Welcome to Nebraska's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem. Here, you can find the college or department to help you turn a good idea into a great business. With Campus Fellows located in every college on campus, you can find support for wherever you are in your entrepreneurial journey.
Student Programs with an Entrepreneurship Focus
Center for Entrepreneurship
The Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship is dedicated to empowering all students on campus, regardless of their major. With a wealth of resources, experienced faculty, and a culture of collaboration, you'll dive into innovation, research, and successful ventures from day one. Whether you're launching a new idea, looking to join a team and help build a business, or have an established venture, the center provides invaluable mentorship opportunities, engaging workshops and competitions, and funding support to help you thrive.
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Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program
Engler exists to embolden people on the courageous pursuit of their purpose through the art and practice of entrepreneurship. The program equips its student with the skills, mindset and know-how to build and launch a successful enterprise that aligns with their passion and purpose.
Students receive assistance in exploring entrepreneurship and then in growing their businesses, should they choose entrepreneurship as their path. Students from across UNL as well as entrepreneurs from the community are welcome.
- Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Minor
- The Engler Journey Podcast
Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management
The Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science & Management is an honors program that combines business and computer science to produce interdisciplinary leaders.
The Raikes School offers a project-oriented curriculum that helps students develop deep understanding of both disciplines. Innovation happens here in Nebraska. Prospective UNL students can apply to be a member of the Raikes School, and industry partners can engage students through the Design Studio capstone program.
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Johnny Carson Emerging Media Arts
EMA teaches students to tell stories and create worlds across disciplines old, new and those still being discovered.
Through filmmaking, interactive media, virtual reality, experience design, sonic arts, wearable technologies, AI and more, our students grow into creative leaders for an evolving world, graduating with the skills they need to tell the stories that matter to them.
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Clifton Builders Program
The Clifton Builders Program is designed to identify and develop students with high leadership and entrepreneurial potential. These students aspire to change the world by building new businesses, building teams or building communities through leadership and involvement.
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Not sure where to start? The Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship can help you discover which resources are right for you.
Campus Entrepreneurship Resources
College of Engineering
The College of Engineering enthusiastically embraces its unique role as the singular intellectual and cultural resource for engineering instruction, research and outreach within the state.
It provides the people of Nebraska with comprehensive engineering academic programs to fulfill their highest aspirations and ambitions. Students are learn from professors with national and international expertise in their fields, the latest technology, quality facilities, a vast network of successful alumni and friends of the college and caring staff.
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School of Computing
In today’s technology-driven world, an education in computing is more valuable than ever. The School of Computing has developed a unique program that offers its students a wide variety of hands-on learning experiences both inside and outside of the classroom.
Students in all three of our majors will have the chance to learn from world-renowned faculty engaged in cutting-edge research, contribute to real-world projects in our Senior Design course, and connect with classmates and industry professionals at regular departmental events.
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Department of Textiles, Merchandising & Fashion Design
The Department of Textiles, Merchandising & Fashion Design (TMFD) actively engages with constituents and colleagues in Nebraska, across the nation and overseas, and is fully connected to the pulse of the textiles and apparel industries and professions. TMFD is committed to assisting apparel and textile-based entrepreneurs.
The department has expertise to share with entrepreneurs in all phases of soft goods-based ventures, such as:
product design
customer identification
business research
product validation
manufacturing and distribution
Food Processing Center
Launched in 1989, the National Food Entrepreneur Program has helped thousands of entrepreneurs nationwide realize their dream of starting a food company. As a new or potential food entrepreneur, it is often difficult to find an accurate source of the information necessary to successfully launch a business in the food industry. Ensuring a food product survives and prospers in a highly competitive marketplace requires informed decisions, careful planning, and precise execution.
The Food Processing Center can help you through all the steps of creating a food business - and perhaps most important - help you use your time wisely and avoid costly mistakes. From understanding the basics of creating a food business to individualized step-by-step assistance to the marketplace, the National Food Entrepreneur Program is the place to start.
Hospitality, Restaurant and Tourism Management
The hospitality, restaurant and tourism management program at Nebraska prepares extraordinary professionals for leadership positions in one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world with an emphasis on service excellence. Through a combination of classroom instruction and experiential learning, we prepare service-oriented leaders ready to lead hospitality organizations anywhere in the world.
Jacht
Jacht is a full-service advertising agency in Lincoln, Nebraska. Every Jachter is a student of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and we believe that all it takes to spark insight into action is the fearless pursuit of big ideas.
