Spring 2016 Entrepreneurship Advisory Board Meeting

Spring 2016 Entrepreneurship Advisory Board meeting

The Entrepreneurship Advisory Board convened on Friday, April 1, 2016 for its spring meeting.

The Entrepreneurship Advisory Board is an interdisciplinary group of faculty and alumni, as well as members at peer universities, whose focus is to foster and support entrepreneurial thinking and practice at JMU. The fourteen members represent each of the JMU colleges and have either entrepreneurial or professional experience fostering creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship in their fields.

Guest speakers at the meeting on April 1^st included Dr. Mary Gowan (Dean, College of Business), Dr. George Sparks (Dean, College of Visual and Performing Arts), and Dr. Bob Kolvoord (Dean, College of Integrated Science and Engineering), who shared information about efforts to encourage a culture of collaborative, interdisciplinary entrepreneurship on campus.

The Center for Entrepreneurship presented a Student Showcase, featuring JMU students who have distinguished themselves by participation in entrepreneurial activities on campus:

• David DiSilvestro (Economics, ’16): undergraduate entrepreneurship research, under the guidance of Dr. Fariss Mousa
• Grace Carter (Engineering and Art, ’19): A2RU
• Emily Platt (Finance and Economics, ’17): CoB 300 team, The Oak Bar, 1^st place winner in Jackson-Rainey Business Plan Competition. Emily also received MVP and the Ferguson Top Female Leader awards at the competition.
• Emily Platt (Finance and Economics, ’17); Don Le (Finance and Economics, ’16); Colton Ringgold (Management, ’17); Julia Kon (Management, ’16); and Lemar Ashhar (Biology, ’16): MGT 472 venture creation team, Lending Pool
• Luke Farrago (Management, ’16): MadXLabs (now MadInc) team, University Customs
• Patrick Haggerty (Management, ’17); Caiti Wardlaw (Graphic Design, ’16); Chris Katalinas (Graphic Design, ’16): BizBlitz team, The Edge, 2^nd place winners at BizBlitz 2016

The meeting concluded with a discussion of programming and other plans for the coming academic year.

View photos from the meeting here. 

(Pictured left: Entrepreneurship Advisory Board members engage in a small-group brainstorming session)