UA Celebrates Global Entrepreneurship Week

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The University of Alabama has scheduled activities for the observance of Global Entrepreneurship Week, Feb. 22-28, celebrating the heritage of entrepreneurship in America and underscoring opportunities for new entrepreneurs.

Global Entrepreneurship Week at UA is an opportunity to highlight the efforts of UA students, faculty and staff to positively impact communities throughout the state and around the world, as well as provide resources to the business community in their endeavors to meet real-world needs.

“Can you imagine the United States without entrepreneurship,” asks David Ford, associate director of the Alabama Entrepreneurship Institute at UA. “Such thoughts conjure visions of a country where Thomas Jefferson let his ideas for inventions flit away from his thoughts, where pioneers refused to hike the Oregon Trail in search of a better future, and where Martin Luther King Jr. accepted the status quo and sat down when his heart called him to stand.”

UA’s Colleges of Commerce and Business Administration and Human Environmental Sciences, Center for Community-Based Partnerships and Alabama Entrepreneurship Institute are working in concert with the West Alabama Chamber of Commerce and the Alabama Department of Education to participate in the global observance. Delegates from each organization attended Gov. Bob Riley’s entrepreneurial proclamation ceremony in Montgomery on Jan. 22.

Events for the week include:

Second Annual Boy Scout Merit Badge Workshop in Entrepreneurship on Feb. 20.

Boy Scouts with the Black Warrior Council of the Boy Scouts of America will complete the required components of earning their Entrepreneurship Badge in one intensive day of workshops, led by UA students in the Students in Free Enterprise Club, UA faculty and staff.

For more information: David Ford, Alabama Entrepreneurship Intstitute, dford@cba.ua.edu

Fourth Annual UA Entrepreneurship Awards Celebration on Feb. 25

Keynote speaker Janet Gurwitch will address the ceremony honoring achievements of exceptional Alabamians in four categories: high school teaching, university and college teaching, social entrepreneurship and young entrepreneurship. The ceremony will be held at the Hotel Capstone in Tuscaloosa.

For more information:  Annette Watters, Alabama Entrepreneurship Institute, awatters@cba.ua.edu

UA Entrepreneurship Club Partners with a Special Needs Class at Hillcrest High School

This academic year and through the coming summer, UA students in the Entrepreneurship Club will use a grant from the Center for Community-Based Partnerships to work with Hillcrest High School instructor Earnestine Giles’s class to showcase the possibilities in entrepreneurship for individuals with disabilities.  Students, their parents and members of the community will be involved in the project.

For more information: Dr. Lou Marino, Alabama Entrepreneurship Institute, lmarino@cba.ua.edu