Startup Weekend sessions in 24 cities around the world—gathering startup enthusiasts for intense 54-hour events designed to unleash ideas and launch new ventures—with a contest designed to pit the winners of each event against one another in a global Startup Battle for a grand prize
Global Student Entrepreneur Awards where 30 “dorm room entrepreneurs” from across the globe compete at the Kauffman Foundation for $150,000 in cash and support services.
24 finalists for Your Big Year -- recently announced at the Shanghai World Expo – are in Liverpool to compete in a series of challenges during Global Entrepreneurship Week for the grand prize of a one year, all-expenses-paid trip around the world.
Startup Open, a competition in the US to uncover the ‘GEW 50’—the most promising entrepreneurs who launched their startups during Global Entrepreneurship Week.
Global Innovation Game – a new Facebook game that is a competition of ideas and strategy – connecting GEW participants from around the world, encouraging them to collaborate, share, mentor, and compete with one another.
EO24 ‘Creating an Entrepreneurial Wave Across the Globe’ with events over a 24-hour period designed to positively impact the entire entrepreneurial continuum
The Creativity World Forum, bringing together the world’s most respected thinkers on creativity and others from 12 ‘creative districts’ around the world to better understand the creative process and how leveraging that insight can unlock new solutions and push innovation into the marketplace.
In Israel, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu will award the new “Prime Minister’s Prize for Initiatives and Innovations” during GEW / Israelin order to encourage innovational thinking, imagination and creativity.
In Netherlands, Meet the Dragons puts aspiring entrepreneurs in front of potential investors
In Mexico, a national congress of 1,800 entrepreneurs.
In France, La Fete de l'Entrepreneur celebrations in French universities and business schools throughout that nation on the opening day of GEW
More than 1,000 Russian entrepreneurs are visiting schools and addressing student groups throughout the Week
VIP Supporters
Below are some of the VIPs & celebrities who have either endorsed Global Entrepreneurship Week or participated in its events
Barack Obama, President of the United States
Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales (UK)
Anibal Cavaco Silva, President of Portugal
Sellapan Ramanathan, President of Singapore
Stephen Harper, Canada Prime Minister
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil
Mohammed VI, King of Morocco
John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand
Abdelaziz Ben Abdullah, Prince of Saudi Arabia
John Atta Mills, President of Ghana
Princess Maxima, Netherlands
Juan Andrés Fontaine, Minister of the Economy, Chile
Rainer Brüderle, Minister of Economics & Technology, Germany
Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Yukio Hatoyama, former Prime Minister of Japan
Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia
Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell, Inc.
Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group (360 companies)
Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank & Nobel Peace Prize Winner (’06)
Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn
Russell Simmons – serial entrepreneur
Snoop Dogg – serial entrepreneur
Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS Shoes
Tom Scott, founder of Nantucket Nectars
Global Founders
Kauffman Foundation
Enterprise UK
Global Partners
Endeavor
DECA
Entrepreneurs’ Organization
Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship
JA Worldwide
Youth Employment Network
IFC / SME
Youth Business International
Center for International Private Enterprise
TechnoServe
Higher Colleges of Technology
Business Council for International Understanding
European Confederation of Young Entrepreneurs
Youth Entrepreneurship and Sustainability
MIT Enterprise Forum
Sponsors
NYSE Euronext
Regus
Jonathan Ortmans - Biography
President, Global Entrepreneurship Week
Senior Fellow, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
Leading the development of Global Entrepreneurship Week on behalf of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Jonathan Ortmans has worked to align more than 100 countries to inspire, connect, mentor and engage the next generation of entrepreneurs. In doing so, he has helped assemble an informal coalition of more than 18,000 organizations dedicated to stimulating entrepreneurial activity. The November 2010 campaign promises to engage over 10 million people in 40,000 concurrent activities.
Ortmans brings a wealth of experience to the project, serving as a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation. Principally, he advises the Foundation on its global footprint and its interface with policymakers through the Policy Dialogue on Entrepreneurship (hosted at www. entrepreneurship.org), a public policy initiative to focus attention on the importance of entrepreneurship to the economy and society.Based in Washington, DC, Ortmans serves as an interface between new research and initiatives to advance entrepreneurship at the Foundation and the questions and concerns that arise from policymakers in the nation's capital.
He started his first business at the age of 19 in his native United Kingdom and his second at 34 after a career on Capitol Hill working for the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee focusing on trade policy.
Previously, Ortmans served as executive director of the Columbia Institute for Political Research, concentrating on health care economic policy. Currently, he also serves as president of the Public Forum Institute, an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that enjoys strong bi-partisan congressional support in fostering public discourse on major issues of the day.