The Flemming Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
The Flemming Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation encourages student and faculty creativity and equips students with the skills and knowledge necessary to pursue entrepreneurial ideas. Located in the Brown Student Center, it provides a professional base for visiting entrepreneurs readily accessible to students and faculty, offering expertise, encouraging constructive creativity, and providing mentorship and support.
Striving to make Hampden-Sydney a place that inspires and empowers students to use their liberal arts foundation to become entrepreneurial market leaders, the Flemming Center develops programs that support students with the interest and ability to be successful entrepreneurs and give them the experience, connections, and skills necessary to help them achieve their creative visions. These programs include workshops, guest lectures, and excursions as well as the Tiger’s Den Competition and the H-SC Venture Fund. The Center's goals are to increase awareness of entrepreneurship as a viable career option and to provide students opportunities for progressive development toward successful venture creation.
Hampden-Sydney’s education sets someone up very well for entrepreneurship, especially in small business. I have to wear many hats in a day: accountant, copywriter and marketing person.
Hunter Hopcroft ’10, entrepreneur
YOU Innovate Tournament
Do you think you have what it takes to innovate an ordinary household object? The YOU Innovate Tournament will exercise your entrepreneurial knowledge and skills. Students, faculty, and staff are invited to create, measure, and communicate as much value as possible from a "mystery" household object using only the resources that will be made available. You will be required to capture your journey by documenting it on video as you transform and pitch your product.
Have a novel idea or exciting business concept? Apply to compete in the Tiger's Den and win a Hampden-Sydney Venture Fund investment of up to $15,000. In the process, you will learn from seasoned entrepreneurs, perfect your pitch, and compete for seed funding to accelerate the growth of your venture.
The Hatteras Island Ocean Center (HIOC) and Hampden-Sydney College's Hatteras Island Internship Program (HIIP) offers qualified summer interns opportunity to participate in a collaborative effort to explore the relationships between non-profit enterprise, science education, and scientific research.
This year's Tiger's Den Competition was notable for its breadth and depth, with pitches for social-entrepreneurship ventures as well as traditional supply-and-demand start-ups. This year's winners were two economics majors preparing to launch a concierge company that facilitates the stocking of groceries in vacation units before tenants arrive.
