial communications and social media infrastructures, so when current OR alumni student entrepreneurs have something newsworthy to communicate, it is reasonably easy to use this channel to amplify a story since the stories tend to show the university in a progressive, favorable light.
3) Self-promotion warning: About six months ago, I started a website called An Entrepreneurial Life (http://anentrepreneuriallife.com) to share news and stories about student entrepreneurs around the world. The idea is to create something like VentureBeat for campus entrepreneurs – and my goal is to provide an alternative narrative to “build an app, raise VC money, and sell it for a billion dollars.”
…Tim
When I went to business school at the university of Colorado, they had only a few entrepreneurship classes. I think adding more classes and subject matters to students choices for classes are a huge advantage.
A strong mentoring program and the involvement of entrepreneurs in the student business startups offers critical insight and engage for young entrepreneurs.