GatorNest

An 8-week required program whereby students work with a start-up organization to complete a project deliverable for the development of a new venture opportunity. Examples include customer analysis, competitive assessment, development of a marketing plan, financial due diligence, etc.

Mentoring Program

A program that aligns students with mentors in respective areas such as small businesses, high-growth enterprises, socially-responsible companies and the investment community.

Entrepreneur-in-Residence Program

Seasoned entrepreneurs spend a week on campus working one-on-one with entrepreneurship students. Activities also include classroom lectures, advisement to GatorNest project teams and networking sessions. There is generally follow-up contact and correspondence by students with the entrepreneurs after the visits.

Entrepreneurship Speaker and Luncheon Series

Throughout the year, students have the opportunity to participate in intimate discussions with numerous entrepreneurs and investors from a variety of sectors and backgrounds.

Start-Up Hour

Targeting a growing population of young, energetic entrepreneurs in Gainesville’s innovation ecosystem, Start-Up Hour provides the perfect monthly venue for these change makers to network, share ideas, and establish partnerships.

The Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center is deeply committed to experiential learning, or learning by doing and by observing others doing. Our unique approach centers on entrepreneurship as method, one that can be mastered by learning experientially. The ability to navigate the unpredictable and uncontrollable entrepreneurial path requires that theory have relevancy for real world contexts and that students be required to continuously practice, reflect, learn and apply.

All students in the Master of Science in Entrepreneurship (MSE) will build an experience portfolio while in the program, and be prepared to present that portfolio upon program completion. The portfolio will include specific experiential learning activities and projects undertaken and completed by the student. It will consist of approved experiential learning opportunities tied to:

• particular classes taken while in the program
• opportunities pursued independently of formal entrepreneurship courses
• the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center’s entrepreneurial programs, and
• most importantly, experience in venture creation

These experiences will be selected from the MSE Program Experience Portfolio Checklist.

Social Entrepreneurship & Sustainability Initiative

Social Entrepreneurship & Sustainability Initiative at the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center empowers students to use the skills and strategies of business leaders to create innovative and sustainable solutions to social, environmental, and economic problems, locally and around the world.

ENT 6505: Social Entrepreneurship

The purpose of this course is to provide students with an introduction to the major opportunities and challenges facing social entrepreneurs and their ventures. Social entrepreneurship’s rapid emergence over the past decade has coincided with the rise of information technology that has given individuals more power now than at any point in history. The social entrepreneurs question is simple: How can we use that power to make a positive, lasting contribution to society?

ENT 6930: Innovation & Sustainability

This course examines the number of unsustainable paths that society has taken including rising costs of healthcare, poverty, environmental degradation and ecosystem decline, pollution, migration and urbanization, inefficient transportation, and paradigm shifts in education. The focus in the course will be examining these unsustainable paths as opportunities and responsibilities for future business leaders. Students will work on their own social venture or with a community venture partner as a hands-on component in the course.