CIE Executive Director Jay Jayamohan and HU President Eric Darr, along with Harrisburg area officials, led the ribbon cutting today for the new center in Strawberry Square.
In Harrisburg, great ideas have a new place to take root.
On Wednesday, the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a branch of Harrisburg University, officially opened on the first floor of Strawberry Square in downtown Harrisburg.
“Everyone who was lucky enough to be born in this country should start a company – or at least do a side job,” CIE chief executive Jay Jayamohan told a large group of supporters and officials before the cutting the ribbons. “So CIE is here for all those people.”
The center is home to 11 startup founders enrolled in its business incubator program, most of which are minority- and women-owned businesses. The new space offers founders — entrepreneurs who are invited into the incubator — residency to develop their business ideas for up to 18 months, financial assistance, coaching and student interns, according to HU.
“Economic development and business support have always been part of HU’s mission,” said Dr. Eric Darr, HU President. “The center is also accessible to anyone with an idea. It can be anyone who just has a concept but doesn’t know where to start. We hope that by having founders come to the Entrepreneurship Center, new companies and jobs are created throughout the Harrisburg region and beyond.”
Jayamohan and a network of entrepreneurs and innovators mentor the founders of the incubator at the center. It helps them form corporations and connect them with funding resources, find pro-bono lawyers for their intellectual property, help them develop ideas, provide support staff and connect them with technology and software development partners .
“CIE’s multi-faceted goal is not only to flip the script on what you have to ‘look’ like to be an innovator, but also to build a replicable model to create positive economic change in small towns,” said Jayamohan. “This won’t happen without the support of the larger community, and so we’re excited about our new space and having entrepreneurs and innovators in the community who continue to be an evangelist for the work we do.”
To learn more about CIE and the Center for Entrepreneurship, please visit https://cie.harrisburgu.edu/. Click here to read our recent story about the center.
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