Latest news with #GEC
IOL News
12-06-2025
- Business
- IOL News
Only the bold can change the world
African Bank CEO, Kennedy Bungane, receiving the Ecosystem Catalyst Award at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Indiana from GEN President, Jonathan Ortmans. Image: Supplied. The Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC) returned to the US for the first time in 15 years, where it was first hosted. In 2009, Kansas City welcomed just a few hundred ecosystem stakeholders who banded together with one vision – to build a 'one global entrepreneurial ecosystem''. The movement has now quite literally mushroomed over the years and has seen thousands of ecosystem stakeholders meet annually to discuss better ways to support the development of entrepreneurs across the globe. In 2017, South Africa hosted the GEC, which welcomed over 5000 delegates from 160 countries onto our shores. Last week, the City of Indianapolis greeted 3455 participants from 141 countries, marking the 15th Global Entrepreneurship Congress under the theme, the 'Bold Change the World'. With over 148 sessions and 200 speakers, the congress was over-saturated with rich and impactful content. Some of the key highlights included a keynote fireside chat with one of the world's most renowned entrepreneurs, Mark Cuban, who advised entrepreneurs to explore unchartered territories, saying 'Go where others don't look and just start'. Many other significant highpoints of the GEC include the launch of the GEN Catalyst Index, which is a bold new initiative aimed at developing a standardised framework to assess, benchmark and elevate the performance of Enterprise Support Organisations (ESOs) worldwide. GEN and Startup Genome also launched the Aptitudes and Policies for Exponential Entrepreneurship (APEXE), which is aimed at helping national governments evaluate and enhance the performance of national policy action in growing tech startup ecosystems. The first instalment of the APEXE Nations Ranking offers a balanced scorecard of the performance of each country's past entrepreneurial innovation policies. At the awards evening, African Bank, a local bank in South Africa, was awarded the prestigious Ecosystem Catalyst Award – in recognition reserved for an organisation that demonstrates outstanding commitment to driving long-term, inclusive growth in their local entrepreneurship ecosystem, through programmes and education. From championing township entrepreneurs to pioneering new financial models for underserved communities, the bank continues to demonstrate what it means to not only fund ideas – but to believe in the people behind them. Now here's the kicker. In September 2026, the global community will convene in Cape Town for the 2nd Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC+) Africa, which will welcome over 2000 delegates with arms wide open from across the continent onto our shores, in addition to a few other hand-picked international delegates. The GEC+Africa promises to promote inclusive and sustainable growth; accelerate digital transformation; improve access to finance; advocate for supportive policies and strengthen pan-African collaboration. Many participants I met at the congress simply craved stability. Around the world, they urged their government leaders to also prioritise transparency and provide clarity. As an example, Cuban encouraged entrepreneurs to just be entrepreneurs and focus on what they do best. As he said, 'if your business succeeds, politicians will come to you, and you must build a business that outlasts any one politician''. I left GEC feeling totally inspired and echoed the words of Jonathan Ortmans, the GEN president, 'entrepreneurs are the new diplomats of the world'. Kizito Okechukwu is the co-Chair of the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) Africa; and Executive Head of 22 On Sloane, Africa's largest entrepreneurship campus Kizito Okechukwu Kizito Okechukwu is the executive head of 22 On Sloane, Africa's largest entrepreneurship campus and co-chair of the Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) Africa. Image: Supplied.
