By Lauren Raziano, Multimedia Editor
The Entrepreneurship Center was unveiled on March 2, with a ceremony in its new home on the second floor of the O’Malley Library.
The center was built with financial support provided by Mike Kelly ’80. Kelly is a member of the O’Malley School of Business advisory board, the managing director of Yellow Thread Ventures and previous founder and CEO of On Call International.
Winston Peters Jr. ’02, program director of Entrepreneurs@MC (E@MC) wrote an email to The Quadrangle explaining how the idea of the Entrepreneurship Center came to fruition.
“The creation of the new Entrepreneurship Center was a collaborative effort of President Gardner, Dean Gibson, Greg Cowart, myself and a host of others,” Peters wrote. “We knew that students needed a dedicated space for them to meet, ideate and create the businesses of the future.”
Donald Gibson, Ph.D., dean of the O’Malley School of Business, worked with Peters to raise funding to refurbish the room as a space for entrepreneurship activities on campus. Namely, the center will provide a space for students to collaborate and form partnerships as they pursue various opportunities surrounding business and innovation.
“We’re excited by the great opportunities for students to engage in entrepreneurship,” Gibson wrote in an email to The Quad. “Entrepreneurs@MC’s mission is to transform business ideas into practice and students into entrepreneurs by creating a collaborative environment across campus to cultivate new relationships, innovations and business ideas.”
Peters is currently creating workshop opportunities for the MC community and for high school students to further expand entrepreneurial pursuits.
“We will have programming such as workshops, bootcamps, “lunch and learn” sessions with startup professionals and experienced entrepreneurs geared for students who want to be entrepreneurs as well as students that just want to learn entrepreneurial skills that they utilize in whatever career path they choose,” Peters wrote.
As a sophomore accounting major, Anthony Campolo was invited to the opening of the new entrepreneurship center because he is interested in joining the entrepreneurship team.
“As a business student I am extremely excited to utilize this space when collaborating with my colleagues on creative projects,” Campolo wrote in an email to The Quad. “In the new entrepreneurship room each member can present their ideas on a big screen and even edit them as the meeting progresses. This room is a huge asset to students of all majors who would like to collaborate in an effective and tech driven way.”
In attendance of the opening ceremony were many administrators and alumni such as Thomas O’Malley ‘63 and The Honorable Senator Robert Jackson, 31 NY Senate district.
“At the event I learned how incredible of an alumni base Manhattan College has,” Campolo wrote. “I also witnessed the strength of the O’Malley School of Business in action. It is composed of a tight knit community of professors, students, and alumni who all care about one another and work towards each other’s success.”
One of the first events the Entrepreneurship Center is hosting is the annual Innovation Challenge, which awards over $10,000 in prize money to help develop student startups and will be held on March 21. Students currently in the Entrepreneurship Club and participating in the Innovation Challenge have access to the center and its resources.
The plans for a newly renovated third floor in De La Salle were also on display at the opening ceremony. There will be seven refurbished classrooms, a new business analytics lab with 30 Dell OptiPlex 3090 computers with external portable drives and large video display monitors.
“Our plans are moving forward for our renovations to occur this summer,” Gibson wrote. “We’ll have a terrific new student lounge, student team workrooms…We’re excited to have a professional space for our students and faculty to engage in collaborative learning.”
Campolo shared his perspective of the renovations and how it will provide another valuable resource for students in the future. As President of MC’s Mock Trial team, he also highlighted the multi-functional role the room will have for students.
“I am extremely excited for the renovations of De La Salle’s third floor,” Campolo wrote. “It will include more spaces for students to collaborate in tech driven ways and modernize the approach to learning. I am excited to be able to use these new tech driven collaborative rooms to record my team’s trial rehearsals.”
