Middlebury Entrepreneurs
Middlebury Entrepreneurs is a course for students who want to start their own business or non-profit organization. Students spend the month developing their ideas, building their organizations, and preparing for the culminating event -- pitching their ideas to a panel of venture capitalists,
entrepreneurs, and industry leaders. Entrepreneurship is a process through which individuals identify opportunities or unmet needs, allocate resources, and create value-adding products or programs. Students will follow the process from ideation to launch quickly and effectively through deliverables, class discussions, and hands-on mentoring both from professors and visiting entrepreneurs and investors. Class will be focused on building a prototype, testing the intended market or target group, and engaging with potential clients or customers. Students should be prepared for hands-on work outside of class time. At the conclusion of the course, students will compete with their classmates in a pitch competition for bragging rights. (Approval Required; Honors Pass/Fail)

David Bradbury is President of the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies (VCET) which offers expert business mentoring, venture capital, coworking and accelerator facilities, and substantive networking to the region’s entrepreneurs and next generation employers.

Samantha “Sam” Roach-Gerber is a 2013 graduate of Northeastern University where she studied Organizational Communication and Environmental Studies. As Director of Innovation at VCET, Sam oversees programming and partnerships, membership, events, communications and marketing; she also co-hosts VCET’s podcast, Start Here./