The Hindu
11-06-2025
- The Hindu
GEC alumni team counters ‘misleading reports' on collapsed building
Against the backdrop of the recent collapse of a commercial building in the city, a group of alumni from the Government Engineering College (GEC), Thrissur, has come forward with a fact-finding report to counter what it termed as 'misleading and damaging' information that wrongly implicated the college's structural engineering experts. Several reports had suggested that the collapsed building had received a structural safety certificate from the GEC's Civil Engineering department, but documents and inspection records reviewed by the alumni reveal this claim as incorrect. According to the team, the building had in fact been declared unsafe by a faculty member from the GEC on August 17, 2024 following a site inspection conducted in response to a request from the Thrissur Corporation. The inspection was triggered by an incident the previous day, when glass panels from the first floor of the building shattered and fell, prompting the corporation to issue a formal letter requesting an urgent assessment. The inspection report clearly stated that the building was not structurally sound, with supporting technical reasoning. Furthermore, on September 28, during a visit by a court-appointed advocate commission— based on a Kerala High Court order dated September 12 —the same GEC faculty member reiterated in person that the building was unsafe. The team said the reports mistakenly referred to a safety certificate issued for the adjacent building that had been certified as safe on November 11. It was this certificate that had been misrepresented in public discourse. The Government Engineering College, Thrissur, has long been authorised under the Kerala Building Rules to carry out structural assessments. Faculty members from the Civil Engineering department, especially those with postgraduate specialisation in structural engineering, have regularly served on expert panels formed by municipal bodies and even the Kerala High Court, the report says.
Technical.ly
10-06-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Meet the ESHIP Alliance: New name for the national ecosystem building movement
Andy Stoll has one t-shirt, loads of post-it notes and a new job that's a lot like his old job. Stoll is the founding executive director of what is now called the ESHIP Alliance, a nonprofit startup that announced its new name last week in Indianapolis at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC). The GEC is a global conference organized by the Global Entrepreneurship Network (or GEN, which is lovingly pronounced like the name Jen by its many admirers). Stoll made his announcement alongside GEN founder and CEO Jonathan Ortmans, and right before Right to Start's Victor Hwang, another entrepreneurship booster with his own big announcement. They're just three of a constellation of groups that have spun off from the Kauffman Foundation 's decades-long investment in entrepreneurship. Last year, Kauffman announced plans to narrow its focus to economic opportunity in its hometown of Kansas City, winding down its national programming funding. Stoll joked that his ESHIP Alliance could be the younger sister to GEC, which makes the Kauffman Foundation mom and dad, and Hwang a kind of attentive uncle — with plenty of cousins and lots of folksy Midwestern charm to go around. Catching the ecosystem-building bug Stoll was a local organizer in Iowa first, working on startups and gatherings in the early 2000s and 2010s. Hwang, once an influential Kauffman executive, gave Stoll the language to describe what he and thousands of others were doing. 'Victor told me: What you're doing is the future of place-based economic development,' Stoll said. 'And I said: I'm doing the what of what?' In 2012, Hwang published ' The Rainforest,' a widely cited book on local economic development, and in 2017 hired Stoll. Together they produced Kauffman's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Building Playbook, which put institutional heft behind rag-tag community efforts flourishing around the country. From 2017-2019, Stoll was emcee and organizer of annual Kauffman-backed ESHIP Summits. Hundreds came from around the country to discuss rebuilding their local economies from the ground up: some were there as part of their jobs, many others were not. But most talk fondly and passionately about being part of something that seemed overlooked then and is now taken more seriously. Stoll and his team would stock up on colorful post-it notes, markers and engagement activities. As a 2023 report on the origins of inclusive entrepreneurship tracked, many grassroots efforts to reshape local economies took hold after the Great Recession and steadily grew during the 2010s. One of the most enduring is the 'entrepreneurial ecosystem building' that is sometimes called ' place-based economic development ' among industry insiders. Their shared and primary push: state and local policymakers and civic leaders should put entrepreneurship at the center of their strategies for economic growth, opportunity and development. Like scripture passages, these believers cite studies