WKU’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is reopening as a resource for student entrepreneurs on the Hill.

The Center is housed within the Gordon Ford College of Business’s management department. Staff within the management program have been collaborating to “revamp” the Center that was initially established in 2008 to “support student entrepreneurs” according to Whitney Peake, vitale professor of entrepreneurship and management department chair. 

This Center is not how it may be imagined. Rather than a brick-and-mortar office, think of the Center as a resource organization within the management office.

“Think of us as a concierge,” Peake said. 

In order to tackle this project, Peake has been working in collaboration with Sedrik Newburn, the entrepreneur-in-residence in the management program. 

“My goal is that I want to see more student entrepreneurs, and I want to see student entrepreneurs be successful,” Newburn said. “It’s going to be almost like an incubator. We’ll host workshops and things that can help them grow their businesses. But then it will also be a drop in session, where you can sit down and talk to a mentor.”

The Center is available to all students on campus, regardless of major.

While things have yet to get started, the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship will be hosting a women in entrepreneurship week in October, where students will get the opportunity to hear women entrepreneurs pitch business ideas and then network with them for potential business connections. 

Experiences like this will help students prepare for business pitch competitions should they choose to participate, as well as business planning competitions that stretch all the way up to the national level.

The Center was not always a resource for students on campus, and this was the case for Matthew Boyd. 

Boyd is a 47-year-old WKU alumni who graduated in 1999 with a BFA and an emphasis in graphic design. Boyd lives in Atlanta and owns two businesses, Evoke Design,and MB Books LLC, where he has written and published six children’s books so far, despite not having a business degree.

“I always had resources from the arts side of things, which is what I was interested in,” Boyd said. “I do wish now looking back on things I had taken some business classes because advanced knowledge would have been helpful.”

Boyd has owned Evoke Design for 19 and-a-half years and believes firmly in learning from others.

“Talk to other people that own businesses,” Boyd said. For future hilltoppers, this resource will be provided through the Center.

Eder Conejo, a current WKU graduate student, plans on using this resource he didn’t know much about during his time on the Hill when he started in 2015.

“I had only heard about it because I had gone to one of the bookstores here near the Greenwood Mall, and the guy checking out said ‘hey my dad is in charge of the entrepreneurship program at Western,’ and I was like oh shoot, that would have helped out a lot,” Conejo said.

Conejo is currently attending WKU to get a bachelor’s degree in interior design. He is also the owner of iFix BG, a technological repair shop in Bowling Green.

As the Center continues to develop, students will receive campus-wide emails informing them about the Center, may experience class visits and will be able to interact with the Center and stay up-to-date through the use of social media platforms, Peake said.

News Reporter Bailey Reed can be reached at [email protected]