Arizona State University has a new entrepreneurship resource in Chandler that is perfectly aligned with the university’s charter — open to anybody in the community.
A ribbon-cutting event last Wednesday celebrated the opening of the E+I@ACIC coworking space at the ASU Chandler Innovation Center and the start of the Chandler Endeavor Venture Innovation Incubator, which will be based in the building.
The incubator program, a partnership between ASU’s J. Orin Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute and the City of Chandler is a unique model that invites any entrepreneur in the community to join simply by registering.
“It’s an integration of community and ASU assets,” said Tracey Dodenhoff, the new vice president of entrepreneurship and innovation at ASU.
Kristin Slice, director of community entrepreneurship for the Edson Institute, said she’s gotten a lot of feedback from founders about typical incubator programs, many of which require homework, provide irrelevant information or demand endless rounds of pitches.
“We’re going give you the tools every month to learn about innovation, the evidence-proven tools that many people have used to help build innovative, high-growth ventures in the past,” she said.