Flemming Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
A blacksmith's forge is a place where raw materials are transformed through heat, pressure, and purpose. The Flemming Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation applies that same philosophy to student development. While ventures, prototypes, pitch decks, and business plans are important outcomes, the Center's most enduring impact is a student who has discovered the confidence to lead, the courage to create, and the responsibility to use those abilities in service of others.
The Flemming Center believes entrepreneurship should be accessible to every student, regardless of major, background, financial means, or prior experience. We are intentionally designed to meet students where they are and invite them into the entrepreneurial process through curiosity, exploration, and hands-on learning.
New! Minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
The minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation provides interdisciplinary preparation in opportunity recognition, venture development, persuasive communication, and applied problemsolving. Drawing upon courses across the sciences, humanities, and social sciences, the minor equips students to translate ideas into externally-validated value across business, nonprofit, civic, and creative contexts.
Explore the requirements for the minor
Flemming Center Forge Framework
Collectively, the Forge Framework creates multiple entry points into entrepreneurship, ensuring students can engage based on their interests, strengths, and aspirations rather than prior entrepreneurial experience. It is an intentionally designed interconnected ecosystem that moves students from curiosity to contribution through multiple pathways as they explore entrepreneurship, develop leadership skills, create value, and make a lasting impact.
Flemming Fellows take a hands-on role in shaping programs, running events, and fueling the energy that powers the Flemming Center’s mission.
The Flemming Foundry is a structured marketplace where students price, market, sell, and validate products in a live environment.
Forge on the Hill is an entrepreneurship program that helps students explore vocation through innovation, mentorship, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Through partnerships with rural entrepreneurs, small business owners, and community leaders, F.U.E.L. (Fellows Uplifting Entrepreneurs Locally) strengthens communities through entrepreneurship and creates opportunities for others.
The Guild is an alumni mentorship network for entrepreneurs that connects students with alumni and industry professionals.
H.E.A.T. (Hill Excursions Across Town) takes students beyond the classroom and into entrepreneurial ecosystems where they learn, compete, network, and apply their skills in real-world settings.
The Rocket Pitch competition is a fast-paced, high-energy event where students present their business, product, or passion-driven ideas in just four minutes.
Ideas to Impact (i2i) podcast dives into the messy, magical middle of entrepreneurship with real talk on where risk, failure, and change collide to create something extraordinary.
More Opportunities
The minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation provides interdisciplinary preparation in opportunity recognition, venture development, persuasive communication, and applied problemsolving. Drawing upon courses across the sciences, humanities, and social sciences, the minor equips students to translate ideas into externally-validated value across business, nonprofit, civic, and creative contexts.
Every ecosystem needs a voice. Flemming Focus is a student-led publication that keeps the campus community connected to the Center's programs, partnerships, ventures, and impact while showcasing the students who bring those initiatives to life. Fellows serve as writers, editors, designers, interviewers, and storytellers, taking ownership of the publication from concept to distribution.
The SEED Innovation Hub is Hampden-Sydney’s off-campus launchpad for creativity, collaboration, and real-world innovation. Located just minutes from campus in downtown Farmville, SEED gives students, faculty, and staff access to high-tech tools—like 3D printers, podcast studios, VR/AR workspaces, and flexible maker labs—to turn ideas into action. From the Hill to the Hub, where big ideas build community!
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- Brown Student Center, 204, Suite #115 Hampden-Sydney, VA 23943
- (434) 223-6490
- FlemmingCenter@hsc.edu
- Brinkley Hall, Office 007 Hampden-Sydney, VA 23943
- (434) 223-7101
- tgee@hsc.edu