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NDSU's '''Innovation Week ''' and '''Innovation Challenge''' competition are is the university's most advertized effort for entrprenuership and popular innovation events. I-Week and I-Challenge are part of a 3The 5-month annual program focusing focuses on student innovation teams, culminating in a public exhibition and panel judging of ideas. Students form teams of their own volition and work on ideas wholly their own; the only faculty involvement is a required faculty mentor, the precise role of whom is up to the individual team. Seminars, brown-bag lunch presentations, and bootcamps are peppered in through the duration of the program, allowing students to learn from industry and startup veterans alike. At the end of the judging week, a keynote speaker is brought in to network and speak to students. In 2013,  Dr. Randal Pinkett, a nationally recognized entrepreneur, scholar, and author agreed to speak to students. The author of this wiki page was fortunate enough to meet Dr. Pinkett in person and will attest that the ability to do so is a huge boost to inspiration for student innovation. For 2014 the trend contiuned with keynote speaker Andre Taylor speaking on the importance of innovation on our future. From the ideas, $20,000 is distributed to the victor amidst winning teams, to be spent however the students wish.

NDSU and UND have a collaborative program to offer students of any major an ''''Entrepreneurship Certificate'''.' This certificate is earned upon completion of five 2 & 300 level entrepreneurship courses. As NDSU does not have a proper Entrepreneurship department, the The certificate is offered through the College of Businessand is open to any major. There are also several schlarship opportunities avaialble from the Larson Foundation to enorll in this course.  In earning the certificate, students can expect to learn about intellectual property, management, marketing, accounting, design thinking, and venture capital- all with the twist of being specifically designed for providing students with the most important areas of those fields they'll need to thrive in a start-up.

It NDSU is worth noting that NDSU currently markets itself as a research university.. particularly, a "Student DrivenFocused, Land Grant, Research University"." Nowhere in the mission statement, core values, or vision of the university will one find the words 'innovation' or 'entrepreneurship' - not explicitly a bad thing, but perhaps something that can be remedied nonetheless! Students at NDSU are provided opportunities to perform '''undergraduate research''', should they be proactive enough to seek out the correct resources. While this research is certainly innovative, the objective of much of the research is not explicitly to teach the students innovative or entrepreneurial thinking- it is to perform research and generate data. How much the students learn to be innovative themselves in these environments depends on the student in question. Efforts are also hampered by many departments closing off lab space to other majors. This is changing slowly and resources are expanding. For example, the library just obtained a new Makerbot 3d printer available to all majors at the rate of $3 an hour. We are also working on opening up lab access across majors. 

Amongst all of the student clubs and groups that perform innovative and entrepreneurial activities, the author is most intimately familiar with a program known as the The '''Bison Microventure.  '''BµV is a program that brings students from multiple disciplines- primarily Engineering and Biosciences but not exclusive of other majors- together to solve problems and develop a product. The group, structured into 8 separate teams of 2-3 students each, provides students the opportunity to lead and manage their own ''de facto ''mini-research teams, complete with all of the resource, expertise, and intellectual property responsibilities that come with it. BµV has been successful in generating multiple patent disclosures, numerous presentations at national events, and victories in local innovation competitions.

NDSU is fortunate enough to be located in a community with a strong innovative culture. There are a number of events such as TedX, Health Pitch, and a large number of events put on by Emerging Praire such as start up weekend, start up drinks, one million cups and many others.  Many student clubs on campus also are innovating but not dealing with the business side of things and there are a number of business clubs such as the entrepreneaurs club but the two rarely connect.