Baiada Center’s Pioneering New Venture Projects Online! Pairs MBA Students, Entrepreneurs

The Management Department at LeBow College of Business in conjunction with Baiada Center for Entrepreneurship in Technology now has a distinctive offering that gives graduate students a chance to get some real hands-on experience. New Venture Projects Online!is a proprietary Web community that pairs up entrepreneurs who submit specific problems with their technology-related business ventures with MBA students who have the enthusiasm, drive and skill set to create effective solutions.

With New Venture Projects Online!, students will take the initiative and self-select projects based on what interests them. They will then work with the entrepreneur to find a solution under the guidance of a mentor.

One of the main virtues of this program is that it truly benefits MBA students and regional businesses simultaneously. For students, this project will offer an opportunity to experience the unique challenges of the entrepreneurial environment, as well as an opportunity to expand their resumes. For businesses, this program will provide access to the talented MBA students at the LeBow College of Business, who have much to offer in terms of skill and experience and are anxious to work with new ventures.

New Venture Projects Online! is a program that is unique to the region. The on-line dimension creates a free-flow of challenges and solutions, and could potentially allow LeBow students to work alongside not only regional companies, but also national - and possibly even international - companies as well.

Donna Marie De Carolis, Ph.D., Head of the Department of Management and Academic Director of the Baiada Center, says New Venture Projects Online! "...accomplishes two wonderful goals. First, it enables the development of entrepreneurial skills in our students by immersing them in experiential challenges; and second, New Ventures Projects Online! assists young and growing companies through the infusion of talented students and ideas."

De Carolis says that most of the inquiries she has gotten thus far from new and growing ventures pertain to issues involving the offering of new products or services the decision to enter a new market, or organizational and operational challenges. She stresses that New Ventures Projects Online! is open not only to new companies, but also to established companies launching new ventures, commercializing new products, or even expanding into new and unrelated areas.

Examples of entrepreneurial challenges for which student interest runs high include: new-venture funding, financial management of new ventures, personnel-related issues unique to new companies, the challenges involved in growing a new company, and commercializing new products and services that have never been offered before.

For more information on participating in this unique program or on the Baiada Center, contact Donna De Carolis at decarodm@drexel.edu or 215.895.1795.