showing that new businesses create effectively all net new jobs, and that each 1% increase in entrepreneurship correlates with 2% declines in poverty. The ecosystem metaphor teaches that big institutions are vital, but must prioritize the many differently sized, aged and types of organizations that overlap to make an economy. NRPs: National ecosystem resource providers Stoll is friendly, chatty, and millennial nerd chic enough to be among the movement's leaders, backed by the influence and checkbook of the Kauffman Foundation. Over a decade-plus, from an early Startup Champions summit to SXSW activations and beyond, I've seen Stoll at his most comfortable in a t-shirt, effusing folksy modesty while cracking self-effacing jokes and serving as a community historian of the work, preferably leading an exercise on collaboration with post-it notes. Pushed out of the comfortable confines of the Kauffman Foundation, Stoll is now stitching together a coalition so this on-the-ground change can last. Among his partners is Black-entrepreneurship focused Forward Cities, which also got its start with Kauffman funding and has been long led by Stoll's years-long collaborator Fay Horwitt. Together this week, they introduced the ESHIP Alliance's renewed focus to a network of so-called national ecosystem resource providers (NRPs) — organizations that address needs common to many ecosystems or state and local entrepreneurial communities. 'At its core, this alliance is about strengthening the profession of ecosystem building across the United States,' Stoll said in a GEC session. 'We need entrepreneurship, we need ecosystems, but we need to center equity so anyone, anywhere who wants to be an entrepreneur has the opportunity to participate.' The alliance will gather these resource providers and help advance and formalize 'ecosystem building' as a discipline for state and local governments to embrace. Events, training material and policy positions will help. As part of that work the ESHIP Alliance launched the ESHIP Commons, a social network intended to help ecosystem builders connect, share ideas and find resources. What's next for the ESHIP Alliance Turns out Technically itself is an NRP, so I was at one of Stoll's tables at GEC — years since the last time I saw him in action. On stage, he guided about a hundred NRP leaders through a series of exercises to identify the next set of challenges and potential solutions for ecosystem building. Much to attendee amusement, Stoll's presentation included a photo of him from years ago wearing the same 'Mass Collaboration' t-shirt he wore this week, signaling that while much has changed, many faces haven't. Horrowit was up next with an exercise that cleverly required attendees to never reference funding as a problem. As she said, 'That's a problem for everyone, give us something new.' That let us focus on more specific obstacles to advance the work of centering entrepreneurship in local policymaking and economic development. Good for an exercise, but what's next? Stoll, like this conversation, has graduated from the Kauffman nest (the group was initially called the Ecosystem Builders Leadership Network, so the rebrand gives it a fresh start). Entrepreneurship rates have surged post pandemic, led by women and people of color. That's caught the attention of serious state and local leaders. Stoll, Hwang and so many others have for years advocated for a bigger stage, and now they have it. Stoll donned a dress shirt to get on the GEC main stage and announce his organization's new name. He seemed more at home the next day in his t-shirt, pushing all of us who support local entrepreneurship and innovation efforts across the country. Said Stoll: 'We have who we need in the room.'
Technical.ly
09-06-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
GEC 2025: What the Global Entrepreneurship Congress says about American entrepreneurial leadership
Among the greatest of American exports, hip-hop and basketball have gone entirely global. Entrepreneurship too. Back to antiquity, the first businesses were in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The modern corporation is a European invention, and the longest running company is Japanese. But the Americans made it cool. From the 1980s-era 'greed is good' to post-Great Recession social entrepreneurship, the United States put get-rich businesses on magazine covers and humble small business owners on primetime reality TV. Fitting, then, that the Global Entrepreneurship Congress is an American product that has been mostly held abroad. With origins in the early 2000s, this first-of-its-kind globally-minded pro-startup conference was held in 2009 for 200 attendees in Kansas City, with funding from the entrepreneurship-obsessed Kauffman Foundation. Founded by trained economist and policy wonk Jonathan Ortmans, the conference is organized by what is now called the Global Entrepreneurship Network (or GEN, pronounced like the name Jen), which Ortmans leads. This year boasted more than 3,000 attendees. 