University programming at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (CEED) focuses on the development of NCCU students, faculty, and staff as entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. These programs are designed to cultivate innovation, creativity, and business acumen within the university community.
This paid fellowship is designed to provide students who have an interest in entrepreneurship with exposure to entrepreneurial thinking and skill through training, practice, and service to the community. CEED fellows provide operational support to the Center in areas closely aligned with their entrepreneurial interest or major of choice and actively engage with the programs CEED offers.
FutureReady Bootcamp is a 10-week intensive program aimed to equip NCCU students with tech-related skills that are transferable to new or existing organizations.
The WBENC Women of Color Incubator is a premier program designed for Black female student entrepreneurs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This incubator provides the next generation of Black women entrepreneurs with the resources, community and support they need to strengthen their ideas and grow their early-stage ventures.
Students accepted into the incubator will have the opportunity to learn from and interact with subject matter experts from some of the most successful women-owned businesses and America’s largest Fortune 500 companies.
Pitch Creator equips students with three pitch types to fit any situation (email, elevator, and investor). At the culmination of the program, students will have an opportunity to pitch to local judges in the business community for prizes.
NCCU’s Entrepreneurship Club is a member of the Collegiate Entrepreneurship Organization (CEO), a global network for collegiate entrepreneurs and innovators. CEO is the “activation space” for students to turn learning into action. Each year, the chapter collectively develops and lifts a campus-wide enterprise off the ground and helps students learn to collaborate, network, and build something of lasting value.
Students participate in this pitch competition on the heels of Pitch Creator training. Finalists will enter PNC’s annual HBCU Pitch Competition. Stay tuned for date and registration information!
Business case competitions are 48-hour innovation sprints that encourage students to analyze and propose innovative solutions to real-world challenges related to corporate, civic and social initiatives. The competitions lead up to the C.A.S.E. competition at the University of Texas in San Antonio, to which CEED will send two NCCU teams to compete in the national conference.
Blackstone LaunchPad (BLP) seeks to close the opportunity gap by equipping college students with entrepreneurial skills and internship opportunities to help them build lasting careers.
The skills needed to build a successful business – a growth mindset, creativity, critical thinking and leadership – are the skills needed to build a successful career. BLP programming helps students hone these innovation skills so they can compete in the job market and realize their potential.
In collaboration with several local entrepreneurially focused organizations like Junior Achievement and echo, EIC aims to expose students to the power of social entrepreneurship as a force of good. Borrowing from the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), students are deployed into the community to educate K-12 students on the power of entrepreneurship and serve entrepreneur support organizations with capacity building.
InnovateU is a transformative personal and professional development program designed specifically for college students. InnovateU equips students with the essential interpersonal and leadership skills required to excel in today’s dynamic and competitive environment.
Through a series of interactive workshops, mentorship and coaching opportunities, and real-world projects, InnovateU empowers students to enhance their communication abilities, build strong relationships, and lead with confidence. The program places a strong emphasis on wellness and resilience, helping students to develop the emotional intelligence and mental fortitude needed to navigate challenges, maintain balance, and sustain peak performance.
Hosted every third Friday of the month, Friday Firesides are an intimate and thought-provoking conversational series that delves into the stories of local founders and innovators.
Research and Innovation Venture Accelerator (RIVA) is an interdepartmental accelerator where faculty innovations are led through a streamlined commercialization process. The program works with faculty to bypass common inhibitors to successful venture commercialization by employing the resources and expertise of key units across campus and the community.
The Faculty Entrepreneurship Certification Program provides NCCU faculty the opportunity to learn how to integrate entrepreneurial thinking into established or new curricula.
Socially Impactful Entrepreneurship Course
The Socially Impactful Entrepreneurship Course is designed to teach students about the growing social entrepreneurship sector. This course will teach students how to identify challenges in the social sector using the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guide and respond to them with entrepreneurial strategies.