Upper Albany Incubator Program

The Upper Albany Micro Business Incubator (MBI) brings training, development, resources and support to the businesses throughout the Upper Albany neighborhood of Hartford. The philosophy that drives the MBI is "give a man a fish and he'll feed himself for a day. Teach a man to fish and he can feed himself for a lifetime." The program matches micro-enterprises in the neighborhood with students from the Barney School and other schools across the campus. Using one-to-one, on site training, students and business owners work together in such skills as business planning, marketing, merchandising, technology, financial literacy, e-commerce and customer service. Students work with businesses on-site at their location and also have access to the rich resources of the Upper Albany Main Street office, located on Albany Avenue. Using a train-the-trainers approach, students help Upper Albany entreprenuers to develop their business acumen while the students themselves learn about operating a small business, community economic development and understanding people from diverse bachgrounds. This is truely a unique and effective service learning program which enhances students' classroom learning and enables them to understand social responsibility.