Why a Global Entrepreneurship Week?

• The global economic slowdown and issues such as energy and the environment offer unprecedented and urgent challenges
• The world has one natural resource that will never run out – its people
• It is therefore an international imperative to unlock the talents of everyone in society – using entrepreneurship as the key to mobilize the talents of the many, not the few

What is Global Entrepreneurship Week?

• Global Entrepreneurship Week – November 17 – 23, 2008 – is an initiative to inspire young people everywhere to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity.
• In 2007, the Kauffman Foundation sponsored Entrepreneurship Week USA which had 1,300 partners planning 3,700 activities that engaged nearly half a million people. In the UK, the Make Your Mark campaign has enjoyed similar success with Enterprise Week since 2003.
• British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Carl Schramm of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation announced plans to make the Week global last November in London.
• This November, tens of thousands of partner organizations will conduct countless activities—from simple speeches to comprehensive competitions—designed to inspire, connect, inform, mentor and engage the next generation of entrepreneurs.
• More than seventy-five countries are carrying the banner of Global Entrepreneurship Week, including: Australia, Brazil, China, France, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa and of course, the United States.
• The initiative is supported by a global network of sponsors and partners including: IBM, NYSE Euronext, Ernst & Young, the Kauffman Foundation, Make Your Mark, Junior Achievement, Endeavor, Entrepreneurs Organization, NFTE and others.
• One activity, Unleash It!, will tie dozens of countries together in the pursuit of entrepreneurial solutions to challenges around the world. Anyone can post a challenge—big or small, global or local—to put bright, young minds to work in unleashing creative and innovative solutions.

Highlights of Global Entrepreneurship Week

• Unleash It!, a global database of challenges engaging innovative solutions from aspiring young entrepreneurs
• Hundreds of Speednetwork the Globe sessions, including events in front of national and global landmarks like Trafalgar Square in the UK and the Sidney Opera House in Australia
• The Race to BE, an entrepreneurial challenge in the U.S. hosted by Russell Simmons for aspiring entrepreneurs in film, fashion and music
• The A. Richard Newton Global Technology Leaders Conference at the University of California, Berkeley in the U.S. with a collection of visionary leaders in the fields of science, technology, business, law, and economics
• Denmark’s Minister for Science and Technology will be announcing a new national enterprise strategy in Copenhagen
• The Honda Foundation in Japan will award its Honda Prize for new ideas which may lead to the next generation in the field of eco-technology.
• The Creativity World Forum in Belgium with speakers John Cleese and Steve Wozniak of Apple
• China will mark the final day of the week with a high-profile closing ceremony at the SOHO tower in Beijing with entrepreneurs, students, policy makers and the country’s Minister of Education, Zhou Ji
• More than 1,000 Russian entrepreneurs visiting schools and addressing student groups throughout the Week
• Peace Corps Paraguay organizing 180 activities on entrepreneurial solutions to local problems
• A dialogue on entrepreneurship with the President of Indonesia
• A documentary profiling entrepreneurial heroes in Ghana
• Nepal students going on an Entrepreneurship Road March through the centre of the capital, Kathmandu
• Colombia will be launching a week worth of activities with the National Innovation and Entrepreneurship Awards hosted by Colombian Minister of Commerce Guillermo Plata
• Hundreds of activities in emerging economic powerhouses India, Brazil and China