Archive: Business & Technology

Aurora, New York— The Sullivan Center for Business and Entrepreneurship at Wells College is pleased to present Entrepreneur Week, featuring a pair of highly-successful entrepreneur guest speakers and the College’s 4th Student Business Idea Competition. Wells’ student participants are currently developing their original business ideas individually or in teams; they’ll present these ideas to a panel of judges at the end of the week, competing for $5,000 in prizes. All Entrepreneur Week events are free to attend and open to the public.

Dave Brandt, head coach of the U.S. Naval Academy soccer team, will kick off the week by discussing entrepreneurship, the liberal arts and following your passion at 7:00 p.m. Friday, February 28, in the Chapel of Main Building on the Wells campus. Brandt became an entrepreneur in order to follow his own passion, building a successful business in addition to his remarkable coaching career. His unique approach has resulted in his teams winning six NCAA National Championships and having the longest win streak in the nation. As a result, Brandt has been named four-time NSCAA Coach of the Year.

The week will continue with keynote speaker Jessica Jackley, founder of Kiva.org, discussing her work in social entrepreneurship at 6:00 p.m. Monday, March 3, in Phipps Auditorium of Macmillan Hall. Jackley was a liberal arts major who took opportunities to spend a Semester at Sea and volunteer in Haiti and Africa; she soon realized that people in developing countries wanted more direct opportunities to improve the lives of their families. That’s when she got the idea to start the nonprofit lending platform Kiva.org. Today over a million people have loaned $500 million to low-income or underserved entrepreneurs through the website. Jackley was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World (#2), Forbes Magazine named her the Global Social Impact Leader of 2012, and she has served as an advisor to the Clinton Foundation and as a social impact member of the World Economic Forum.

As the week’s finale, students will take part in the “Be Your Own Boss!” Business Idea Competition. The participants this year represent a range of interests from innovative new businesses to social impact entrepreneurship ideas addressing worldwide problems. These ideas will be presented to their fellow students and the public at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 6, in the Hostetter Lecture Room (209) of Stratton Hall. A panel of entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., will serve as judges for the competition.

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