More Than 300 Higher-Education Leaders to Attend UMass Lowell Event
06/10/2015
Contacts: Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944 or Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu and Christine Gillette, 978-934-2209 or Christine_Gillette@uml.edu
* M E D I A A D V I S O R Y *
Thursday, June 11, 2:30 p.m.
WHAT: More than 300 entrepreneurs and higher-education leaders from around the world will gather at UMass Lowell to explore how colleges and universities can harness their strengths to drive economic development and give rise to the next generation of thinkers, doers and creators.
College and university administrators, faculty researchers and students, along with industry partners, will discuss how to integrate entrepreneurial thinking and performance into the fabric of campus life at the Deshpande Symposium on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Education. Representatives of 45 colleges and universities from throughout North America will present the event’s 30 sessions. Topics will include embracing entrepreneurship in the curriculum, maker spaces, university-based technology commercialization and business incubators, and cultivating mentoring networks.
Priceline.com co-founder Jeff Hoffman will talk about the challenges entrepreneurs must overcome to be successful in remarks to attendees at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow. Well-known ventures such as uBid.com and ColorJar, among others, have also benefitted from Hoffman’s involvement and he has founded startups and served as the CEO of multiple companies. The U.S. State Department’s Global Innovation through Science and Technology Program, Global Entrepreneurship Week and the Asia-Pacific Economic Council’s Startup Initiative all count him as an advisory board member. He is the recipient of a Champion of Entrepreneurship Award.
The event also includes the presentation of awards to individuals and universities that are groundbreakers in entrepreneurship and technology commercialization. UMass Lowell Executive Vice Chancellor Jacqueline Moloney – a national leader in innovation in higher education and one of the event’s organizers – is among the three-day summit’s speakers.
UMass Lowell and the Deshpande Foundation are the founding sponsors of the event, which is now in its fourth year. For more information, visit www.deshpandesymposium.org.
WHERE: UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center, 50 Warren St., Lowell. Contact UMass Lowell media relations for directions and parking information.