Success Story

  • Dr. Frank Koe and students at his GEW Penn State event "Intrapreneurship: A Starting Point."

Global Entrepreneurship Week helps Pennsylvania entrepreneurs learn and launch

In its 11th year, Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) Penn State provided a unique opportunity for student and community entrepreneurs and innovators to network and learn from one another in unique environments on and off campus. GEW featured 56 events — 26 events at University Park and 30 across 11 Commonwealth Campuses — that drew more than 3,000 student and community attendees.

On Wednesday, Nov. 13, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and podcaster Chris Goffard came to University Park and spoke about his work as a Los Angeles Times journalist and his successful true-crime podcast, “Dirty John.” The College of Communications hosted the event and Goffard shared his “10 lessons” of podcasting with the more than 170 attendees.

GEW’s success relies greatly on the faculty and staff at Penn State hosting engaging events. This year Frank Koe, Teaching Professor of Engineering Entrepreneurship and long-time supporter of GEW Penn State, hosted two events that focused on skills that separate the best entrepreneurial teams and intrapreneurship. The “Intrapreneurship: A Starting Point” event had 110 students attend. Koe was the University delegate at the 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Medellin, Colombia.

“GEW is a great event for the growing number of entrepreneurs in our region,” said John Peterson, interim director of the Penn State Small Business Development Center (SBDC), who sponsored the week-long event. “From people running one-person businesses online, to tech companies, to the side hustlers working on the weekend, to those with just the beginning of an idea, GEW provided an opportunity to learn, network and be inspired.”

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