The Flemming Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation inspires H-SC students and alumni to create new ventures. It serves as a hub that empowers students to use their liberal arts foundation to harness the skills and knowledge necessary to pursue their creative visions and become entrepreneurial market leaders.
Located in the Brown Student Center, the Flemming Center provides a professional base to collaborate with the director, visiting entrepreneurs, and other founders who offer expertise, encourage constructive creativity, and provide mentorship and support. Offering programs that include workshops, guest lectures, and excursions, as well as the Tiger’s Den New Venture Pitch Competition, Flemming Fellowships, the LaunchPad Innovation Lab, the Entrepreneur-in-Residence program, and the Farmville Collegiate Accelerator, the Flemming Center can help members of the H-SC community accelerate their path toward successful venture creation. We are proud to serve as a network node for H-SC’s many entrepreneurial alumni. Please contact the acting director, Dr. Gregory Dempster, to join the network of alumni entrepreneurs and industry mentors.
Hampden-Sydney’s education sets you up very well for entrepreneurship, especially in small business. I have to wear many hats in a day: accountant, copywriter and marketing person.
Hunter Hopcroft ’10, entrepreneur
Tiger’s Den New Venture Pitch Competition
Students and recent alumni can apply for entry into the Tiger's Den to increase their access to mentoring from expert entrepreneurs and funding networks as well as structured instruction on the stages of venture creation. The semester-long incubator program—ideal for aspiring founders at the nascent stage of venture development—culminates with a pitch competition and cash-prize seed funding for the top performing founders.
Incubated ventures from either the Tiger’s Den or Flemming Fellows program can enroll in the Farmville Collegiate Accelerator, a small business accelerator located in the SEED Innovation Hub in downtown Farmville. This program is a collaboration between Longwood University, the Town of Farmville, and H-SC. The accelerator program provides dedicated time and space for bringing together diverse entrepreneurs to collectively scale their seed-level ventures. Instruction in the program offers founders the opportunity to dig deeper into the best practices in their chosen industry and forge connections with experts in their field
