Open: NCIIA 14th Annual Conference

The nearly exponential growth of the entrepreneurial community at University of Michigan (U-M) is largely attributed to the students themselves. In January 2008, U-M launched the Center for Entrepreneurship to support these students. Through these and other similar efforts, students of like mind on a campus of nearly 40,000, can network, share ideas and pursue their passions. By January 2009, seven students actively involved in their own ventures joined together to find ways to share resources and ideas to accelerate the launch of their ventures.This resulted in the launch of a student run business accelerator, TechArb (techarb.org), in the Summer of 2009. The seven founders secured real estate in downtown Ann Arbor and invited 30 entrepreneurial-minded students, representing seven companies in the music, technology, and biotech industries. This paper discusses the genesis and results of the first U-M student accelerator.