MBA

Academics

Entrepreneurship

At its best, a business school should be an "incubator of ideas"—a place where students have the resources and support to explore new ideas and learn how to lead a company into the future.

Building on its fifty-year history of research and teaching in the field of entrepreneurship, Harvard Business School enables students to test their business ideas in a risk-free environment. Students are free to follow their inspiration and imagination while benefiting from a deep collection of resources: faculty advisors, access to technology and a network of HBS alumni, and the diverse expertise of their classmates.

The entrepreneurship curriculum was introduced at HBS over fifty years ago. Entrepreneurial management is now part of the first-year Required Curriculum, while over thirty faculty members teach more than twenty courses offered in entrepreneurship in the second-year Elective Curriculum.

The hugely popular Business Plan Contest—the twelfth annual in 2008—gives second-year students the chance to put their learning to the test and submit their business plans for evaluation in pursuit of prizes for the most promising ideas in either the Business Venture Track or the Social Venture Track. During the course of the year, student-organized sessions bring venture capitalists, attorneys, and entrepreneurs to campus to help students understand the dimensions of building a business.

HBS opened its California Research Center in Silicon Valley in 1997 to facilitate faculty research and case writing on the issues and industries focused in the Valley and Bay Area. Over 150 cases have been produced from this center since its inception.

The Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship was formally dedicated at HBS in June 2003 during ceremonies on the School's campus. The Center was made possible by a $25 million gift by Rock, a member of the Harvard MBA Class of 1951 and a pioneering San Francisco-based venture capitalist whose investments have included Intel and Apple Computer. Among other things, the gift supports the School's extensive research, teaching, and course development in entrepreneurship, both on campus and at the School's California Research Center in the heart of Silicon Valley.