Notes From the Field
Babson College
Babson College Names Trish Costello Director of the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship
Babson College has named Trish Costello Director of its Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship. Costello’s professional background includes entrepreneurial, corporate, non-profit and academic experience. She is recognized internationally for her pioneering work in educating and preparing venture capital investment partners, through the prestigious Kauffman Fellows Program. As the founding CEO and now CEO Emeritus of the Center for Venture Education, she expanded the Kauffman Fellows education program to venture capitalists in 10 countries on four continents. Costello was on the start-up team of the Kauffman Foundation’s entrepreneurship center, where for eight years she directed its efforts in venture capital, angel investing, entrepreneur support programs, and programming to accelerate high potential women entrepreneurs. She has played a leading role nationally in obtaining greater financial equity investments in women’s businesses and in funding initiatives supporting high-growth women entrepreneurs. For additional information on Trish and the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, please visit www.babson.edu/eship.
Babson SEE Programs
In May 2008, Babson College held its flagship program, Price-Babson SEE 24 on its campus in Wellesley, MA. This program is designed to build an international cadre of educators who understand the importance of combining entrepreneurship theory and practice in teaching. Cross-disciplinary educators from around the world attended the program; 62 participants hailed from 12 different countries. The next Babson SEE program will be in Russia at St. Petersburg State University Graduate School of Management. To learn how to participate in the Babson SEE suite of programs please visit www.babson.edu/eship/see.
GEM 2007 Report on Women and Entrepreneurship Available
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2007 Report on Women and Entrepreneurship, launched in May 2008, provides an in-depth global look at women's entrepreneurship and highlights the important role that women play in developing and developed economies. Directed by The Center for Women’s Leadership, Babson College; and the Lawrence N. Field Center for Entrepreneurship, Baruch College, The GEM 2007 Report on Women and Entrepreneurship is available at www.babson.edu/CWL/upload/GEMWomen07.pdf.
Saint Louis University
Angels in Our Midst: The 2008 Gateways Conference
Angel investing is one of the wonders of the modern entrepreneurial age. Angels (informal investors) shoulder the brunt of risk in early stage funding of ventures. Often reclusive, angels are one of the toughest groups to study. To help entrepreneurship faculty do a better job of studying these key players, the 2008 Gateways To Entrepreneurship Research Conference (which was co-sponsored by the AACSB Entrepreneurship Affinity Group, the Kauffman Foundation, the Angel Capital Association, and the Coleman Foundation) looked at the topic of angel investing in two very different ways.
The traditional Gateways program on April 11-12 had the title “Business Angels – The Cinderella of the Venture Capital Market” and featured Colin Mason from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow Scotland. In his keynote address he pointed out that although our understanding of business angels has expanded since the early 1980s, there continue to be huge gaps in our understanding of this market and how it operates.
Prior to the Research Conference, faculty were invited to attend “The Power of Angel Investing” seminar put on by the Angel Capital Association, and sponsored by SLU’s new Billiken Angel Network. With Bob Okabe, a Chicago-area angel investor as lead instructor, more than a dozen local angels and business experts spent the day teaching nearly 50 angels and faculty about how angel investing is done as well as the current best practices in angel investing.
The Conference and Power of Angel Investing seminar were made possible by a major grant from the Kauffman Foundation to support the Conference through 2010. Additional support for the Power of Angel Investing seminar came from the Angel Capital Association and the Billiken Angel Network. Scholarships to the 2008 Gateways Research Conference were made possible by a grant from the Coleman Foundation.
Materials from the 2008 Gateways Research Conference will be posted to our Gateways webpage http://www.slu.edu/x19098.xml later this summer.
Work on the 2009 Gateway Conference is already under way, with plans to announce the theme, speaker and date by the Academy of Management meeting in August. The Gateways webpage will also provide the latest information.
© Copyright 2008 AACSB, All Rights Reserved.
The AACSB Entrepreneurship Education Update is the official newsletter of AACSB's Entrepreneurship Affinity Group. The EEU is published by the Entrepreneurship Program at Saint Louis University's John Cook School of Business, and its editor is Jerome Katz. The EEU is made possible through a grant from the Coleman Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurship at Saint Louis University. The next issue of the Update is due to come out toward the end of the Fall 2008 semester. Affinity Group members are encouraged to submit materials to katzja@slu.edu by September 15th. |
