Changes

The Wake Forest University Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship program exhibits many characteristics of programs at much larger universities. The resources available, programs conducted, classes offered, faculty advisers, and overall desire to change the Wake Forest campus provides students exciting opportunities. One aspect that I believe differentiates Wake’s program is the multitude of classes offered by the Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship (ICE) Program. Entrepreneurship classes range everywhere from empowering high performance teams to equipping entrepreneurial scientist with the necessary skills to start a venture. Students start by taking three core courses to teach them basics of innovation, entrepreneurship, and managing a start-up. The wide variety of courses offered captures student interests from across many disciplines. This is purely evident by the number of Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise minors on campus. The ICE program’s positioning within the university is also an explanation for its ubiquitous nature on the Wake Forest campus. The program is not considered a department, nor is it buried in our undergraduate business school. In fact, it is centrally located on campus with beautiful glass room offices providing a “googlesque” environment.

The gaps I see in the Wake Forest innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem lay within the potential and applied columns. The potential column lacks a larger number of I&E extracurricular clubs, competitions, and start-up weekends which could augment the number of students involved on campus. In addition, the applied column lacks a well-developed infrastructure and team formation avenues. Improving these aspects could enhance student’s ability to apply their knowledge and solve specific problems. Wake Forest’s innovation and entrepreneurship activity is at a plateau; however, with the implementation of minor programs, drastic changes can occur bring innovation and entrepreneurship to the forefront of this campus.

== Calling all students ==