Build a real venture. Not a case study.
NUvention Courses
NUvention is Farley’s flagship project-based course series. Interdisciplinary student teams move new ideas through the entire innovation lifecycle — from ideation and customer discovery to business model and final pitch — alongside faculty and industry advisers who’ve done it themselves.
Explore the NUvention tracks
Why NUvention?
Some entrepreneurship classes ask you to read or write about a venture. NUvention asks you to build one.
Real teams, real disciplines
Over a single quarter, you’ll join a team of students from across Northwestern — engineers, doctors, MBAs, journalists, designers — to create a new venture.
Faculty and industry mentors who've launched companies
Every track is co-taught and advised by founders and industry experts. They review your work weekly, not just at final pitches.
Ideas that leave the classroom
By the final week, your team will pitch a business idea to a panel of industry experts. Many of those projects don’t end on pitch day. They continue in NUvention: Launch or The Garage and, sometimes, beyond graduation.
NUvention Tracks
Choose Your Track
Six NUvention courses, one shared philosophy. Pick the industry where you want your idea to live.
NUvention: Arts & Entertainment
Build new ventures in music, TV, theater, and the visual arts.
What makes this track unique
- The only NUvention track focused on creative-industry venture building.
- Open to students from across Northwestern, including the School of Communication and Medill.
NUvention: Biotechnology
Harness biotechnology to address society's most pressing challenges.
What makes this track unique
- A collaboration with Northwestern's Center for Synthetic Biology, co-directed by course faculty member Danielle Tullman-Ercek
- Open to students from across Northwestern, including Feinberg and McCormick
NUvention: Energy & Sustainability
Turn climate research into the next clean-tech company.
What makes this track unique
- Cross-listed with Northwestern's Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy.
- Has produced more named, funded ventures than any other track to date, including Hazel Technologies, NUMiX Materials, blip energy, NuMat Technologies, and Lilac Solutions.
NUvention: Media
Launch an AI-powered media venture.
What makes this track unique
- Co-taught by Jeremy Gilbert, Knight Chair in Digital Media Strategy and former director of strategic initiatives at The Washington Post, and Larry Birnbaum, Northwestern computer science professor and cofounder of Narrative Science.
- Cross-listed across journalism, computer science, and entrepreneurship — students earn credit in their home school.
NUvention: Medical
Build the next medical technology company.
What makes this track unique
- The most cross-school NUvention course — students from Feinberg, Kellogg, and McCormick work side by side.
- Built on the Stanford BioDesign methodology used by leading med-tech programs nationally.
- Many ideas become successful startups, including Hubly Surgical, a neurosurgical drilling system that simplifies intracranial access (founded by Casey Qadir, NUvention: Medical).
NUvention: Launch
Take your startup idea to the next level.
What makes this track unique
- Accelerate your startup alongside fellow entrepreneurs working on iterations of their existing business model, whether from NUvention courses, The Garage, or beyond.
- Connect with talented founders from other NUvention tracks
- Refine your venture for major competitions like VentureCat and Rice Business Plan Competition
NUvention Stories
Ventures Launched in NUvention
Read highlights of students who took their idea from classroom to launch.
