Several award-winning UK companies are getting involved in Global Entrepreneurship Week by presenting their own real-life business challenges to young people around the world in the hopes that their entrepreneurial ambition and keenness to collaborate across borders will unleash thousands of new ideas.

Kwiqq develops social networking software and has presented their challenge to conceive the next big niche social network.

Eco Hoardings manufactures and installs environmentally friendly hoarding solutions to the construction industry and has presented their challenge to find new waste products they can recycle and reuse.

Pavers Ltd is a major discount footwear retailer and has presented their challenge to reduce its carbon footprint through having to ship different sized boxes and cartons.

Inuda Innovation builds web-based social software and has presented their challenge about coming up with a new - and actually useful - Facebook application.

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Unleash It! is an “open-source innovation community” that connects companies to entrepreneurial talent around the world.  Any company can present their own challenge and it can be about anything - from how to save money in their supply chain to coming up with a new product or service.

Following Oli Barrett’s exhilarating Speednetwork the Globe Tour across 6 continents, The Telegraph - national UK newspaper - has featured a great story in their Digital Life section.

In the article, Oli outlines the purpose of his trip and the benefits of speednetworking: “My mission: to host ’speednetworking’ events and to promote Global Entrepreneurship Week. The idea of ’speednetworking’ is similar to speed-dating - people have just three minutes to talk to each other before moving on to their next partner. The aim is to enable people to meet a succession of interesting new individuals. Far too often, people leave events having chatted to only a couple of people, or having just talked to their existing contacts.”

The feature follows Oli on his whistlestop tour and looks at how he kept in contact with us from all corners of the world through a varied digital discourse. The world of digital media is fast becoming the key facilitator for global conversations. Uploading videos, photos, twitters and blogs is the easiest way to reach out to the world and create a global community. As Oli himself says: “Some people travel to escape the crowds. I went to connect with them…the world is out there waiting to be connected with.”

Read the full article.

See the Speednetwork page to find out how you can make connections - fast!

 

Because Global Entrepreneurship Week is about encouraging entrepreneurship on a global scale it is appropriate that several universities and non-profit organizations are offering a myriad of activities that engage on more than one continent.The University of Chicago’s campus in London will be hosting an event called “After the Pitch: Entrepreneurial Financing Insights.”  The event will highlight key ways for entrepreneurs to encourage investment in their companies.  The event will also explain the differences of deal structuring in the United Kingdom versus the United States, which is useful to both entrepreneurs and investors who may wish to operate or invest in both nations. (more…)

Each year in the United States, 1.2 million kids drop out of high school. And while there certainly isn’t a shortage of programs or groups dedicated to lowering that number, one initiative is taking an innovative approach through promoting entrepreneurship.

During Global Entrepreneurship Week/USA, the Aspen Institute and the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) will launch a new program called ‘I Said Yes’ to promote entrepreneurship education as a means of encouraging low-income and at-risk youth to stay in school and raise their academic performance.  The launch will include an Action Guide that will help policymakers promote youth entrepreneurship in their cities and states, as well as nationally.  Several high-profile leaders have already lended statements of support, including: former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan; Craig Barrett, the chairman of Intel; Ted Leonsis, vice chairman of AOL and owner of the Washington Capitals; Senator John Kerry; and Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation. (more…)

I’ve just seen the newly-launched Global Entrepreneurship Week campaign in Malaysia. It’s amazing! They’ve been on Malaysian daytime TV, national radio, and at least four national newspapers - all in the space of two weeks. And now they have their first Government Minister involved. Kuala Lumpur is clearly the place to be this November!Or that’s what I thought.

Then I started to look at the other Global Entrepreneurship Week campaigns on the web - and realised that a worldwide movement is coming together for November. Brazil has a fantastic media campaign involving Michael Dell, and hundreds of partners in cities across the country. Some brilliant new websites have launched for the campaigns in Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Germany and Finland (though you should be prepared to speak one of those languages), as well as Ghana and Nigeria. Closer to home, there are hundreds of events planned in Poland and France. And, of course, the United States and United Kingdom have large, long-established campaigns.

Check out our Wikipedia entry to see a full list of GEW websites. The Week is spreading to all four corners of the world. So join in and get involved - wherever you are on the globe!

