Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem on a College Campus
On college campuses across the nation, interest in entrepreneurship has been growing fast. Demand for entrepreneurship education grew 66% across both undergraduate and graduate programs, according to a March 2020 report by Studyportals, a platform that helps students find and compare their study options across the globe. Interest in online entrepreneurship programs is also higher, having increased 25% since 2019. Students want to found startups, faculty are excited to move innovations from the lab to the market, and administrators see both the educational value and the real-world benefits of encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation—like fostering resilience, developing leadership skills, and contributing to social and economic development.
Higher education leaders are realizing that they must cultivate not just individual programs but also an ecosystem of people, course offerings, and resources working together intentionally to support emerging entrepreneurs. By thoughtfully bringing together school resources like courses and contests with regional and national offerings for student entrepreneurs, these leaders can stimulate entrepreneurial activity at their schools and beyond.
This is the story of one student with an idea, and how an ecosystem of resources helped him grow into an entrepreneur.
Expanding Opportunities With a Grant
Elizabeth City State University (ECSU), a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) located on 154 acres of countryside, has a total enrollment of just over 2,000 students. Half of these students receive Pell Grants for exceptional financial need; a quarter are the first in their family to attend college.
“We’re in a rural area of a rural county in northeastern North Carolina,” said Joy Smith, dean of the School of Education and Business and director of Distance Education at ECSU. Such a small college has to get creative to provide students with all the resources they need to thrive. “We don’t have a lot of access that someone in a larger city like Washington or Atlanta would have. So we had to expand our network.”
A few years ago, from a conversation with a colleague, Smith had the idea that ECSU should have a class bringing problem-based learning and entrepreneurial thinking into a course on kinesiology—the scientific study of human movement, anatomy, and performance. She received a VentureWell grant in 2024 to support the development of this class. Currently, 14 students are developing four prototypes, having completed their first charette—a presentation of their ideas via poster. They will incorporate feedback and present a final version of their prototype.
We brought together social scientists with entrepreneurship educators to explore how to intentionally bring essential skills like teamwork, motivation, critical thinking, problem-solving, and empathy into the entrepreneurship classroom. Explore these classroom exercises and tools as well as research-driven white papers.
The idea for the course came out of a pitch competition that was part of ECSU’s Annual Viking Entrepreneurship Week. It was at the first pitch competition that Smith met Angel Teagle, a senior at ECSU who was deep in the development stage of a new invention: Car Seat Companion. His goal was reducing child hot-car deaths—this devastating tragedy results in an average of 37 children under the age of 15 dying each year. In 2023, 29 children died of heatstroke in a vehicle, and in 2024, 32 deaths were reported. Teagle’s device uses a Bluetooth-enabled pad that fits underneath a child in a car seat. If the adult gets more than five meters away while the child is still in the car seat, the pad sends an alert to a parent or guardian via smartphone.
“The issue that Angel is addressing is very real, and I’ve loved watching his idea grow,” Smith said. But to continue pushing his idea forward and turn it into an actual company, Teagle sought out a network that would support the next stage of his entrepreneurial journey.
Forging a Strong Network of Partners
The HBCU Founders Initiative (HBCUFI) was the next stop for Teagle and Car Seat Companion. This accelerator program offers technical and financial assistance to entrepreneurs from HBCUs. Teagle participated in the Better Futures pitch competition led by HBCUFI. “They personally helped me out by practicing my pitch with me and helping upgrade my pitch deck,” Teagle said.
Marlon Evans, president and founder of HBCUFI, introduced Teagle to VentureWell. VentureWell’s E-Team Program provides student entrepreneurs with training and funding to bring their innovations to life. HBCUFI is also part of our Equity Ecosystem Partner Network, underscoring VentureWell’s commitment to increasing access to entrepreneurship. “They encouraged me to apply to the E-Team Program. So I did and I got in,” Teagle said.
Along with business partner and Hampton University graduate student Kennedy Williams, Teagle underwent intensive entrepreneurship training during Pioneer, the first stage of the E-Team Program, which culminated in a two-day workshop at The Engine in Boston, Massachusetts. “It just opened our eyes,” Teagle said. “I met a lot of different people, and that support from VentureWell really impacted my invention. Seeing where my product is now—compared to what it was in 2019, when it was just an idea—is very motivating.”
Teagle went on to win the Audience Choice Prize, including $4,000, in the OPENminds competition at VentureWell’s OPEN 2024 conference, after he successfully presented his pitch to attendees.
From ECSU to HBCUFI to VentureWell, Teagle is finding his path to entrepreneurship. He will soon be graduating from college and exploring possible next steps for Car Seat Companion. Hear from Teagle, Smith, and Evans about the evolution of the company:
Continuously Creating a Better Environment for Student Entrepreneurs
Back on the ECSU campus, Smith is proud of the hustle Teagle has shown: “He’s leveraged every opportunity to really grow as an entrepreneur. It’s an amazing, amazing level of growth.” Now she wants to make sure that other student entrepreneurs get the resources they need to pursue their big ideas.
She is continuing to grow the entrepreneurial ecosystem at ECSU, so it can support more students like Teagle. The college is becoming a flywheel for student innovation as more community members engage. This flourishing ecosystem offers more programs and resources, finds more ways to stimulate innovation in the classroom, and supports moving new inventions into the market.
Smith knows that opening the door for students to explore a wider community of resources is key to catalyzing their innovations. “Through our work with VentureWell, our network has expanded exponentially,” she said. “Our students really gain access to the broad-based opportunities that surround them—not just where they are, but all over the country and the world.”