February 6, 2007
Discovery Park plans campus events for EntrepreneurshipWeek USA
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - |
"Entrepreneurship is a driving force of the U.S. economy, with businesses less than five years old accounting for about 70 percent of all new jobs," said George Adams, Purdue EntrepreneurshipWeek USA organizer and special projects manager for Discovery Park. "Many of those businesses are being created by entrepreneurs who don't necessarily have a finance or business background."
Purdue's EntrepreneurshipWeek USA programs are centered at the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship. But they are being held in collaboration with several colleges and schools across campus, including the College of Agriculture, the Krannert School of Management and the several centers within Discovery Park:
* Entrepreneurship Business Plan Competition: Feb. 22, 8:30 a.m., Burton Morgan Center, Room 121. The 20th annual Burton D. Morgan Competition will help Purdue kick off the week as top teams compete for $75,000 in prize money.
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* I2P-EPICS competitions: Feb. 24, 8 a.m., Burton Morgan Center. EPICS Entrepreneurship Initiative and the Center for the Environment will hold two Idea-to-Product Competitions. To be eligible, student teams must have a product, prototype or well-defined concept. The top two EPICS teams advance to the national competition, while the Center for Environment winners will receive monetary prizes. A group of sixth-grade students from an invention class at Happy Hollow Elementary School in West Lafayette also will observe the event.
* Startup funding workshop: Feb. 28, 9-11 a.m., Burton Morgan Center, Room 121. "How to Negotiate Company Funding for a Startup: The Term Sheet" will focus on how startup businesses and campus entrepreneurs can negotiate funding to launch a business. The seminar is free and open to the public. Purdue students, faculty, staff and researchers will be given registration priority. Online registration is available at https://www.purdue.edu/dp/bdm/termsheet/.
* How to Start a Business Workshop: Feb. 28, 1-4:30 p.m., Lafayette-West Lafayette Chamber of Commerce offices, 337 Columbia St. in downtown Lafayette. Greater Lafayette Small Business Development Center, a regional agency based at Purdue's Burton Morgan Center, will lead its monthly workshop on "How To Start Your Business." The workshop, which is free and open to the public, provides expertise in legal, tax, accounting, financing, insurance and marketing issues. The SBDC serves Benton, Carroll, Clinton, Fountain, Montgomery, Tippecanoe, Warren and White counties. To register, call (765) 496-6491.
* Bigger Profits through Targeted Sales: Feb. 28, 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Dauch Alumni Center. This workshop, for 20-25 young entrepreneurs, is designed to help develop skills and build marketing action plans for their business. Purdue's New Ventures Team, which is composed of campus specialists and county educators through Purdue Extension and the College of Agriculture, will lead the program.
* Classroom Mini-Economy: March 1, 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Burton Morgan Center, Room 129. This program, offered by the Indiana Council for Economic Education, helps elementary and middle-school teachers create their own play-money economy in the classroom. With these new teaching aids, new programs can be established to helpg young students learn economic concepts and skills about money management, entrepreneurship and business decision-making.
Purdue is one of more than 80 colleges and universities participating in EntrepreneurshipWeek USA. Others include Cornell University, Georgetown University, Stanford University, Syracuse University, University of Alabama and the University of Chicago.
Nancy Clement, interim director of Purdue's EPICS Entrepreneurship Initiative for the Burton Morgan Center, said this nation's founders embraced an entrepreneurial spirit. To remain competitive in today's global economy, universities must connect more effectively with students to keep them on the cutting edge of innovation, she said.
"Purdue's EntrepreneurshipWeek USA activities are designed to inspire our students all across campus to think creatively and to turn their ideas into action ? whether that means starting a business, developing an innovation for an existing company or solving a problem that makes our society better."
To respond to that movement, the Burton Morgan Center created the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation program in fall 2005. The first Purdue class had 40 students, and enrollment soared to more than 600 participants in fall 2006, with students coming from many disciplines across campus.
"The goal for the program is to reach 1,000 students by fall 2008," said program leader Nathalie Duval-Couetil, associate director of the Burton Morgan Center. "Campus events like EntrepreneurshipWeek USA will help us showcase these programs and meet that challenge."
According to Kauffman Foundation research, 41 percent of children ages 9-12 say they would like to start their own business. And young people have a natural desire for the independence and control that come with owning a business and being their own boss, said Carl Schramm, president and chief executive of the Kauffman Foundation.
"We are delighted with the leadership and expertise that these organizations bring to EntrepreneurshipWeek USA as program partners," Schramm said. "Educating our young people about entrepreneurship and reinforcing the value that entrepreneurs and innovators bring to our economy is critical to America's long-term prosperity - more so now than ever before."
Purdue's Burton Morgan Center is a platform to launch technology-based enterprises based on university research, working closely with faculty, students and Indiana entrepreneurs to better understand how to bring research and technology to market.
Purdue was awarded a $1.5 million grant by the Kauffman Foundation on Dec. 15 to make entrepreneurship education a common and accessible campuswide opportunity for all college students. The grant to Purdue and the Burton Morgan Center is part of a $200 million effort to transform the way entrepreneurship education is taught in the nation's colleges and universities.
The other eight Kauffman Campuses named were Arizona State University, Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown University, New York University, Syracuse University, University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.
For more information about Purdue's EntrepreneurshipWeek USA lineup, go to https://web.e-enterprise.purdue.edu/wps/portal/Entrepreneurship.Writer: Phillip Fiorini, (765) 496-3133, (765) 427-3009, pfiorini@purdue.edu
Sources:George Adams, (765) 494-2698, gba@purdue.edu
Nancy Clement, (765) 494-9884, nic@purdue.edu
Nathalie Duval-Couetil, (765) 494-7068, natduval@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
Note to Journalists: Reporters interested in events at Purdue as part of EntrepreneurshipWeek USA can contact Phillip Fiorini, Purdue News Service, at (765) 496-3133, pfiorini@purdue.edu
Related Web sites:
Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship: https://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/entrepreneurship/
EntrepreneurshipWeek USA: . https://www.EntrepreneurshipWeekUSA.com
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation: https://www.kauffman.org
Krannert School of Management: https://www.mgmt.purdue.edu/
Discovery Park: https://purdue.edu/discoverypark
PHOTO CAPTION:
From left, Sean Brophy, assistant professor of engineering education at Purdue, students Seung-Jai Min, Charity Pettis and Garene Kaloustian, and Nancy Clement, interim director of Purdue's EPICS Entrepreneurship Initiative, examine a mapping project being completed by another group of students for the Lafayette Adult Resource Academy. Min, a teaching assistant and graduate student in electrical and computer engineering; Pettis, a graduate student in electrical and computer engineering; and Kaloustian, a doctoral student in child development, are part of the Miller Child Learning Center within the EPICS Entrepreneurship Initiative. The Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship at Discovery Park is sponsoring several campus events from Feb. 21-March 4 in conjunction with the national EntrepreneurshipWeek USA, designed to excite students in non-traditional disciplines about what it takes to start a business. (Purdue News Service photo/David Umberger)
A publication-quality photo is available at https://www.purdue.edu/uns/images/+2007/clement-EPICS.jpg
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