Inside the Anderson Center | 40 events, 1,500+ students, and a university-wide impact
Through the leadership of Breanna Hale, the ACEI is making strides in brand awareness across the UT, Knoxville campus.
It was an impactful year at the Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (ACEI) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK). This week, the Center released a report, citing its on-campus and off-campus activities. This year, the team hosted 40 events, reaching 1,500 students, and awarded about $140,000 to student start-ups.
The mission of the Anderson Center is to be the front door to entrepreneurship at UT and to connect entrepreneurs and innovators at every stage with the resources, networks, and expertise needed to solve real challenges.
In the report, Executive Director Breanna Hale stated, “At the ACEI, growth and momentum have become part of our DNA.”
The three key areas of growth were in the number of start-up coaches and the expansion of the ambassador program.
Coach Appreciation
Nine entrepreneurs with connections to the university system volunteered to be start-up coaches for the students. Those folks include Melissa Centers, Esteban Hernandez, Mark Huber, Jake Livesay, Chris McAdoo, Erica Stump, Chuck West, Lia Winter, and David Youngblood. Each person has a different area of expertise to offer to students.
These folks dedicated 323 hours of mentorship, which was a 29 percent increase from the 2023-2024 academic year.
Additionally, there are more than a dozen faculty fellows in various colleges across campus pointing students toward entrepreneurship.
Ambassador Appreciation
In the 2023-24 school year, 13 students served as ambassadors for the Anderson Center. In the 2024-25 school year, that number increased to 19 student ambassadors representing five colleges across campus.
The student ambassadors included Lydia Capps, Hannah Clark, Nick DiMeglio, Josef Govednik, Owen Gunter, Max Gallinek, Jackson Heiden, Brennan Lessard, Luke Hein, Kylie Henriksen, Kenna Mullins, Haylee Ferguson, Harrison Haymon, Blake Hopkins, Jawan Qura, Vishal Rajan, Aniirudh Ramesh, Rondi Quass, and Zain Zitawi.
The goal for these ambassadors was to help spread the word about the Anderson Center to other students across campus, invite them to events, and encourage entrepreneurship across various fields of study.
Largely through the Ambassador’s Program, ACEI reached 355 students through events, which was an increase of 58 percent from the 2023-24 academic year.
Hale also shared in the report that the ACEI was able to launch two new community partnerships in the 2024-25 year. These included the Emerging Entrepreneur Track at Knoxville’s Startup Day 2024 and the new Emerging Businesses Category at the Rocky Top Business Awards, both celebrating early-stage student ventures.
The Center hopes and plans to build on the progress and momentum headed into the fall semester of the 2025-26 school year.
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