NEO Collegiate Entrepreneurship: Networked & Never Static
Northeast Ohio colleges and universities have been working together to advance entrepreneurship programming for more than a decade. Beginning with the five liberal arts colleges that in 2007 formed the Northeast Ohio Collegiate Entrepreneurship Program to experiment with cross-campus entrepreneurship, we have developed a regional culture that consistently connects the dots and strengthens networks in support of students and their ideas. For example, JumpStart Higher Education Collaboration Council founded in 2009 draws together more than twenty higher education institutions for peer-to-peer learning, speakers, and hot-topic panels that all engender a commitment to excellence. Our region has aggressively fostered a collaborative approach to entrepreneurship education that makes everybody better.
With this culture of connectivity as our baseline, Burton D. Morgan Foundation Trustees just approved another round of grants that will advance these network goals. John Carroll University will join the four-campus network of NEOLaunchNET schools to provide co-curricular entrepreneurship experiences for students as they develop startup ideas and deploy the skills they are gaining in the classroom. Through this opportunity, JCU will be connected to Baldwin Wallace University, Case Western Reserve University, Kent State University, and Lorain County Community College.
The award-winning eleven-member Entrepreneurship Education Consortium will continue its programming gathering entrepreneurship educators from member campuses to engage students in Immersion Week and ideaLabs. The six-campus collaboration forming the Northeast Ohio Student Venture Fund received funds to further develop its experiential program that allows students to enter the world of startup investing and hone their due diligence, research, and analysis skills.
Morgan Foundation lives and breathes collaboration and is proud to work with our collegiate network to provide platforms where sharing and learning together are the norm and our ecosystem thrives because good ideas spread, grow, and evolve through the combined expertise of talented and open partners.
In the spirit of partnership,
Deborah Hoover
President & CEO