Skip to main content
Apply

Spears School of Business

Open Main MenuClose Main Menu

The catalyst and hub

for student entrepreneurial activity.

Our program benefits students regardless of whether they start a business or pursue a traditional career. Through coursework and extracurricular activities, students learn how to recognize and vet opportunities, think creatively, take responsible risks, pitch an original idea, respond to questions by thinking on their feet and be resilient. These qualities can help a student launch a successful business or contribute to a traditional employer in a unique way.

Student resources

Riata Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The Riata Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Exists as the entrepreneurial catalyst for OSU students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the State of Oklahoma.  We offer student competitions, experiential programs, and valuable resources to help inspire and equip future entrepreneurs.

CIE Scholars

The Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) Scholars program is a distinguished initiative developed to recognize and engage the top graduate students at OSU. The core values the program is built on are excellence, innovativeness, creativity, responsibility for change, engagement in one’s surroundings, personal integrity and strong moral character.

Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

The School of Entrepreneurship and the Riata Center operate within a broader ecosystem that provides support to business startups and technology commercialization efforts both on and off campus.

Scholarships

The School of Entrepreneurship awards a number of scholarships each year and has made a long-term commitment to providing our students with the best resources for an affordable education. 

The E-Club

The Entrepreneurship Club (E-Club) of OSU is a student organization connecting the dots between ambitious students and the resources needed to help them to materialize their entrepreneurial goals. We are dedicated to fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship on our campus creating innovative opportunities for students to connect with entrepreneurs in the entrepreneurial community.

Entrepreneurs Scholars

The Entrepreneur Scholars program accelerates the development of student leaders in the School of Entrepreneurship. It is a cohort-based program that provides undergraduate entrepreneurship students the opportunity to represent the department, network with prominent alumni, meet with faculty to help shape the future of the department and act as role models for other entrepreneurship students. Applications are open once a year, usually towards the end of the spring semester.   

NSF I-Corps Program

We are one of a collection of National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps sites across the country. The program aims to train faculty, students and other researchers in innovation and entrepreneurial skills to get scientific discoveries into the marketplace. The program utilizes customer discovery to determine whether a particular technology or business idea represents a viable commercialization opportunity.

Riata Pre-Seed Fund

The Riata Pre-Seed fund provides up to $25,000 in early-stage funding for student ventures.  The goal is to provide sufficient funding for the startup team to develop a prototype and/or conduct customer discovery to establish the venture’s initial target market.  The hope is that at that point the venture will be positioned for traditional equity funding to continue to develop and launch the venture.

Department initiatives

Research that makes a difference

The nationally ranked School of Entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University was founded in 2009 with the purpose of focusing exclusively on the study and teaching of entrepreneurship. The department consists of full-time faculty, PhD students, and post-doctoral fellows who are committed to shaping the future of entrepreneurial research and practice.

Faculty research

Outreach

Student and community outreach is pursued through a partnership between the School of Entrepreneurship and the Riata Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial. Together, we provide outside the classroom opportunities for our students and community outreach via the following programs and more.

Riata Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship OSU I-Corps VEP

Alumni engagement

With the support of our engaged alumni, the School of Entrepreneurship continues to prepare its students to make a difference in the world.

Amy and Malone Mitchell

EVENTS

VIEW ALL

MENUCLOSE