“Encourage the CU pioneering spirit to pursue entrepreneurial aspirations, build a bridge to the investment community, and develop viable start-ups through an interdisciplinary venture challenge.”

The Boulder-Denver area is one of the nation’s best places to start a business. A host of success stories – Celestial Seasonings, Izzy Beverages, Crocs, and Wild Oats – all started in Boulder. The CU NVC gives you a chance to see what this is all about. CU NVC answers the “where do I start” question through experiential learning including workshops, crash courses, and mentorship opportunities that assist with business plan writing and the development of new ventures.

The program was conceived through a collaboration of various centers and departments on campus, after faculty members recognized the need for CU Boulder to hold a campus wide business plan competition. NVC “collapses the campus” through broad cross-disciplinary participation. It is a forum where aspiring entrepreneurs from business, engineering, law, ATLAS, liberal arts, and elsewhere can meet and work together.

We have already seen the value of experiential education involved in the CU NVC. The 2009 CU NVC helped produce the following outcomes:

• Hundreds of CU students and faculty across a variety of campus disciplines participated in one or more of CU NVC workshops that preceded the competition
• A “developers” group, CU Div, was formed that included undergraduates who met through the CU NVC workshops and attracted 100 members during the spring 2009 semester
• Three companies involved in the CU NVC’s workshops went on to prestigious incubation programs this summer – Everlater (at TechStars), TribeScribe (at Founder’s Institute), and Apogee (at Y-Combinator).
• Computer science professor Rick Han launched a start-up, TechnoShark, which particpated in the NVC and recently joined the New Tech Meetup as an “under the microscope” company.

We are committed to working together to build on our success through cross-campus collaboration promoting entrepreneurship and strengthening our ties to the community. We hope you will join us at one of the CU NVC networking/educational events, and enter a team in the Challenge this year.