Guided by industry professionals with 50 years of experience, Jacht is dedicated to exploring creative ingenuity and creating high-quality work that our clients love. Jacht is offered as a capstone course for students in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications, but can be taken as an elective for students in other colleges.
Research
Strategic Branding
Videography
Photography
Social Media Strategy
Print Design
Public Relations
Nebraska Business Development Center
Nebraska Business Development Center (NBDC) is a university-based business consulting program that provides professional level consulting assistance to small businesses in Nebraska.
NBDC’s Southeast Nebraska location is housed in the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship (Hawks Hall 315).
NBDC Consultants can help you:
Develop/refine a business plan
Define business goals
Refine a target market
Complete a cash flow analysis & financial projections
Nebraska Extension
Nebraska Extension promotes entrepreneurship programs, innovation programs and the embrace of an entrepreneurial mindset and skills to create new businesses across Nebraska.
Most programming focuses on K-12 students. See their website to explore involvement opportunities as a college student.
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Nebraska Innovation Campus
Nebraska Innovation Campus (NIC) is a campus designed to facilitate new and in-depth partnerships between the University of Nebraska and private sector businesses. NIC is the place to build the big idea, where imagination meets hard work, and collaboration yields results. NIC provides you and your organization access to culture, talent and resources.
Nebraska Innovation Studio
Nebraska Innovation Studio (NIS) is a community-oriented makerspace that serves as a hub for innovators, artists and entrepreneurs. Students can get a membership at a discounted rate to Nebraska Innovation Studio, one of the top makerspaces in the nation.
The 16,000 square-foot facility equipped with a full metal shop, wood shop, rapid prototyping room, art studio, ceramics and textile equipment, screen printing station, and more.
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Nebraska I-Corps
NUtech Ventures leads the university’s membership in the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) program, an immersive, entrepreneurial training program that facilitates the transformation of invention to impact. This experiential training program prepares scientists and engineers to extend their focus beyond the university laboratory — accelerating the economic and societal benefits of NSF-funded and other basic research projects that are ready to move toward commercialization.
Widely recognized as an effective training program in the U.S. and internationally, I-Corps addresses three urgent national needs:
Training an entrepreneurial workforce
Bringing cutting-edge technologies to market and enabling positive economic impact
Nurturing an innovation ecosystem
The U.S. National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-CorpsTM) Hubs form the operational backbone of the National Innovation Network (NIN), which consists of universities, NSF-funded and other researchers, established entrepreneurs, local and regional entrepreneurial communities, and federal agencies.
Hubs work collaboratively to build and sustain diverse and inclusive innovation networks across the country. Through its national and regional training programs, Hubs train researchers to bring promising ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace. UNL is a proud member of the NSF’s Great Lakes Region I-Corps Hub.
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NIC Biotech Connector
The BioTech Connector (BTC) is 7,700 sq. ft. of well-equipped wet-lab space located on Nebraska Innovation Campus. The BTC provides incubation space and services to bioscience startups and high-growth biotech and research-based businesses.
NUtech Ventures
NUtech Ventures is the nonprofit technology commercialization affiliate of the University of Nebraska, serving the Lincoln campus. NUtech's team protects and licenses the university’s intellectual property to companies to promote economic development and quality of life. NUtech also promotes entrepreneurship through programming and sponsored events.
Intellectual property protection
Technology marketing and licensing
Entrepreneurship-focused programming, networking and events
Leading Nebraska I-Corps
Rural Prosperity Nebraska
Rural Prosperity Nebraska supports rural economic development with focuses in community engagement, people attraction, community development leadership, community economic development, and regional food systems. Students can get involved by becoming Rural Fellows.
Rural Fellows spend their summers living in Nebraska towns, working on locally-designed projects that support local business, and make progress toward strategic and specific goals to help communities thrive.
Rural Fellows commonly create an impact in the following areas:
Entrepreneurship
Business Development
Community Marketing and Communications
Community, Workforce and Economic Development
Social Entrepreneurship Certificate
The social entrepreneurship certificate provides students with the skills they need to be leaders in the social entrepreneurship sector and to evaluate their own strengths and opportunities.
Weibling Entrepreneurship Clinic (E-Clinic)
The Weibling Entrepreneurship Clinic at the University of Nebraska College of Law provides free advice and legal representation to startup business clients throughout the state of Nebraska.
The E-Clinic handles a variety of early-stage legal matters, including entity formation, contract drafting and review, intellectual property protection, regulatory, compliance and other transactional legal matters. Client intake forms can be found on their website.
Early-stage transactional legal advice and representation for entrepreneurs, startups and nonprofits
