IISE encourages students to attend entrepreneurship events at Pitt

IISE has identified entrepreneurship as a key element in global and international education. Current discourse in international education emphasizes the importance of fostering learners’ entrepreneurship. Cultivating entrepreneurship is about developing an adaptable skill set for solving problems and scaling solutions. This is increasingly important for individual student’s global competence.

Entrepreneurship is a set of mentality, mindset, and perspective. In a pedagogical domain, entrepreneurship is considered an approach to teaching and learning as well. It is a key to develop, further and advance one’s skills that align with the development of technologies and innovation.

Veysel Gokbel, the IISE program coordinator, explains the redefined concept of entrepreneurship. “Entrepreneurship education is often misunderstood by people in the fields of Social Science and Education. Entrepreneurship is a training to develop 21th century skills and gain growth mindset in an experiential learning setting. From team building to pitching innovative solutions, students will be able to develop unique skills that will help them to survive in a constantly changing job market at the time of smart machines, computerization, and advanced digital technologies.”

 

 

In an effort to strengthen the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, the University of Pittsburgh launched an innovation institute in 2013. The Innovation Institute is the University’s hub for innovation and entrepreneurship. The institute provides a series of educational programming, mentoring and networking for Pitt faculty, students and partners. It also invites collaborations to help achieve societal impact through commercialization across stakeholders, from current faculty and students, to alumni, enterpreuners and industry partners,

The Innovation Institute hosts several entrepreneurship events and opportunities the whole year. This Spring 2020, there are several events where Pitt members can participate to develop and channel their innovative and entrepreneurial ideas.  

The Big Idea Blitz 2020 will take place on January 24-25, 2020. The event  is going to help participants experience developing an idea, forming a team, and pitching solution. There will also several entrepreneurs to help with idea development. Some cash prizes are also available for idea competition.

The Randall Family Big Idea Competition is happening this Spring. The Registration is open until February 7, 2020. The Randall Family Big Idea Competition is the region’s largest student idea pitch competition, which offers a $100,000 award in cash prizes, including a $25,000 top prize.

More on Entrepreneurship Programs by the Innovation Institute

 

 

Innovation and entrepreneurship have an increasing impact on our economies and societies as they are changing the way we work, think, and act.
Veysel Gokbel has been an active advocate of entrepreneurship education, as well as a practitioner. Speaking from his own experience, he encourages students to take part in the entrepreneurship programs at Pitt or other similar institutions. “The Pitt Innovation Institute increasingly offers many experiential learning opportunities that every student can take to benefit from it. As a PhD candidate, I appreciate being an active participant in many of their entrepreneurship and innovation activities including Blast Furnace Startup Accelerator Program. Such experiences took me to many exciting directions. I highly encourage students to expose themselves to such entrepreneurial environment for a mentality change. They will thank me later.”

In addition to his works with IISE and Pitt, Veysel also runs his own traveltech startup and serves as board member and consultant at different innovation and entrepreneurship organizations. He can be reached at veg9@pitt.edu

 

Learn more about 

Governance of Innovation and entrepreneurship at Pitt

IISE Diplomacy Lab Project 

IISE Annual Report