IDEA Center

Dear Friends,

The IDEA Center at the University of Notre Dame actively supports innovation and entrepreneurship and provides the community with opportunities to learn, network, and engage with successful alumni entrepreneurs. The IDEA Center does this by nurturing and facilitating the movement of the best ideas of faculty, staff, and students from discovery to commercial application. The IDEA Center offers learning assets to allow our audience to dive deeper into the content and projects we are releasing. Although there are various ways you can learn from the IDEA Center, here are a few that we are known for: Innovation Rallies, Alumni Founder Profile and IDEA Week.

Innovation Rallies are IDEA Center’s pitch events every home football Friday. This event allows students, faculty, alumni and the community to showcase their innovative ideas, learn from successful entrepreneurs, and network with potential investors and collaborators.The rally features a speaker, usually an ND alumni, who will speak on their life after ND and where they are currently. Most of the speakers have their own startups or business. But before the speaker and pitches start, we allow networking opportunities with the audience. Innovation Rallies brings in a massive crowd of 200-300 people per rally. We also make community connections and invite vendors from the South Bend-Elkhart region to participate and promote their goods and services at each rally.

The alumni founder profile is a series the IDEA Center has been doing since January 2020. The profiles showcase the success of Notre Dame alumni and inspire current students and faculty to pursue entrepreneurship. It’s always helpful to learn from successful entrepreneurs, their journeys, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.

IDEA Week is the IDEA Center’s biggest event of the year. Every April, we host a week-long innovation festival featuring over 25 business, technology, and entertainment events to give entrepreneurs, students, and attendees practical knowledge. IDEA Week 2023 kicked off Friday with a concert from country music star Walker Hayes. Events are happening all week on campus and in the greater South Bend – Elkhart area, be sure to come out and check out the events if you are in the area!

David Murphy
Assistant Provost, Office of Innovation/IDEA Center

Executive Director for Student Entrepreneurship and the ESTEEM Graduate Program

University of Notre Dame

Nick Swisher

Director, Marketing, Communications and Events

University of Notre Dame

Dive Deeper into the IDEA Center on ThinkND

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April 16, 2023

IDEA Center

Dive Deeper into the IDEA Center on ThinkND

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