Putting off that great idea you had until you are older?  Inc.com just showcased thirty individuals, all under the age of thirty, who got their start early.  Really early for some! Leanna Archer, CEO of an all-natural hair care line, has been at it for three years.  She will be thirteen in a month.
While not all those showcased are quite so young, they are all part of an emerging trend.  Younger and younger entrepreneurs are starting larger and increasingly more successful companies.  Tech savvy young men and women are being trained as the next wave of entrepreneurs with more than a 600%  increase in the number of colleges offering courses on this subject between 2000 and 2008.  The expansion of entrepreneurship in education is even reaching the K-12 curriculum.  Of course, some forgo education to get a jump on their new ideas.  Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith, founders of file-sharing company Box.inc, dropped out of college to start their business and have netted $6 million this year alone. (more…)

So, Unleash It!, our new online activity, is all about finding solutions to complicated or simple problems. The thing about finding solutions is that sometimes they aren’t always rumbling around in our brain. Occasionally, we have to pull them out, twist them out, throw them upside or run them over with a car to figure out what a really good solution is. Joel Saltzman, a noted speaker on the topic of problem solving, offers a few solutions on how to come up with solutions. (more…)

Innovation is a word that is constantly bandied about in relationship to entrepreneurship.—–our innovations lead us to entrepreneurial endeavors. But what happens when innovation doesn’t have the environment to flourish?

A recent report on Hungary deals with this exact question. While there is a growing spirit of innovation and reforms being made to increase the ability of innovative companies to succeed, the goals of the administration are not being met. In particular, Kester Eddy in a recent piece for the Financial Times, noted that the government’s goal of 3% of GDP coming from R&D was never reached. Rather less than 1% was the resulting figure. Due to the difficult environment only 20% of all companies in Hungary are considered innovative. (more…)

Dash, our host in Malaysia for the Week, is pretty much the prototypical example of an all-star host. They have been on TV; they hosted a speed-networking event with Oli B; they are wildly active and embracing the Week; and, as we discussed last week, they even have their own really amazing frequently updated blog. In order to further prove their all-star skills, I want you all to check out the clip from their recent TV appearance.  If I could give our hosts grades, Dash would get an A+++++.  Not only do they do a lot and do it well, they do it while still seeming to be very cool.

Global Entrepreneurship Week is delighted to have four social media partners on board.  These titans of the web will help the campaign reach millions of people through their networks - and we couldn’t do it without them!

Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected. Millions of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

Join the Global Entrepreneurship Week fan page on Facebook.

UnLtdWorld is an online platform that connects social entrepreneurs and empowers the way insight and information are shared and exchanged within the social enterprise sector and market. It enables members to connect with other socially minded people, search and share resources and opportunities, find and list services and products, find answers to key questions, create and join groups and lots more.

Alongside fostering a vibrant community, UnLtdWorld’s goal is to improve the way targeted information, business intelligence and critical social and market insight are accessed and exchanged by all relevant stakeholders within the social enterprise sector and market. One way we do this is through the UnLtdWorld Research Lab, which graphs information fed from the UnLtdWorld platform (around community, content and trends). Through an API all the data is made accessible and dynamically usable, by anyone, everywhere. UnLtdWorld aims to provide social entrepreneurs with the most powerful possible platform to dynamically connect, and through a community share knowledge and find the tools they need to succeed.ith others, search and share.

Join the Global Entrepreneurship Week group on UnLtd World.

YouNoodle develops innovative ways to bring together the information, people and technology that help startups succeed. YouNoodle provides a platform for so far 50 of the world’s top university entrepreneurship clubs and competitions, serving tens of thousands of members and thousands of startups. Their tools help to effectively manage business competitions, events, mailing lists and community development.

Join the Global Entrepreneurship Week group on YouNoodle.

WAYN is the fastest growing travel and lifestyle social networking community website in the UK. WAYN is present in 193 countries and membership has grown from 45,000 users in March 2005 to over 13 million today. WAYN helps you to keep track of all your contacts fromaround the world and make new friends based on where you are now, where you have been and where you are going! 

Connect with the Global Entrepreneurship Week profile on WAYN.