UA’s Entrepreneurship Community Slates Events to Celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A number of events are planned by The University of Alabama’s entrepreneurship community to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week Nov. 12 – 19.

More than 75 countries will participate in the inaugural event, co-founded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in the United States and the United Kingdom’s Make Your Mark campaign.

The Entrepreneurship Club at the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration will host an event Tuesday, Nov. 18, featuring Matthew Franklin of Haskell Slaughter, a Birmingham law firm. Franklin will speak on the issues and challenges entrepreneurs face when conducting business in China and India. Franklin is a former UA accounting and law student who has been involved in development in both countries and as a visiting professor.

All Entrepreneurship Club members as well as local Tuscaloosa entrepreneurs are invited to attend. Franklin will speak in the Alston Parlor from 6 p.m.-8.p.m. Please RSVP with Mattie Wright by email, at mmwright@bama.ua.edu, as snacks and soft drinks will be provided.

On Wednesday, Nov. 19, the Entrepreneurship Club will host a luncheon featuring Brian Davis, director of the Alabama International Trade Center, who will talk about the details behind launching an import/export business. Reservations are required as lunch will be provided. The club asks those attending to bring their own drink. The luncheon will be from 1-2 p.m. in room 40 Alston Hall.

Space is limited, so reservations should be made by e-mail, at mmwright@bama.ua.edu, by Friday, Nov. 14 at 5 p.m.

On Thursday, Nov. 20, the Entrepreneurship Club will host a reception with the UA Entrepreneurship Board members in the fourth floor parlor of UA’s Alston Hall. The event will be open to all Entrepreneurship Club members.

At The University of Alabama School of Law, students of Professor Steven H. Hobbs, Tom Bevill Chairholder of Law, will each briefly describe projects they have been researching on various topics of entrepreneurship and the law. There will be a variety of approaches, including preliminary business plans, legal topics, and theoretical inquiries.

Hobbs is preparing law students who are interested in representing entrepreneurs working with a family business or starting a venture.

The presentations will be Nov. 12 from 3:30 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. in the new addition to the law school, in room A255. The format of these oral presentations will be brief and clear for listeners who are not lawyers, with the possibility of input from the audience. The presentations are open to everyone.

Insurance needs for the owners of small businesses will be discussed Monday, Nov. 17, from 5 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. in room 202 of Adams Hall.

Dr. Sue Parker, of the College of Human and Environmental Sciences, and her entrepreneurship students will host a presentation by David Fountain of State Farm Insurance on small business needs for insurance.

Visitors are welcome and may come and go during the presentation.

Fountain, business insurance field underwriter for north Alabama for State Farm Insurance, has been employed by State Farm for 13 years in the fire underwriting area.

Tommie Syx of the University of Alabama’s Rural Entrepreneurship through Action Learning Program will conduct a workshop Tuesday, Nov. 18 in Selma for selected high school students from Dallas, Lowndes and Wilcox counties.

At the workshop the students will learn the basics of how to build a business plan. When they return to their home schools on Wednesday, they will use what they learned on Tuesday to write a business plan for a business of their choosing. The plans will be submitted on Thursday to a competition that will be judged by faculty from Wallace Community College in Selma.

Also on Thursday, Syx will conduct a three-hour workshop for 15 teachers and community members in Fayette at Bevill State Community College. Attendees will focus on activities-based learning using the Alabama REAL entrepreneurship curriculum.

Paavo Hanninen, co-director of the Alabama Entrepreneurial Research Network at UA, will conduct a workshop at Alexander City from 11 a.m. until 1 a.m. Nov. 13 for invited participants at the Alexander City Chamber of Commerce.

Participants will learn how the AERN Center operates in Tallapoosa County and how community members can use the program for local business development. Following the presentation, the group will hold a round table discussion considering the benefits and business enhancement possibilities for Alexander City and Tallapoosa that will include lunch.

The Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration was established in 1919 and, in 1929, became the 38th school to earn admission into the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business. The excellence of the UA business school has been acknowledged on a national level. The undergraduate program is ranked 29th among public universities by U.S. News, and the Culverhouse School of Accountancy is ranked 15th among public universities by U.S. News. The graduate accounting program is ranked 15th and the undergraduate program 14th by Public Accounting Report. The entrepreneurial program is ranked 18th nationally.