Babcock School unveils business incubator as component
of Wake Forest's Business Development Initiative

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Wake Forest University's Babcock Graduate School of Management has announced the launch of a business incubator as part of the university's broader effort to support the local business community.

The Babcock Demon Incubator operates under the Babcock School's Angell Center for Entrepreneurship and occupies 1,200 square feet at 3455 University Parkway, directly across from the university. The incubator's mission is to foster entrepreneurial education at Wake Forest and an entrepreneurial spirit in the Triad by providing personalized services and relationships to growth-oriented, early stage ventures.

The incubator offers office space and Internet access for growing businesses. It will house three to five start-up businesses, with tenants admitted on a rolling basis throughout the year. Each business that enters the incubator will have approximately 12 months to grow and find a permanent location.

The goal for the incubator is to launch businesses that have the potential to create significant economic impact in the Triad through jobs and business investment. Among the businesses to be housed in the incubator will be winners of the Triad Entrepreneurial Initiative's annual business plan competition.

The incubator is one component of Wake Forest's Business Development Initiative, which is designed to support the local business community. Other components include:

• The Center for Undergraduate Entrepreneurship at the Calloway School of Business and Accountancy, which is under development. Recognizing a growing demand for entrepreneurial skills in the marketplace, the Calloway School's entrepreneurship center will focus on helping students from all areas of the university develop the skills to successfully think through a business idea. The center will partner business ideas from students in the College of Arts and Sciences with the business skills of students in the Calloway School to develop new business ventures. Local entrepreneurs and small-business leaders will mentor the student teams and provide internship sites. The center will be housed in the new Kirby Wing of Calloway Hall, scheduled to be complete by fall 2003. Some student projects are expected to begin next fall, but the official launch date for the center has not been determined. Page West, an associate professor of business in the Calloway School, will direct the center.
  
  
• Wake Forest's Office of Technology Asset Management, directed by Spencer Lemons. The office markets developing medical technology through the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Examples of spin-off companies from Wake Forest's School of Medicine include Amplistar Inc., which develops biomarkers for early cancer detection; Kucera Pharmaceutical Co., which develops methods of improving the effectiveness of drugs that battle cancer and viruses, including hepatitis and HIV/AIDS; and Prosperon Pharmaceuticals Inc., which creates compounds to treat stroke, spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries.
  
  
• Idealliance, a nonprofit community group affiliated with Wake Forest, Winston-Salem State and other area colleges and universities. Idealliance, formerly known as the North Carolina Emerging Technology Alliance, is developing the Piedmont Triad Research Park at a 91,000-square-foot facility in downtown Winston-Salem as a site for high-tech business projects. Bill Dean is the group's president. Wake Forest President Thomas K. Hearn Jr. serves as the chairman of its board of directors.
  
  
• The university's recent announcement that it plans to form a School for Biomedical Engineering and Sciences through a joint project with Virginia Tech.

Hearn says the various efforts illustrate the university's commitment to helping build a stronger community.

"Like those who looked ahead in the 1940s to the future well-being of this city and its surrounding area, we are today taking another important step for future generations of Wake Foresters and Triad residents," Hearn says. "I believe those philanthropists and business people who saw what it could mean to this area to have a world-class institution of higher education in their midst would be pleased with all of Wake Forest's initiatives in the area of fostering new business enterprises."

Babcock School faculty and students and a group of outside advisers help select businesses for the incubator and provide those businesses with mentoring and consulting assistance. The incubator also provides assistantships for Babcock students and opportunities for faculty research.

Stan Mandel, executive professor of entrepreneurship at the Babcock School and director of the Angell Center, says the incubator will serve student-run businesses and community businesses.

"The Babcock Demon Incubator offers our students the opportunity to launch their own business ventures with assistance from a network of other entrepreneurs and service providers," Mandel says. "Similarly, the incubator offers area entrepreneurs the same opportunity but also the assistance of students to help complete their business plans."

R. Charles Moyer, dean and GMAC Insurance Chair of Finance at the Babcock School, says the incubator serves a core value of the Babcock School.

"This will add a critical element of clinical educational experiences for our students," Moyer says. "One of the core values of the Babcock School is to provide a hands-on learning experience. The Babcock Demon Incubator is critical for our emerging, nationally ranked program in entrepreneurship. At the same time, we see the incubator as playing a significant role in the growing efforts to transform the Winston-Salem community into a hotbed of technology-driven business initiatives. None of this would have been possible without Don Angell and his family, whose leadership support led to the establishment of the Angell Center for Entrepreneurship."

Paul Briggs, a retired former executive with Duke Energy, directs the incubator.

"The old adage 'it takes a village to raise a child' is just as true for the many resources it takes to grow a business," Briggs says. "In addition to the growth of companies, the overall spirit of business success and creation will be fostered in the community through our incubator."

Last updated 11/14/01