WELCOME

Thank you for visiting the Means Center for Entrepreneurial Studies’ web site. As a current or prospective student, alumni, faculty or staff member, or as a friend of Illinois State University, we hope you can learn about us, our classes, and the programs we offer to the greater ISU community.

The Twenty-First Century beckons inventive thinkers with an entrepreneurial outlook to develop new technologies, products, and services. The Means Center for Entrepreneurial Studies responds to this call by helping students harness their competencies through real-life projects. We prepare students to transform their ideas into new products for existing firms or the creation of new firms. Whether they set up their own company or develop an innovative product or not, we want our students to walk away from our programs confident in their ability to be problem solvers and creative thinkers. Although many of our students have gone on to create successful companies from the ideas they formulated in our classes, our mission goes far beyond helping students launch startups. We aim to provide each of our students with an entrepreneurship toolkit that they can use at every stage of their careers. Entrepreneurship and innovation skills are needed in almost every type of position and company today — not just in startups.

Our classes and programs are designed to appeal to everyone from students, who are just trying to obtain a primer on entrepreneurship, to serial entrepreneurs. We believe in the value of interdisciplinary and experiential learning.

We hope your visit to our digital presence here is just the beginning of your journey with us. Please feel free to reach out to me or any member of our Means Center Team if you have any questions or just want to talk about your interest in entrepreneurship and innovation. We look forward to hearing from you. Please consider subscribing to our newsletter to stay current with the activities of our Center.

Dr. Avimanyu (Avi) Datta, Ph.D.
Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship
Director, George R. & Martha Means Center for Entrepreneurial Studies