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The Innovation, Design, and Entrepreneurship Academy (IDEA) is a co-curricular program through the Office of the Chancellor and Provost at Rutgers–New Brunswick. Its aim is to provide students with a connected ecosystem for research, design, and entrepreneurship opportunities. It complements any major, helping students develop critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and career design skills.

First-year students can join the one-year Expeditions Fellows program. Transfer and upperclassmen can enter the IDEA community through:

• IDEA Incubator
• ScarletPitch
• TOPxRutgers
   

IDEA is designed to complement any major or course of study!

One of IDEA's goals is to help students discover their skills and interests and identify problems they want to solve, achieved through research, self-reflection, and academic/career coaching.

Absolutely! Through our courses (IDEA incubator), campus partners (Northeast I-Corps Hub, Rutgers Business School), and our vast and engaged Alumni network, we will help you: 

• develop ideas through workshops and coursework
• engage in customer discovery
• apply business concepts
   

Design thinking and entrepreneurial skills are highly desired in the workforce, whether or not you plan to launch your own venture. Having a design or entrepreneurial mindset means utilizing your creativity, experience, and skills to work with others to solve problems and create new ideas. These are the same skills that you will learn in medical school, and IDEA gives you a great head start!

IDEA headquarters are in “The Hatchery,” a centrally-located innovation studio in the Archibald S. Alexander Library on College Avenue Campus. Students will also have access to the network of maker-spaces on campus, as well as the vast array of innovation and entrepreneurship programs and activities that already take place on campus.

An invitation to IDEA does not currently come with a scholarship.

• Experiential learning involving real-world problems
• Paid research and internships
• Early exposure to faculty researchers, alumni entrepreneurs, and employers
• Dedicated academic counseling
• Personalized career design