Programs

The Silicon Valley Center for Entrepreneurship offers the following programs and opportunities to help students develop their entrepreneurial skills.

• The Silicon Valley Innovation Challenge (SVIC)
• Silicon Valley Business Plan Competition (SVBPC)
• ZinnStarter program
• Entrepreneurship Concentration and Courses
• Certificate in Innovation & Entrepreneurship
• IDEAS Club

The Silicon Valley Innovation Challenge is an annual forum to promote creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship at SJSU by generating and highlighting Most Innovative Ideas.

• Competition open to anyone affiliated with SJSU (students, alumni, faculty, and staff)
• A chance for students from different disciplines to interact and build entrepreneurial teams
• An opportunity for participants to get feedback from many sources on their ideas
• A venue for participants to explain and market their ideas to industry professionals

Competition areas: Most Innovative Idea, Best Elevator Pitch, Best Executive Summary & People's choice.

Your Portal to the Entrepreneurial Network

The SVBPC is meant to be a link between the academic world and the "real" world. Entrepreneurship and innovation are synonymous with Silicon Valley. New products and services that provide new technology, enhance productivity, and create jobs are the hallmark of Silicon Valley. By spurring on entrepreneurship, the SVBPC strengthens the connection between SJSU and the broader metropolitan community and works to increase the economic vitality of the San Jose metropolitan area to the benefit all groups in this diverse region.

For more information, visit The Silicon Valley Business Plan Competition website.

Funded by SJSU alumnus and Silicon Valley’s longest serving CEO, Ray Zinn, the ZinnStarter program provides financial and mentoring support for students to launch new products and companies. The program is designed to allow students to create go-to-market plans, finish prototypes, and ultimately to be evaluated on the performance of their use of funding.

For more details, visit our ZinnStarter page.

Silicon Valley is admired around the world as a dynamic entrepreneurial region that creates new firms, products and industries. San Jose offers unique educational opportunities for would-be entrepreneurs: we have more entrepreneurs, more venture capitalists, and more legal, accounting, and other specialists supporting entrepreneurship within a 30-mile radius of campus than any university located elsewhere in the world.

A concentration in Entrepreneurship prepares students to create and manage their own new ventures. This might include launching a new business, buying a franchise, leading a new project or department within a company or managing an existing family business. The interdisciplinary curriculum augments the BSBA curriculum by focusing on the challenges of developing and managing new and small businesses.

The concentration includes three required and three elective courses. The three required courses are listed below. Additional information on the concentration can be found on the Jack Holland Student Success Center webpage.

Required Courses:

• BUS5 181 - Intro to Entrepreneurship
• BUS5 182 - Business Plans for New Ventures
• BUS2 131D - Marketing in New Ventures

BUS5 186H Entrepreneurship Lab Course

• The course gives you hands-on experience with a start up.
• Please read the Elab Course Overview for more information. 

Imagine opening your own Art Studio or launching your own app related to Health or the Environment! Open to non-business and business majors, this 9-unit (3 course) program offers hands-on training in innovation & entrepreneurship. Enroll in BUS5 181 & VLAB this Fall to fast-track your certificate by Spring! Fill out our Certificate in Innovation & Entrepreneurship Form.

We are a student run organization that focuses on fostering student-led innovative ideas and bringing them to fruition.

For more information, visit the IDEAS Club website.