Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

SOME COMPONENTS OF CU BOULDER

Like most universities, CU has many different departments, each with their own politics, hierarchies, and financial pressures. Some of these engage with entrepreneurs; a few of them have deep entrepreneurial programs. There is a lot of structure around this activity with advisory boards, specific programs, and formal economic dynamics around entrepreneurship.

A classical component is the “entrepreneurship center.” Like many universities, the entrepreneurship center is located in the business school; in CU’s case it is called the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship. It has an advisory board, dedicated classes, and many specific courses and activities around it. The MBA students can be part of a student group called GEA (Graduate Entrepreneurs Association), which is affiliated with the Deming Center. Although it’s a solid program, it’s embedded within the business school, and at times it has been relatively isolated from the rest of campus and the rest of Boulder. This has changed in recent years, partly due to a spirit similar to Silicon Flatirons, which seeks to connect the various entrepreneurial activities across CU. Consistent with this, the Deming Center has recently led efforts, including a cross-campus entrepreneurship certificate and an engineering management and entrepreneurship certificate, to help make entrepreneurship classes increasingly available to non-business-school students. Although these offerings sounds like no-brainers, the way ...