By Danny Nikander
Assistant news editor
Hofstra’s Center for Entrepreneurship officially opened the IdeaHUb, a collaborative space that will serve as the home for the Center, on Thursday, April 7. The new space, located on the second floor of the Axinn Library, is designed to assist entrepreneurs-in-training and help startups execute innovative ideas.
“We are making real advancements in entrepreneurship here at Hofstra University,” Mark Lesko, executive dean of the Center for Entrepreneurship said. “We are really leaping to the forefront of entrepreneurial education in the country.”
Despite being a center for entrepreneurial activities, the space will incorporate students of all majors.
“Entrepreneurship relies very much on the business school, engineering school and the law school, but the ideas that start businesses can come from anywhere,” Gail Simmons, the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, said. “Many of the ideas coming from students are coming from students in the arts and sciences. It’s a place to gather and explore ideas.”
President Stuart Rabinowitz applauds the fact that the Center for Entrepreneurship was able to create a center that includes all areas of study for students at Hofstra.
“This is thrilling to me,” Rabinowitz said. “We are only one of three universities in the metro area that has a medical school, law school and engineering school. We were not taking advantage of the breadth of skills we have for the betterment of our community and education, and what better way to incorporate that than a center for entrepreneurship.”
In addition to the IdeaHUb, the Center for Entrepreneurship offers many programs and resources to foster entrepreneurial education. One is the Accelerator Program, which will allow students to be trained by six entrepreneurs-in-residence: Aaron Foss, Kevin Hesselbirg, Peter Kestenbaum, Jeff Leventhall, Michael Quilty and Barbara Roberts. Furthermore, the center has programs like Hofstra’s CPXi Venture Challenge and Lion’s Den Challenge, which are competitions that award prize money to students with the best startup business plans.
Tamisha Lubin, a senior business management major, won the Lion’s Den challenge for her portable carbon monoxide detector for cars. She feels the resources available to her contributed to making her idea become a reality.
“At first, I wasn’t going to do it, but I did it anyway and ended up winning first place,” Lubin said.
“I was nervous, but the [Center for Entrepreneurship] helped boost my confidence and helped me prepare a business plan.”
Lubin hopes to move forward with this idea by working with designers and developing more carbon monoxide detectors, showing the potential long-term benefits of this new collaborative center.
“When you look at it from the vantage point, from the business school, having this kind of opportunity for students is essential for jobs today,” Herman Berliner, dean of the Frank G. Zarb School of Business, said. “Going forward is all about the entrepreneurship, and having the [IdeaHUb] is first step to doing that.”