'Entrepreneurs are the new diplomats of the world.' Jonathan Ortmans, Global Entrepreneurship Network Over the following 15 years, the Congress was held the world over, including Brazil, Saudi Arabia and Australia. Last week, GEC was held in the United States for the first time since its start — in Indianapolis, a growing city in a Midwestern state with bipartisan support for business growth and a hook into federal research dollars. 'Entrepreneurs are the new diplomats of the world,' Ortmans said on stage. His opening remarks lamented fading enthusiasm for an interconnected global economy. Elsewhere, he spoke optimistically of what remains bipartisan support for business creation. In the conference's keynote conversation with entrepreneur-turned-celebrity investor Mark Cuban, Ortmans boasted that GEC was held in Moscow in the weeks that followed the Russian invasion of Crimea. Back in March 2014, for the conference-attending entrepreneurs and their supporters from around the world, 'nothing was different.' Whether that sounds like a hardworking ethic or aloof indifference, Ortmans argues entrepreneurs crave stability, clarity and transparency, which benefits everyone else. Alongside Ortmans, Cuban presented as even more optimistic, and idealistic, for Entrepreneur The Diplomat. Cuban gushed about the promise of artificial intelligence to unlock the entrepreneurial spirit around the world, leveling the playing field with just an internet connection. Famously, Silicon Valley notables broke toward supporting Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, but Cuban was a prominent outlier and frequent MAGA critic. He was less directly critical at nonpolitical-striving GEC, and Ortmans encouraged him to widen his lens to consider a global audience in the convention hall that came from at least 130 countries. Tellingly, there was no formal delegation from the American federal government, nor its DOGE-cost-cutting Small Business Administration. (One member of a GEC advisory group politely declined to comment and sensibly encouraged this reporter to focus on the international presence and bipartisan support among state and local American officials.) 'There are plenty of places to talk about politics. If you're an entrepreneur, be an entrepreneur. If your business succeeds, the politicians will come to you,' Cuban advised. 'You want your business to outlast any one politician.' In some sense, it's a hopeful throwback to a more innocent time when a jet-setting elite believed commerce would lead to peace and prosperity. That's the optimistic worldview that led the American government to welcome the Chinese Community Party into the World Trade Organization, and the same that encouraged the German government to rely on the Russian state for its energy security. In recent years, there's been a reversal: Global citizens of international capitals have been humbled into a choice, say more, or say less. During the pandemic, social justice protests demanded that entrepreneurs speak out on a growing list of political issues. Ortmans, Cuban and the spirit of GEN's GEC seem to say something different. As one GEC collaborator has told me: 'Entrepreneurship is my politics.' Informed by the modest, Midwestern style of the Kauffman Foundation, the conference was filled with practical advice for entrepreneurs and local economic development leaders. Common-sense policy discussions happened alongside meet-and-greets between commerce ministers from dozens of countries. Each GEC features a dedicated 'compass room' with a UN-style circular white table with microphones. Its orientation stands in contrast to the Silicon Valley investor-catwalk startup conferences, Austin's hipper-than-thou SXSW and and the sprawling and showy Las Vegas consumer technology shows. Ortmans hopped between sessions and off-site events. He addressed both the launch of a national campaign to center entrepreneurs in next year's anniversary of the American Revolution and at a working session of 'national ecosystem resource providers' — of which Technically is one. 'This is one way back,' Ortmans said of a more pro-growth time. 'Customers matter. Failure doesn't.' Mark Cuban Cuban, who knows something about hip hop and basketball, embodies a brighter optimism than most American elites of late. A thousand of us overflowed conference chairs, and clapped and chuckled at his folksy charm, embodied by the carefully chosen polo-shirt he wore from his Indiana University alma mater,. As ready-for-TV as Cuban is, he still offers practical advice for founders: 'Raising money isn't an accomplishment. It's an obligation.' And in practiced, self-effacement: 'Customers matter. Failure doesn't.' (In contrast, another main-stage panel of Colorado-bred tech startup notables was a snoozefest of self-congratulation from a bygone era.) Cuban advised policymakers and economic development leaders to invest in community, rule of law and lifestyle to attract and retain entrepreneurs: When he chose where to start his businesses, first Indiana and later Texas, 'not one single time did I look at the tax rate first.' Speaking to a crowd with attendees from countries including Iraq, Nigeria and France, he personified his role as the commonsense sage of American-style center-left techno-optimism. Said Cuban: 'An entrepreneur is always an entrepreneur first.'
