Bruce Leech
Executive Director
Greetings from Raleigh, NC and Happy 2022! I am down here attending the USASBE entrepreneurship conference, which has certainly had its challenges with the pandemic and weather. They have done a great job of streaming the conference and keeping everyone safe that is in person. One thing that I continue to appreciate with these educational conferences is how collaborative everyone is by sharing ideas, teaching methods and tools to help all of our students. Having spent most of my career in business, those trade conferences never shared ideas as everyone was a competitor. It has been great to be both part of GCEC, our entrepreneurship center community and USASBE, the entrepreneurship teaching community. The only difficult issue is trying to then implement all the great ideas from these conferences. One theme that has come out of both conferences is the importance of experiential education as a part of entrepreneurship education. Many of the exercises and tools that have been shared involve bringing the real world into the classroom, which continues to have an impact on our students. One of these tools provided a matrix where you answer the following questions:

  1. Passion; what you love to do?
  2. Expertise; what you are good at?
  3. Need; what the world needs?
  4. Compensation; what you can be paid for?

These are great questions that I encourage each of you to jot down 3-5 thoughts under each question and then reflect on how this lines up with your current career path. Ultimately, if you drew circles around each question with your answers and determined where those circles intersect, you would find YOUR sweet spot. Whether that spot results in a career shift, new business idea or life reflection, I think it is a valuable exercise. Certainly, if your sweet spot does result in a new business idea that reflects all these questions, please visit us in the CEC so we can help you further develop that idea/dream! So, look out students, I am coming back with a new list of tools from this conference! I hope 2022 is a safe and great year for everyone.
Our first Social Impact Incubator is launching today, January 24th! We have accepted 17 entrepreneurs, a combination of DePaul students, alumni and community members all with early stage social impact businesses.

You are invited to the 3rd Annual DePaul Innovation Day: Collaborating through Convergent Research. The focus of this year's event will be on convergent, collaborative, and interdisciplinary research. Preview the Innovation Day Program here. Click here to RSVP!

This blog is launched to highlight incredible entrepreneurial stories by DePaul University students, alumni, and faculty as well as small businesses throughout Chicago. With each blog post, the CEC hopes to promote entrepreneurship resources and educational content, inspire prospective entrepreneurs, and influence businesses to Do Good and Do Well in Chicago.

If you have any questions or are interested in being a contributor, please reach out to [email protected]

To view the DePaul Entrepreneurship Blog
Last year our mentorship program with Brad Emanuel serving as the chair grew to 50+ mentors! Our mentors offer a variety of expertise to help entrepreneurs succeed in their business ventures. The program is open to all DePaul students, alumni and community members so if you need help with marketing, legal, loans or a variety of other business concerns, don't hesitate to ask for help from one of our mentors.

DePaul CEO is the University's student-led entrepreneurship community. The organization provides students with the know-how and resources to start or grow their own business through events, a growing Slack community, and networking
 
Working closely with the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, CEO's mission is to support DePaul students in achieving their entrepreneurial aspirations.
To become a member, please visit DePaul CEO's website!
To apply for 1871 membership
To learn more and apply
The Coleman Entrepreneurship Center has curated a list of external and university-wide resources with the latest events, competitions, programs, incubators and more for small businesses and entrepreneurs.

1871 hosts Early Stage Info Sessions every Tuesday. This program shows startup founders all of the resources 1871 has to offer. Sign up and learn more about how 1871 can help your business.
2112 is Chicago’s first business incubator focused on the development of entrepreneurs in music, film/video and creative industry-focused technologies.
All DePaul students and faculty have access to our office space and programming at 2112.
MHub is having a Project Management for Product Development workshop on January 31st. In this workshop, you'll learn the frameworks of general project management.


ISTC is a member-driven nonprofit organization that cultivates technology-based economic development throughout Illinois, offering mentorship programs and startup challenges for students and entrepreneurs. All DePaul students & faculty have access to their programming and events.
Questions? Please email us at: [email protected]