UMBC Awarded $2 Million to Fund Entrepreneurship Education
*Learn about Entrepreneurship Week Events (Feb. 24-Mar. 3)
*Read about UMBC student and faculty entrepreneurs
*Visit the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship Web site
UMBC is expanding its entrepreneurship education and programming, thanks to a $2-million grant from the Kauffman Foundation.
The mission of the Kauffman Campuses Initiative is to catalyze entrepreneurship programs outside of business and engineering schools. The award acknowledges the success of UMBC’s Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, created six years ago through a gift of $1 million from the Alex. Brown Foundation to develop a leading university entrepreneurship center for the Baltimore region.
“The Kauffman grant allows us to take entrepreneurship programming to the next level,” said Vivian Armor, director of the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship. “We can expand course offerings, improve programming that exposes students and faculty to important entrepreneurial concepts and help develop systems to support individuals launching successful business ventures or social entrepreneurship programs that address community needs.”
Armor believes that UMBC’s upcoming Entrepreneurship Week (February 24 through March 3, part of EntrepreneurshipWeek USA) can serve as an awareness campaign about entrepreneurship, often misunderstood as a concept that only applies to business.
“Entrepreneurship can play an important role in all disciplines,” she said. “Faculty and students pushing the envelope in science and technology, breaking new ground in the creative arts or crafting new solutions to society’s problems can all be entrepreneurs. Some people don’t even realize what they are doing is entrepreneurial.”
The Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship is committed to working with faculty and students across the campus. Its most recent summer institute was designed for members of the visual and performing arts faculty, who learned how to incorporate entrepreneurial concepts into their classes. The Center will continue to offer institutes in a variety of disciplines.
The Center also offers courses, lectures and other student and faculty programming, and is a partner in UMBC’s ACTiVATE program, funded by the National Science Foundation to address the unique needs of accomplished women interested in starting technology companies. Eight women in the two-year-old program now lead their own tech companies.
(2/19/07)
© 2006-07 University of Maryland, Baltimore County 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 410-455-1000
