Global Entrepreneurship Week is the world’s largest celebration of innovation and job creators. In its fifth year, this initiative, sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, encourages entrepreneurs take their ideas, hopes and dreams to the next level.
The idea behind Global Entrepreneurship Week is simple; the impact is profound.
For one week, in communities all over the world, nearly 24,000 Global Entrepreneurship Week partner organizations are planning 37,000 activities that will directly engage 7 million people or more.
There is a wonderful Global Entrepreneurship Week website for sharing of activities, collaboration, and networking, but, just like in entrepreneurship, the framework of Global Entrepreneurship Week is flexible. It is up to each participant — whether individual, organization or municipality — to decide how they want to play.
Tulsa has been participating in Global Entrepreneurship Week since 2008. This year, it’s been my pleasure to represent i2E on Tulsa Global Entrepreneurship Week’s leadership committee.
Activities kick off Nov. 9 with Startup Weekend Tulsa. This workshop begins with entrepreneurs taking an open mic to describe their startup idea and pushes through two days of Lean Startup Methodologies, culminating with demonstrations of prototypes and feedback from a panel of experts.
The overall mission of Tulsa Global Entrepreneurship Week is to highlight and promote entrepreneurship within Tulsa with an appreciation of the global scale and power of innovation.
Tulsa Global Entrepreneurship Week is a catalyst and provides an organized opportunity to stand up and beat your chest about how good entrepreneurship really can be for our local and state economy. It also exposes people who aren’t sure about entrepreneurship to the possibilities.
Tulsa Global Entrepreneurship Week events are being coordinated by the city’s Economic Development Commission (EDC), Entrepreneurship Committee. Sponsors include businesses, the City of Tulsa, Tulsa Metro Chamber, Tulsa Community College, University of Tulsa, and i2E.
Receiving funding from the City of Tulsa in this time of budget cuts demonstrates how Tulsa views entrepreneurship as the engine of long-term economic development. In a report from the Kauffman Foundation, the impact of Tulsa Global Entrepreneurship Week has helped more than 70 startups in Tulsa with an added yearly payroll of $12 million.
i2E will host a Business Resource Summit, bringing together entrepreneurs and the many organizations in Tulsa that support them, including The Forge incubator and Hardesty Center for Fab Lab Tulsa, an MIT-inspired fabrication laboratory open to innovators and entrepreneurs.
There’s a lot written today about what’s required to develop entrepreneurship as a civic asset. The statistics show that all net new job growth is in companies five years and younger. Entrepreneurship begets entrepreneurship. We are laying the seeds.
