A New Home For Great Living And Growing Business

Bowie State University Prepares To Open $42 million Entrepreneurship Hub

By Tiffany Young // Photography courtesy Bowie State University

The new Entrepreneurship Hub at Bowie State University is not just a new campus facility, it’s a community; better yet it’s a $42 million enterprise for aspiring business owners and the gateway for innovation and creativity.

BSU, the first HBCU and public university in the state of Maryland, opened its modern residential community known as the Entrepreneurship Living Learning Community (ELLC), offering spaces for collaborative learning with students and businesses throughout the county on August 11.

Dr. Aminta Breaux

“ELLC is truly the gateway HUB on this campus, not only supporting students’ dreams but serving as a space for the larger community,” said Dr. Aminta H. Breaux, president, Bowie State University. “We’re welcoming businesses as partners. This will be our opportunity to be a larger part of the ecosystem.”

The six-story, mixed-use building will house a residential space for 557 students to live, a food market, and an innovation center. It is the new home for BSU’s Entrepreneurship Academy and the Bowie Business Innovation Center. Designed for the most entrepreneurial of students, the co-working environment for BSU students’ early-stage startups will receive training and mentors to enable students and faculty to scale their businesses.

Leading from the front: Prince Gerge’s County Councilman Todd Turner, BSU Presidenrt Dr. Aminta Breaux and Prince George’s County Council Chair Calvin Hawlkins.

Seniors Brian Hill and Samuel Iyomahan will be the first students to occupy ELLC this school year. They are founders of GoFech, a video content and social media company,  first created when both students started as fellows at the BSU’s Entrepreneurship Academy.

“Our majors are in business and through the academy they turned our ideas into something that is now profitable,” said Hill.

Iyomahan, a Nigerian-born American, will graduate in the Spring with a concentration in finance. Iyomahan said GoFech was not only founded at BSU but pays homage to the university’s bulldog mascot.

BSU’s Entrepreneurship Academy provides workshops, seminars, competitions and resources to help students develop business skills. The award-winning Bowie Business Innovation Center is an independent, nonprofit business acceleration hub.

The academy’s Executive Director Johnetta Hardy said the academy is a campus wide initiative. It’s the hub for entrepreneurship. Residents of the building are invited to join its ELLC Fellows Program, a year-long cohort.

“We provide the activities at the academy. We will teach the students how to think entrepreneurially, how to create and how to launch businesses,” said Hardy.