Technical.ly
05-06-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Startup leaders kick off national ‘America the Entrepreneurial' campaign
A new initiative rooted in the aspirational goals of the Declaration of Independence places entrepreneurs at the forefront of the country's semiquincentennial celebration. In 1893, the United States was in the midst of an economic depression that contrasted gaudy, gilded-era wealth with struggling labor. Emerging communications technology mesmerized and threatened jobs, powering an insurgent populist political movement. Americans debated over the country's global role and confronted the vile stain of racial inequity, just a generation removed from a Civil War. That summer, New England professor Katharine Lee Bates took a wagon trip up Pike's Peak in Colorado. So moved by the view, and overcome by a sense of ideals amid a storm of unease, Bates wrote what would later become an enduring patriotic ballad: 'O beautiful for spacious skies / For amber waves of grain / For purple mountain majesties / Above the fruited plain!' This July 4 will mark 130 years since 'America the Beautiful' was first published. Right to Start founder Victor Hwang has another anniversary on his mind: To mark next year's 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, his national nonprofit launched on Thursday a new campaign: America the Entrepreneurial. 'The country we are in is different than the country we are told we are,' said Hwang, drawing from three cross-country road trips visiting entrepreneurs. (No bus was involved) 'It's a more hopeful one. More need that chance.' The campaign was announced in a crowded rooftop bar near the Indianapolis Convention Center, where Global Entrepreneurship Congress is being held in the United States for the first time since its founding in 2009. (Full disclosure, this reporter had four arancini and an extra shrimp cocktail.) Like Hwang's Right to Start, GEC is part of a suite of initiatives spun out of the Kansas City-based Kauffman Foundation, which funded a generation of pro-entrepreneurship research. Hwang was once a Kauffman vice president credited with championing much of 'field building' for what insiders call 'entrepreneurial ecosystem building.' Now he leads Right to Start, which is guiding policymakers on entrepreneurship-boosting policy — and moonlights as a podcast host. Hwang developed the new initiative with his board member and former White House policy advisor John Bridgeland, and it will be led by Right to Start's COO Kim Lane. 'America was made by builders, dreamers, and risk-takers,' Hwang said. 'Yet today we have a system that too often works against entrepreneurs.' The campaign outlines three key actions: Creating a level playing field: Tackling outdated regulations, inequitable access to capital, and procurement rules favoring large incumbents. Spreading entrepreneurial knowledge: Offering nationwide access to skills training, practical education, and community networks. Supporting entrepreneurial households: Advocating policies that ease healthcare, childcare, and financial burdens for entrepreneurs and their families. 'The most courageous startup the world has ever seen' To be clear, entrepreneurship is already booming in the United States, at least compared to pre-pandemic trends. That boom in business starts is being led by women, especially women of color. But Hwang, like his tribe of Kauffman-affiliated spinouts, thinks in terms of a much more sustained and complete change of economic development and policymaking at all levels. Sounds like a revolution. 'In 1776, America didn't just declare independence,' Hwang is credited with saying in a followup press release. 'America launched the most courageous startup the world has ever seen — a country conceived and dedicated to the promise of opportunity, enterprise, and self-determination.' The 'America the Entrepreneurial' campaign plans to mobilize more than 250,000 Americans in coalitions spanning all 50 states by the end of 2026. Engagement will be facilitated through local events, storytelling initiatives and a comprehensive toolkit available through the campaign's website, per the group. For Hwang, this initiative builds on decades of foundational work advocating entrepreneurship and ecosystem-building. He routinely cites two cornerstone bits of research: that new business drives all net new jobs and that every 1% increase in entrepreneurial activity in a state correlates with a 2% decline in poverty. 'This is effectively saying the whole country, all of society, should care about entrepreneurship and be involved in it,' Hwang told before the launch. 'We've been missing that message because it's effectively been a conversation amongst ourselves.' Entrepreneurship, Hwang argues, is more than just economic activity — it is central to America's identity and future. I've spoken with Hwang about 'America the Entrepreneurial' a half dozen times in the last couple months. Each time he says the name with an uplifting tone, raising his hand to match. At the launch he joked that he hears music when he does. 'If you want a strong America, you have to have strong entrepreneurship,' Hwang said. 'When the entrepreneurial spirit thrives, America thrives.'More details about the campaign are available at americatheentrepreneurial.o rg.
