Construction on a hi-tech, modern Entrepreneur Center will begin this summer, but will not be finished until December 2015.
     The E-center is for any potential entrepreneur who would like to start a business. It’s available to faculty, staff, and students. It is mostly funded by private donations by alumni through the MSU Foundation. 
     This project cost roughly around $625,000. The E-Center will contribute $1,000 to $3,000 from grants to help fund the construction, and  the Angel Network, an investment group, will contribute roughly  $50,000 to $1 million dollars.
      The vision statement for the E-Center states, “The principle goal of the renovation project is to create an impactful, unique home and central nucleus for all entrepreneurial activity by students, faculty, and staff right in the heart of campus at Mississippi State University, as well as become a gateway to community & industry partners who seek to engage with these innovators.” 
Program Manager for the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation and MSU Alumni, Eric Hill, said the program had an increase in the number of walk-ins since early July last year to date, and now around 179 people are interested in starting their own startups.
    “The reason for starting the E-center is the number of people interested in starting companies here, at MSU, has doubled in the last two years and is being constructed to support that growing number,” Hill said. “We do support Alumni startups as long as they involve an MSU student as a partner and that allows us to support an Alumni startup.” 
 
 The new E-center will be located in McCool Hall right across from the PGA lab rooms and the finance strategic lab. Its walls will be made entirely out of glass. Also, there will be four or five student workers who have all started their own businesses to help others in their business ventures. The new facility will be 2,100 square feet.  
       There will be break out areas for anyone to come and work on business plans. There will also be a reception area, conference rooms that are remote enable with three LCD TVs and a HD camera system to feature video conferences. 
The E-Center will come with an Entrepreneur in Residence. The office will allow anyone coming from out of state to work with other entrepreneurs. 
      Pryor and Marrow is the architect firm that will construct the E-Center Stephens Daniel is the architect who designed the center.
      A bid for contractors will go out April 21, and construction will begin in June and gothrough October.  
     Ced Hapmton, sophomore marketing major from Jackson, Mississippi, said this will be a good asset for MSU. 
“I feel that it’s a great opportunity, because everybody has an entrepreneurial spirit, but not everyone acts on it,” Hampton said. “This center will expand other’s horizon and anything that MSU does to innovates our students, faculty and staff resources where we can tap into our resources is amazing.”