Thomas Zurbuchen

Thomas Zurbuchen, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, describes his students as race cars who rarely get the chance to run anything other than first gear. The Centre for Entrepreneurship grew out of a course designed to give students a chance to get beyond first gear by pursuing entrepreneurial activities in the field of aerospace. For the course, Thomas recruits companies that have problems that combine technology and business with a strong potential for commercialization.

In one example project sponsored by Google:

• Students worked to establish satellite-based Internet cafes in Africa.
• The issues ranged from aerospace to socioeconomic.
• Feasibility was established with three pilot cafes.
• After a study to assess sustainability over 10 to 15 years, and a consortium of which Google is a member is investing to move the project forward.

Thomas cites two programs that have been critical in fostering connections between the academic and entrepreneurial communities in the first year:

•  The entrepreneurial student group, MPowered Entrepreneurship. It is essentially a self-sustaining network of students that provides energy and direction to the center's activities.
• The entrepreneurship seminar that has connected students to entrepreneurs at both the national and the local level.

As we have noted elsewhere, another component critical to fostering entrepreneurship and innovation is funding. Thomas notes three levels of funding and how they are achieved in the center:

• Initial exploration of the concept. Typically on the order of $10,000. The center has facilities for providing this funding, often in combination with the Zell-Lurie Institute.
• Further development of the concept toward achieving first customers. Typically on the order of $30,000 to $40,000. This past summer the center ran a program with the Detroit Chamber of Commerce where twenty students were paid to work in their own companies. We recently interviewed one of these students, Yue Fan.
• Investment funding in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is the point where the external community can play a strong role.