More than 70 business leaders, Oglethorpe students, Hammack School of Business (HSB) faculty members and entrepreneur resource professionals helped launch the Entrepreneurship Empowerment Zone of HSB’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (EIC) Feb. 10.

The program included remarks from Oglethorpe University President Kathryn McClymond; HSB Dean Stephen Craft; and Dr. Leroy Carson Jr., the founding Director of Oglethorpe’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center and Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship. Terri L. Denison, Georgia district director of the U.S. Small Business Administration, was the featured speaker. She underscored the need for a university partner in the community to facilitate new startup activity and to serve as a convener and facilitator.

“Oglethorpe University is taking the right steps to strengthen the entrepreneurial landscape,” Denison said. “Atlanta needs more organizations dedicated to both incubating and accelerating startups, ensuring that entrepreneurs can access the resources they need, right where they are.”

The Oglethorpe Entrepreneurship Empowerment Zone encompasses seven vibrant communities surrounding the university—Brookhaven, Buckhead, Chamblee, Doraville, Dunwoody, Peachtree Corners and Sandy Springs. These areas stand to gain significant advantages from collaboration with a university-based entrepreneurship center, fostering innovation, business growth and economic development.

Collectively, the zone is home to over 130,000 businesses, including 7,000 newly established enterprises and 17,000 startups, fueled by more than 341 capital deals totaling more than $5 billion. This thriving ecosystem presents a prime opportunity to cultivate entrepreneurship, support emerging ventures and enhance the region’s economic impact.

Each community in the zone has a slightly different priority for small businesses and startups. Dunwoody, for example, is looking to utilize its remaining commercial office space. Chamblee is home to the second busiest airport of its size in the state of Georgia and has tremendous upside for aviation-related industry. And with a large-scale film studio development now operating in Doraville, opportunities abound.

“We’re looking to build something new in an under-served market,” Carson said. “We’re responding to an unmet need, not building on top of other institutions and their offerings in the community.”

Oglethorpe’s EIC looks to provide incubation support through entrepreneurship ecosystem partners for new businesses and acceleration resources for startups and existing small businesses. As an incubator, Oglethorpe will bring in community collaborators to work with entrepreneurs from the idea phase to launch. Small business accelerator support will include education and mentorship, helping secure funding through access to investment networks and providing networking and community building opportunities.

Oglethorpe also brings to the table an in-demand asset: students. Over 140 business majors and 42 MBA students in the Hammack School have been involved with the EIC, collectively producing over 200 original business ideas with five students actively pursuing a startup from their ideas.

“The facilities and talent to harness and guide the entrepreneurial energy of both our students and the communities adjacent to our campus are integral to building our 21st century Hammack School of Business,” Craft said. “Increasingly, students in Hammack and from disciplines across Oglethorpe are entering college with the dream of building their own ventures as part of their career plan.  The communities in the Oglethorpe Entrepreneurial Empowerment Zone are seeing Oglethorpe as the natural convening place for supporting a dynamic entrepreneurship ecosystem.”

The first five events the center will host this spring semester for communities in the EEZ are as follows:

• “Magnetic Storytelling for Brand Growth” led by marketing consultant Christy Renee Stehle from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Feb. 26, in Goodman Hall on the Oglethorpe campus.
• “Empowering Micro-Businesses” led by Greater Wealth Works.
• “What Every Small Business and Startup Should Know about IP” by Russell B. Dunlap, Esq.
• “Capital Readiness Procurement” by the Urban League of Greater Atlanta.
• “Creating the safe environment: CPR for Small Business Owners” by the Sandy Springs Fire Department.

These offerings are the beginning of the center fulfilling its mission to develop entrepreneurship and innovation programs, serve as a community resource center and provide space for the entrepreneurial ecosystem participants to conduct meetings and workshops.

“Dr. Carson has worked with us over the past two years to ensure the university’s approach meets both current and future market needs,” said Doraville Mayor Joseph Geierman.

The EIC was created in August of 2022 and Dr. Carson, who joined the HSB faculty in 2021 as business management senior lecturer, was named the founding director. In the 2022-2023 academic year, the EIC hosted a series called “Stories in E&I” featuring Dr. Carson’s one-on-one interviews with Integral founder and CEO Egbert Perry, Fuddruckers CEO and brand owner Nicholas Perkins, and tastytrade founder and CEO Tom Sosonoff.