Paris, France.  At “l’Echangeur” the Reporters d’ Espoirs awarded the Entrepreneur of the Day award to 38-year-old businessman Jerome Martin. Jerome is the founder and manager of Photeus, a capital management office that specializes in sustainable development.On Monday evening, Ernst & Young, along with l’Entreprise magazine chose growing international hairdresser Franck Provost as the 2008 Entrepreneur of the Year.  Provost represents what it means to be a talented individual and established entrepreneur in France.

Still in the capital, Yvon Gattaz, former president of the Medef (French employers organization), and founder of the Association for Youth and Enterprise, led a conference on, “the creation of a growing company,” in front of 300 aspiring young entrepreneurs.

In Nantes, the French network “France Initiative” hosted an official speednetworking event, helping connect young people in their effort to explore creativity and energy. While there might not have been any walks down loverslane, there were definite sparks flying among participants.

In Troyes, the 13th edition of the “Plug and Start” Days was launched at the technopole de l’Aube.  Over the course of the three days 280 expert volunteers will be mobilized to accompany innovative project holders.

In Marseilles, significant time was devoted to establishing an “inventory of fixtures and prospects” for the entrepreneurship in the Provence-Alpes- Cotes d’Azur.

In Limoges, the France Angel association organized meetings to popularize Business Angels.

In Toulouse, IBM hosted a leadership conference to bring together innovative minds.  Both managers and entrepreneurs combined forces to consider the new face of enterprise, as well as the role IT will play among the companies of tomorrow.

Entrepreneur of the Day
Jérôme Martin: Creativity and Adaptability !!

The agency “Reporters d’Espoirs” awarded the Entrepreneur of the Day prize to 38-year-old businessman Jerome Martin, manager and founder of Photeus enterprise.

This capital management firm focuses on sustainable development and renewable energy, operating under the pretense that profit and social utility must go hand on hand. The office encourages its clients to invest in green growth and proposes people invest in renewable energies or products promoting sustainable development.

Photeus is known for its solar panels. Thanks to funds raised from private investors, the company enables farmers to finance new hangars using solar panels as an energy source.

Dash, our tireless Malaysian host along with his lovely wife and team with Warisan Global, are rubbing off on me. After a full day of making given talks, roundtables, ceremonies and photo sessions, I am even more invigorated. The shear energy among both young entrepreneurs, university leaders, the investment and entrepreneurial support organizations and government leaders was only surpassed by the intensity and intelligence within the lines of questioning. This is clearly a nation that, despite the heavy involvement of the public sector in the economy, understands and yearns for entrepreneurship as a means of improving human welfare. The Deputy Minister for Entrepreneurship was eager to meet someone associated with the Kauffman Foundation in the hope of finding more ideas for a continued and rigorous review of the nation’s approach to advancing high growth entrepreneurship. This is a nation so serious about competing with the world in this regard, it is paying to send a wide range of companies to Silicon Valley for a year to work side by side with American companies in an effort to sharpen their global reach and networks.

Malaysians will keep on meeting without me, too, as they continue their activities for Global Entrepreneurship Week / Malaysia. Dash’s team has even organized a session run by blind entrepreneurs. Activities aimed at engaging rural communities in entrepreneurship have been going on for a few days and will continue throughout the week. There is also a social entrepreneurship forum and fair planned, along with over 400 other activities throughout the country this week - see . Global Entrepreneurship Week in Malaysia felt like a global campaign. With the backdrops, banners, printed schedules, host certificates, buttons and so many people wearing so may design variations of the Global Entrepreneurship Week T-shirts I left with the sense that all 27 million citizens had adopted this movement!

Malaysia enjoys relative protection from the current global financial crisis. With so much government planning, the long term the economy will likely perform less well with the public sector picking winners and losers as it did with its auto industry. The young entrepreneurs I met seemed to know this. Though their remedy was not a political one rather simply a passion to find the entrepreneurial formula that will also lead to successful market driven ventures that can operate side by side with those funded by the public sector. Congratulations Malaysia for embracing the entrepreneurial spirit. We look forward to a long and sustained Malaysian engagement in Global Entrepreneurship Week in the years to come.Now it is off to Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya — with a quick stop in Germany — for my own activities.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) sneaks up on you. One minute you’re winding through Singapore streets, and the next minute you’re in the middle of its collection of old-ish institutional buildings and treed streets.

Down one street, however, you don’t want to miss a small collection of buildings housing the university’s Enterprise Incubator. The idea of incubation — accelerating the transition from idea to entrepreneurial venture — is not new, but NUS has a reputation for having done an adept job of integrating incubation into the university’s activities via its Entrepreneurship Center.

