Student Entrepreneurship

More than a Skill. A Mindset.

Creating impact is about more than mastering a set of skills. It’s a way of looking at the world. Engaged engineers need to understand how solutions will affect communities beyond their clients and how to design products that people will choose to use.

That’s where developing an entrepreneurial mindset comes in. Through engaging programs and inspiring active-learning spaces, you can develop a lifelong entrepreneurial approach based in ethics, problem-solving and value creation.

Active Learning

Student uses a power tool at Duke University

EGR 102: Design 2 Deliver

Continue refining the solution you created in First-Year Design. Offered as a half-credit, satisfactory/unsatisfactory course. There’s big potential for big impact—multiple medical device prototypes developed in this course have found funding, and one has already entered clinical testing.

two people work in a laboratory

BME Design Fellows

Undergraduates in biomedical engineering (BME) at Duke can enroll in this intensive medical technology design program, culminating with students designing solutions to clinical needs identified by Duke University Medical Center doctors and nurses.

IE Fest

Duke Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Around campus, it’s called I&E. It’s Duke’s community of innovators. Many Duke engineering students earn I&E’s intensive undergraduate certificate.

Sunset over the Chapel arcade, West Campus Scenics, evening

Character Forward

Powered by an investment from the Kern Family Foundation, we’re embedding deep explorations of character and ethics throughout the curriculum.

Garages for Ideas, Not Cars

You need a place to build, and Duke has spaces for that, bristling with tools and prototyping technology. (Well, sometimes our garage labs hold cars. You’ve got to tinker with your Guinness World Record high-efficiency vehicle somewhere.)

Meet ‘Maxwell’
undergraduates work to build an electric powered vehicle for competitions

The Foundry

Just down Science Drive, beneath Gross Hall, you’ll find a 7,600-square-foot maker space dedicated to helping students build their ideas from the ground up. A tinkerer’s toy shop, it boasts an array of advanced tools, including direct metal printing.

Garage labs on the main level of the Wilkinson Building not only offer makerspace for engineering design teams, but garage doors that open onto a wide patio to facilitate work on large projects such as electric vehicles, monowheels and more.

Wilkinson Garage Labs

Flexible, tool-filled design/build spaces on the main level of the Wilkinson Building feature floor-to-ceiling exterior doors that open onto a wide patio. When you visit, let our students show you around.

Duke University students work at a laser cutter in the Co-Lab Studio

Co-Lab Studio

Our neighbor just across Telcom Drive is a technology engagement center filled with prototyping equipment, including laser cutting, laser sintering using nylon powder and a king-sized polymer 3D printer with a build volume of two cubic feet.

Christensen Family Center for Innovation

Based in the Wilkinson Building, the Christensen Family Center for Innovation is the hub for students who want to solve problems, one product at a time.

Support for Student Founders

  • Baquerizo Innovation Grant
  • A. James Clark Scholars
  • Innovation Studio
  • 1:1 Coaching
More about CFCI
CFCI Logo