Indiana is fortunate to have a fine community of business incubators of various sizes and focus. The NIIC differentiates itself in several ways:
· We are ISO9001:2000 certified. We not only teach best business practices, we apply them ourselves. To our knowledge, we are the only Indiana business incubator to achieve this certification, and one of only a handful in the entire country.
· While many business incubators are direct programs of specific colleges and universities, the NIIC has affiliations and cooperative relationships with almost every educational facility in Northeast Indiana, including:
- Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW, and one of the NIIC’s founding organizations; the new IU School of Medicine Regional Campus is just west of the NIIC’s own campus)
- Taylor University (whose MBA program is housed in the NIIC)
- Ivy Tech (whose new 167,000 sq. ft. Technology Center is being built adjacent to the NIIC campus)
- Huntington University (whose Venture Works program is a NIIC “node” serving Huntington County)
- Tri-State University (home to another NIIC node, serving Tri-State and Steuben County)
- St. Francis University
- Indiana Institute of Technology (IIT)
- Indiana Business College
- Fort Wayne Community Schools, and many other city and county school districts throughout the region.
The exceptional quality and depth of our training and coaching programs. For example, in the annual Purdue University Business Plan Competition, NIIC clients have swept the top 3 prizes for the past three years running! Great businesses start with a great business plan, and the NIIC has demonstrated a proven ability to help new ventures develop a winner. (Also consider that the business best-seller, How To Create A Winning Business Plan, was co-authored by Karl LaPan, the NIIC’s CEO, and Steve Franks, the Director of the NIIC Gateways program.)