Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship

The Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship’s distinctively Brown approach to teaching is grounded in a structured process for solving problems across disciplines.

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Empowering the Next generation of Entrepreneurs 

Established in 2016 and located on Thayer Street since 2019, the Nelson Center fosters collaborative problem-solving among students, faculty, staff and entrepreneurs-in-residence. The center now offers 30 courses in partnership with the School of Engineering, the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, the Department of Economics, and others, complemented by co-curricular learning opportunities and venture support programs outside of the classroom. 

More than 700 Brown alumni and parents are engaged with students directly as mentors, as speakers, and through office hours and pitch competitions. A host of student-led programs have emerged from the center, including Van Wickle Ventures—a student-led fund that invests in Brown-affiliated companies— and Innovation Dojo—a semester-long, hands-on workshop that challenges first- and second-year students at Brown and RISD to connect with peers and mentors to develop their own ventures, from idea generation to final pitch.

“ Our goal has always been to develop a world-class, distinctively Brown approach to teaching entrepreneurship and to make that experience accessible to as many students as possible. We are now not only teaching the entrepreneurial process to students from just about every discipline at Brown—we are empowering them to deploy that process through venture creation. ”

Danny Warshay ’87 Executive Director, Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship

Philanthropic support is key to sustaining the center’s robust mix of curricular, co-curricular, and venture creation work. Your commitment will help to underwrite: 

  • Engaging with world-class researchers across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences to further scholarly inquiry through entrepreneurship courses and with Brown’s first undergraduate certificate program, the Certificate in Entrepreneurship, which is pursued each year by students from dozens of concentrations;  
  • Offering a range of co-curricular activities that include student organizations such as YEP! (Young Entrepreneurs Program)—a free entrepreneurship incubator for high school students from local under-resourced communities— as well as peer and alumni Entrepreneur-in-Residence programs and guest speakers; and
  • Supporting venture creation and acceleration across a range of industries through Explore, Experiment and Expand Grants; the B-Lab Summer Accelerator Program; and the annual Brown Venture Prize competition.

Why give now?

Support innovation and entrepreneurship at Brown that is sparking new enterprises and fueling career exploration.

MAKE A GIFT


For information about specific giving opportunities, contact:

Sarah Santos
Director of Development for Academic Initiatives
+1 (401) 863-1894
sarah_santos@brown.edu

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