To find out, during Global Entrepreneurship Week I spent some time with the Center’s Deputy Director Sydney Yee. She walked me through the Center’s operations, and then (a highlight) set me up to hear presentations from some of the young entrepreneurs for whom the incubator was home.

I’ll confess straight away that I almost always come away from such discussions highly enthused, and this one was no different. It was partly the energy and the ideas, but what was particularly impressive about these young Singapore entrepreneurs was their maturity, which was well beyond their years. They knew what they needed to do to test their ideas in the market, from educational tools to messaging platforms, and they were doing it.

We wrapped up the conversation with an impromptu roundtable about the role of entrepreneurs in Singapore today. What were the obstacles? What were the advantages? What societal/financial/legal issues did they face?

Everyone agreed that the Singapore government has been remarkably enlightened about its support for entrepreneurship, both direct and indirect, from visas to capital to university programs. At the same time, living in a society built on tangible limits — land, resources, etc. — builds in its residents an appreciate for the merits of doing more with less, which could be the credo of the successful entrepreneur.

On the other hand, Singapore is also still a society where parents generally want their children to grow up to be doctors and lawyers — professionals! — and not entrepreneurs. While that is changing, it also makes entrepreneurship among young people in Singapore more difficult than an outside observer might expect.

Nevertheless, it was a great visit, and a super capstone of my visit to Singapore during Global Entrepreneurship Week. Next up: Johannesburg, South Africa, and then New York.

Only a few hours now before the deadline for entries to the Make Your Mark Challenge! This is the UK-wide schools’ enterprise competition, which launched on the morning of 17 November, as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. It’s in the fourth year, and a massive 56,000 students across the UK are taking part.

The Challenge to them is to ‘Create an entrepreneurial idea inspired by the Olympic and Paralympic Values’. We’re running it with the London Organising Committee of the 2012 Olympic Games – in thousands of schools. Check out some of the pictures of schoolchildren taking part from around the country!

So, who will win? We’ll see. It’s a tough competition, with regional finals and then a national finals event in London in December. But it’s by far our best-known activity. It really brings entrepreneurship to young people, in a fun and friendly way. It helps teachers build a culture of enterprise in the classroom. And, every year, it throws up hundreds of good business ideas.

So it definitely deserves pride of place in the UK’s contribution to Global Entrepreneurship Week this year. Let’s see what ideas the next generation generates!

In case you missed it, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown launched Global Entrepreneurship Week UK in London on 17 November. Speaking in front of hundreds of young people, he urged entrepreneurs to use their energy to open new markets and make positive social change. He called Global Entrepreneurship Week ‘the start of great things to come’.

Earlier, his government colleagues were pleased to announce that the UK has the most activities of any country this year, with over six thousand activities taking place around the country in UK Enterprise Week, which is part of Global Entrepreneurship Week this year.

The Prime Minister’s office has just put up his full speech on their website. Check it out! And thanks to everyone in the UK and abroad who has helped to make Global Entrepreneurship Week fly in Britain.

This afternoon I was delighted to be able to make remarks alongside the new incoming President of National University of Singapore, Prof TAN Chorh Chuan and Mr. Lee Yi Shyan, and the Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Minister in charge of Entrepreneurship at the kick off of Global Entrepreneurship Week/Singapore - which began with motorized kites flying out from the stage across a packed crowd and confetti.

The National Pushcart Challenge was the event that launched the Week here, held in large mall in the heartlands - where 70% of Singapore citizens live.  Taking the event to the suburbs made good sense - the atmosphere was festive and energetic with music - and all for the cause of entrepreneurship.  Secondary school students from around the country competed by selling their products from pushcarts. 132 students, from 22 schools put their entrepreneurial skill sets on display and sold a total of $21,854 worth of goods.  As we walked around the stalls, teenagers explained with great gusto why their selected business model and approach.

The overall winners, Kent Ridge Secondary School (who sold value-addednotebooks) were awarded trophies by Mr. Lee Yi Shyan and received a check for $3,000. Not bad for a day’s work. The first runners up were Northview Secondary School (value-added clocks), followed by Ngee Ann Secondary School(dolls with customized faces) who each got $2,000 and $1,000 respectively. Other winners were selected for the following categories: Most Creative Business Idea — Cedar Girls’ School (environmentally friendly, recycledproducts); Most Promising Business Idea — Bendemeer Secondary School(selling plants with herb notes and recipes); Most Patronized Stall (based on sales) — Gan Eng Seng School (resale bags); and, Best Visual Display Stall — Hua Yi Seconbdary School (multi-purpose thumb drives, complete with elfs and Mrs Santa).

