Entrepreneurs from around the world gathered Monday to kick off the Global Entrepreneurship Week. With 88 participating countries and a thousand partners including universities, government agencies, and corporate sponsors, Global Entrepreneurship Week is aimed at teaching youth entrepreneurship, connecting current business owners and spurring innovation.
“We wanted to inspire young people who might not see entrepreneurship as a potential career path,†says Mark Marich, spokesperson for Global Entrepreneurship Week.
Co-founded in 2008 by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in the United States and Make Your Mark, a business-led, government-backed campaign in the United Kingdom, Marich says there a more than 6,000 registered events taking place worldwide. Although he expects the count of events to surpass last years 25,000, once the week is over and the tally is in.
In New York, rapper Snoop Dogg and 200 local college students and aspiring entrepreneurs kicked off the second annual New York Stock Exchange Euronext Mentoring Madness, as part of the events. Snoop Dogg rang the opening bell and participated in a dialog with a panel of entrepreneurs and a room full of students.
Last year’s inaugural Global Entrepreneurship Week included more than 3 million people from 75 countries, said Carl Schramm, president and chief executive officer of the Kauffman Foundation, in a news release.
This year’s programs range from shadowing small business owners to discussing healthcare and technology to social networking workshops. The week runs from Nov 16-22. For more information about events in your area, check out Unleashingideas.org.