LEARN: Skills that drive success

We see entrepreneurship not as a career path or an achievement but rather a mindset — a way of looking at the world.

Entrepreneurship is a valuable skill, and one that has created great social impact throughout our nation and the world while enriching the lives of business owners and consumers alike.

At ASU, we see entrepreneurship not as a career path or an achievement, but rather, a mindset — a way of looking at the world. In this way, we believe it is not just relevant but also essential to the academic world.

Over the last decade, ASU has launched nearly two dozen undergraduate and graduate degree programs focused on entrepreneurship, offered through a variety of disciplines including business, design, engineering, nursing and health innovation. Students in these programs have had the opportunity to engage in hands-on experiences on campus and in their communities through nationally recognized programs like the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program and GlobalResolve, and through programming offered by Edson E+I, including Venture Devils, the Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative and ASU’s I-Corps Site, funded through the National Science Foundation.

Key partnership: Kauffman Inclusion Challenge

Owning a business can open many doors in life, but for women and underrepresented minority entrepreneurs, there are often significant barriers to entry, such as access to capital and other resources. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Black-owned businesses started with three times less capital than new white-owned businesses. In addition, men were 60% more likely to secure funding than women when pitching the same business. Diversity in this sector is not the priority that it should be.

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a renowned leader in empowering entrepreneurs from all backgrounds. The foundation’s commitment to breaking down the barriers to starting and growing a business aligns with Edson E+I’s core values of promoting inclusion and equity.

In 2016, the Kauffman Foundation launched a multimillion-dollar Inclusion Challenge aimed at supporting more women and underrepresented minorities working to succeed as entrepreneurs. ASU was one of the first 11 winning organizations, selected from a pool of over 400 applicants. This award supported Edson E+I in leading a carefully constructed design thinking process through which many ASU and community-based program leaders received seed funding to pilot ideas that would increase the number of female entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color in their programs.

Over a program period of two years, these programs worked closely with Edson E+I to test and refine their ideas, which were then included in a set of potential best practices for other entrepreneurship programs to use as they work to become more inclusive. By collaborating with additional entrepreneur supporting organizations — 21 in total — Edson E+I was able to amplify the impact of the Kauffman Inclusion Challenge grant.