On the topic of awarding prizes, Ernst & Young will be inducting members into the Entrepreneurial Hall of Fame and awarding its Entrepreneur of the Year Award in a few days here in Singapore City. Singapore will also be hosting forums on technology commercialization and women entrepreneurs. The competitions have not ended either. There is still the “Clash of the Titan” business simulation game developed by JA Worldwide and the enterprise race as part of the closing ceremonies for the Week in Singapore.

It isn’t surprising to me that this small country is so active during the Week. Singapore is the top country in ease of doing business, according to the World Bank’s latest Doing Business report. It takes just four days to start a business here and if you decide to export, you can do so in five days.  Considering the quality of its physical and institutional infrastructures, it is no wonder that Singapore is among Southeast Asia’stop hi-tech countries and one of the world’s most prosperous places. Singapore separated from Malaysia in 1965. Since then, it has managed to exploit the potential of its small, but strategic territory to become the world’s busiest port. In 2006, its economy grew 7.9%. Singapore has weathered regional crises, including the 1997 Asian markets slump. Perhaps its thriving entrepreneurial culture will help this country weather the current one as well. See also more on Singapore from my colleague Paul Kedrosky.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, kicked off the U.S. observance of the first-ever Global Entrepreneurship Week at the Governor’s Conference on Small Business & Entrepreneurship.

Governor Schwarzenegger said:

I am honored to launch Global Entrepreneurship Week from California, bringing together more than 75 countries in a celebration of the entrepreneurial spirit that is so strong here in our great state. California’s pivotal role in the global economy is made possible by our state’s innovation and ingenuity – and Global Entrepreneurship Week is an important part of recognizing the individuals and businesses who will help lead our economy into the future.

Watch the announcement featuring Governor Schwarzenegger and Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation:

Singapore is a fascinating place. It is, of course, an advanced and dynamic economy with a top-quality education system, global companies, and a commitment to capitalism and innovation that rivals the U.S. in many ways.

On other hand, Singapore is tiny, roughly the size of a marathon running course from side-to-side. Most people live in small-ish apartments, and those are built and doled out through a government-run system. Even traffic is about limits, with cars quota constrained, and congestion pricing limiting the number that can enter the city at any given time.

But an acute sense of limits — physical and financial — have helped make Singapore what it is. That was obvious Tuesday here during the opening ceremonies for Global Entrepreneurship Week. It was an impressive event, attended by government officials, the head of NUS Singapore, and a host of young entrepreneurs. The highlight of the event was giving out prizes to winning secondary school teams out of
22 competing in a pushcart competition. The gist: Teams created products that they hawked from carts in a busy Singapore mall, and the winners were the ones that sold the most. It was great fun.

There is ample nervousness in Singapore about the global economy - I had a taxi driver call the U.S. an economic trojan virus. But there is also a widespread belief that Singapore is in the right economic place at the right time. It is young, financially sound, and located smack in the middle of some of the largest, most dynamic and growing economies in the world, while residents here speak both English and Mandarin Chinese. Singapore looks set to be an entrepreneurial hub of the future.

A quick shot at the official launch in Singapore City.

World leaders continue to step forward and announce their support of Global Entrepreneurship Week. This quote comes from Prof. Aníbal Cavaco Silva, the president of Portugal.

I’m proud to associate myself to this movement to wake-up, stimulate and mobilize, in particular young generations, the spirit of entrepreneurship, creativity and initiative.

The opening festivities for Global Entrepreneurship Week / Malaysia were Monday night in Kuala Lumpur, and they were eclectic and fascinating. With a mix of entrepreneurs, politicians, government officials, and organizers in attendance, the Malaysian team - led by the indefatigable Dash (like Sting, his name is just one word) - kicked things off with a night of speeches and, yes, drumming.

Global Entrepreneurship Week / Malaysia has more than 400 events planned this week, making it one of the five largest venues. The passion for entrepreneurship here is palpable, both at the grass roots and the governmental level, as evidenced by the high participation in related events this week.

For my part, I spoke briefly about the obligation of the entrepreneur.

I explained why entrepreneurs are the change agents in the economy, and we need change more than ever right now, as evidenced by the financial, energy, and economic crises that right have so many people concerned. More likely than not, I said, the solutions to these crises will come from entrepreneurs, not from large companies or other vested interests.