Entrepreneurship Club at Carolina
The mission of Entrepreneurship Club at Carolina (ECC) is to provide a platform for students to actively engage with the Shuford Program and the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Chapel Hill area.
Entrepreneurial Skills for Life
Expand Your Education
Entrepreneurship Club at Carolina (Powered by Shuford) is the premier entrepreneurship club on UNC’s campus, housed within the Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship. ECC empowers students to take the dive into the entrepreneurial world from all angles. We support student builders, students wanting to work at startups, and students interested in venture capital / startup investing. ECC was founded in 2024 to bridge the gap between students and real opportunities within our startup ecosystem at UNC and in the Triangle.
We want you!
Why Join
Joining ECC is a great way to dip your feet in (and hopefully catch the entrepreneurial bug in one way or another) to the entrepreneurial ecosystem locally and learn how entrepreneurship is more than starting a business, the mindset it develops and skills it can produce is the true value. We enjoy working with students early in their college careers and broadening their horizons to see all of the doors that local entrepreneurial involvement can open.
Internship Opportunities
On a semester basis, we open internship applications. This is a program designed specifically for members of ECC to get real experience with a local startup, even if they don’t have any prior experience. Once you are a member of ECC, you are eligible to participate and we will match the best candidates with local startup roles (spots allowing).
During Fall 2025, the Entrepreneurship Club at Carolina launched our Startup Internship Program. In our first cohort, we placed 25 interns (about 80% of applicants) with 8 local startups.
During the Spring 2026 semester, the program grew significantly. We saw over a 90% increase in applicants and were able to place 26 students (about 40% of applicants) with local startup companies.
Through the Startup Internship Program, ECC members gain hands-on experience working inside the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Interns work directly with startup founders and teams, giving them a firsthand look at what it’s like to build and grow a company. 2/3 of our Spring 2026 applicants were UNC underclassmen, and we’re especially excited to help these students gain their first internship and startup experiences.
Past Events
ECC hosts a wide variety of events to depict the variation of opportunities within our vast entrepreneurial ecosystem. We have speaker events, regular mixers, social events, and build events. See below for some of the events we’ve hosted in the past!
2026 – 2027 ECC Executive Board
Amaan Ansari ’29
Director of Internships
Major(s): Business Administration & Data Science
Ashley Weil ’29
Director of Partnerships & Initiatives
Major(s): Business Administration
Our History
ECC was started in 2024 after a gap was recognized by Founder and Co-President, Stella Turner. As a sophomore at the time, Stella built out the initial exec team and got the club officially established. Initially named Leaders In Entrepreneurship at Carolina (LEC), the club grew to 70 members in its first year on campus. The goal was the fill the gap on campus of their not being many entrepreneurial clubs on campus that catered to a diverse audience.
In the spring of 2026, the club rebranded to Entrepreneurship Club at Carolina to become the known flagship entrepreneurship organization on UNC’s campus, directly powered by the Shuford Program in Entrepreneurship. This change came as the club made a pivot to simplify and provide clarity to who they are.
ECC is run like a startup. It is a small and lean team that pivots and moves quickly. We are students from all backgrounds and all majors – which is what is needed to build a successful venture, a variety of people.