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MIAMI, Fla. (Dec. 15, 2003) – The
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation announced today that it has
made a $3 million gift to the Global
Entrepreneurship Center at Florida International University to
promote and nurture the entrepreneurial spirit across campus
and throughout South Florida.
FIU is one of eight recipients of
Kauffman Campuses Initiative grants totaling $25 million. FIU
was one of 30 universities initially
invited to compete for the grants and was named one of 15 finalists
in June. Other recipients include Washington University, the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University
of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill.
“FIU’s proposal was thorough,
aggressive and left no doubt in the mind of any of the judges
that it was conceived by seasoned
entrepreneurs,” said Carl Schramm, President and CEO of
the Kauffman Foundation. “We see the public university
in South Florida as a natural place to support an innovative
entrepreneurship
center with a unique international flair that can set off a cultural
transformation.”
FIU President Modesto Maidique led
a team of top FIU administrators in pursuing this grant.
“At FIU we have a long tradition
of being aggressive, taking risks and beating the odds most of
the time. That makes us an entrepreneurial
university in an entrepreneurial
city,” said Maidique, himself a professor of entrepreneurship,
the co-founder of a Fortune 1000 company and a former partner
at Hambrecht & Quist Management,
a venture capital firm. “We were able to persuade the Kauffman
Foundation that we are an ideal place to build a first-rate interdisciplinary
Global Entrepreneurship Center.”
The gift will have an impact of more
than $15 million, since FIU will match the gift with at least
another $10 million in
private
support over the next several years. “The prestige of the
Kauffman Foundation gift will provide significant momentum for
the Center’s development and make it an attractive investment
for other substantial gifts and grants,” said Howard R. Lipman,
FIU’s Vice President of University Advancement. He noted
that conversations are already underway with two local entrepreneurs
interested in making major commitments to name both the Center
and one of its Institutes.
The Center, which encompasses four
institutes and an Entrepreneurial Academy, focuses on family
businesses – by providing expert
advice, networking and learning opportunities – and the development
and growth of new ventures that will make South Florida companies
more competitive in the global marketplace.
"The Center's Technology Innovation
Institute will play a major role in creating new ventures for
technologies created in South
Florida, particularly at FIU, thereby contributing significantly
to the job creation and economic development of this region,” said
Dean of Engineering Vish Prasad.
With several faculty members and
two institute directors already on board, the Center is positioned
to realize its goal to be
among the top ten entrepreneurship centers in the country within
five
years. More details on the Center are available at http://www.entrepreneurship.fiu.edu.
In just a year, the Center has already
had an impact on campus and in the community. More than 100 business,
not-for-profit
and community leaders were involved in helping FIU shape its
proposal
during a one-day conference this fall. The Center has already
received commitments from both local and prominent entrepreneurs
and venture
capitalists to serve on its advisory boards.
Established in the mid 1960s, the
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (http://www.kauffman.org) works
with partners to encourage entrepreneurship
across America and improve the education of children and youth.
The Global Entrepreneurship Center
at FIU is headed by its Executive Director, Alan Carsrud, who
earned a Ph.D. in social psychology
from the University of New Hampshire. He came to FIU a year ago
from UCLA, where he served as academic coordinator at the highly-ranked
Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies in the Anderson School.
“One of the main reasons I came
to South Florida was the entrepreneurial spirit that guides FIU,
from President Mitch Maidique and our deans
to many of my students,” said Carsrud, who is a professor
of both management and industrial engineering. “I’m
absolutely amazed at the ‘can do’ spirit and the
lack of institutional barriers to getting things done, compared
to more
established universities.” Before joining UCLA, Carsrud headed
entrepreneurship centers at the University of Texas at Austin
and the University of Southern
California. Carsrud also has a distinguished history as a practitioner
as well as a scholar of entrepreneurship. He has been involved
in numerous start-up ventures in food products, biotechnology,
professional services, venture capital, electronics, computer
software,
and People Express Airlines.
“
We want to get across to FIU’s students, faculty, staff,
alumni and the community at large, that entrepreneurship is an
attitude toward living,” Carsrud said. “It is a way
of life.”
The communication with students will
begin with freshmen. The Center’s
plan calls for an entrepreneurial component in the required First
Year Experience course. “We want to put the entrepreneurial
bug in their ear early,” said Carsrud.
Chetan Shukla, an FIU student who
has taken two of Carsrud’s
classes in the last year, feels that he is much better prepared
to launch an ethnic design firm with his wife Rupal, an architect.
“Through the Center’s
activities it is easy to network, to gain perspective on your
concepts and to learn from the successes
and failures of others,” said Shukla, 33, who has a master’s
degree in industrial engineering from FIU and is currently working
on an MBA.
"Being part of the Kauffman Campus
Initiative gives our students an unparalleled opportunity to
experience the best of entrepreneurial
education," said Joyce Elam, Executive Dean of the College
of Business Administration.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Maydel Santana-Bravo
305-348-1555 or
305-972-8276
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