MSU Entrepreneurship Network to Provide One-Stop-Shop Services in East Lansing

Budding entrepreneurs in the Lansing region will soon have a one-stop-shop for all the resources they need to get started, thanks to a new venture out of Michigan State University.

The MSU Entrepreneurship Network will be formally unveiled Aug. 19 at a celebration at East Lansing’s Technology and Innovation Center, 325 E. Grand River Ave.

The network is a collaboration of several MSU and local entities dedicated to incubating new business.

“There are so many components to entrepreneurship,” says Bryan Ritchie, network director and a professor in MSU’s James Madison College. “There’s the business side, the engineering and manufacturing side, the policy side. So what we did is bring together all these people who are already doing entrepreneurship activities and said, ‘How do we coordinate all these activities?’

“So we said. ‘Let's create a network of all the assets on campus and give them all the resources in the community so they can sit down with all the right people at the right time.’”

Among other things that will be offered by the msuENet will be a new certificate program called Venture Creation and the Innovative Mindset. Launching this fall, the program features two courses and an experiential component, all designed to introduce participants to all aspects of entrepreneurship – business, psychology, sociology and finance, Ritchie said.

The certificate program is open to 60 people this year – 45 MSU students and 15 non-students. Anyone wanting more information can visit entrepreneurship.msu.edu

Source: Bryan Ritchie

Writer: Louise Knott Ahern