Students and administrators are collaborating to design the student-operated Innovation Center and New Venture Incubator slated to open after winter break on the first floor of 4 Currier Place, south of the Black Family Visual Arts Center. Renovations to the space will begin next month.
College President Phil Hanlon first announced the initiative, which will help students form business and social entrepreneurial ventures, in his inaugural speech as part of his vision to provide experiential learning and foster interdisciplinary activity.
"I imagine it as being a place where businesses are actually going to start and students who share that interest will be able to gather," Hanlon said in an interview.
Established in April, the entrepreneurship and technology transfer office will oversee operations to establish the Innovation Center and New Venture Incubator and connect students to the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network, Barris Incubator at the Tuck School of Business and Dartmouth Regional Technology Center.
The Innovation Center and New Venture Incubator will focus primarily on the early innovation and formation stages of entrepreneurship, in contrast to the 60,500-square-foot Dartmouth Regional Technology Center, which provides educational and infrastructure support to later-stage ventures.
The New Venture Incubator will provide additional resources, mentoring and funding to those who have more defined entrepreneurial plans.
"The Innovation Center is kind of a kumbaya for exploring entrepreneurship," entrepreneurship and technology transfer office executive director Trip Davis '90 said. said. "We're encouraging all types of activities it could be a nonprofit idea, some type of information technology idea."
Davis acknowledged that entrepreneurship sometimes carries a stigma that it is "all about high-tech and money." He said, however, he would like to work with other organizations on campus such like the Tucker Foundation, Rockefeller Center and Thayer School of Engineering.
The center will offer workshops, panel discussions and mentorship through residencies, collaboration with faculty members and discussions with alumni. Undergraduate students, graduate students and Dartmouth alumni can apply each term to take part in the programs. The 24/7 space will also offer a variety of on-campus jobs to students, from welcome reception to event organization to social media management posts.
"The story around the startup ecosystems is often one of fragmentation, and building a space and a center provides some sort of aggregation and centralization to all the activity," new venture incubator programs director Jamie Coughlin said.
Coughlin said teams of students who are "entrepreneurial leaders" are helping to design the Innovation Center, including students in entrepreneurial clubs or students who have established their own startups.
"Having this base really be generated, by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, is the big point of differentiation that Dartmouth is laying claim to across the rest of the country," Coughlin said. "It's this authenticity to the entrepreneur and the entrepreneurial spirit."
Co-founder of Mitosis Matt Ross '15, who participated in round table planning discussions, said the Innovation Center will give student businesses a permanent workspace on campus, which they have never had before.
Lindsay Haut '14, a co-owner of student-run apparel business Vox Sportswear, attended a meeting with Davis, Coughlin and graduate students to brainstorm ideas for the design of the center. Though discussions for the space's design remain in the early stages, Haut said they all agreed that they wanted the building to have a modern feel.
"We wanted earth tones and green to still fit in with Dartmouth," Haut said. "We wanted it to be easily transformed into an event space, but also have a mix of smaller meeting conference spaces."
The initiative is fully funded by $2.6 million in initial seed money, provided by trustee Bill Burgess '81 and his wife Barbara, trustee Bill Helman '80, trustee Richard Kimball '78 and his wife Kathryn, former trustee T.J. Rodgers '70, Richard Magnuson '79 and his wife Allison and Jennifer Paul '86 and Jonathan Paul '86 Tu'90.