I made my way by car for 4 hours today to Ball State. I never realized that this 20,000 student university has the #4 Enterpreneurship Program in the country. They have had a program there for 21 years! I learned that the university is named Ball State after the 5 “Ball” Brothers that gave us Ball Jars. Now the Ball Corporation is a $4B enterprise that that has morphed from a glass jar to containers to aerospace.
At the university, I kicked off annual Entrepreneurship Summit Program. I felt privileged to be on the same calendar as Mark Hatfield of Calix, Inc. The large auditorium of students and community business people ask alot of great questions like “Do I need to have an exit strategy for my business when I start it?” (No). My hosts were so friendly and welcoming. I look forward to going back there.
I also learned that Ball State has a very unique Venture Formation Class for their seniors. Each person puts together their own business plan which get reviewed at the end of the semester by 5 business people. If the the presentation and the plan pass, the student graduates from Ball State 4 days later. If they fail, the have to wait a year to repeat the course and try to pass it to graduate again! Now that is real life risk!
