ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE OPEN CURRICULUM

To kick off the celebration, we chatted with folks like Elvia Perez ’22, current Peer Entrepreneur in Residence, and Christian Anthony ’96, a member of our President’s Advisory Council on Entrepreneurship, and others. They share how the Nelson Center’s support of new entrepreneurship courses and of cutting-edge entrepreneurship research have enhanced and expanded the Brown community’s understanding of how entrepreneurship can solve significant problems.

Our curricular efforts continue to evolve and reflect critical trends in entrepreneurship. Students can take new courses like Jennifer Nazareno’s Global Dynamics and Critical Perspectives on Immigrant Entrepreneurship in the United States, Linda Scott’s Gender, Women and Enterprise, Howard Anderson’s Entrepreneurial Management in Adversity, and Alice Nichols’ Eco-Entrepreneurship, among many others. In addition to teaching Leadership in Organizations, Banu Ozkazanc-Pan launched the Venture Capital Inclusion Lab, a cutting-edge research group that investigates issues of equity in entrepreneurship and access to capital. Both Nazareno and Ozkazanc-Pan hosted our second academic research conference on June 21, 2021—a forum in which to discuss and examine entrepreneurship at the intersection of women, refugees, immigrants, allyship, and anti-Black racism. And of course, we have launched the Certificate Program in Entrepreneurship which provides curricular structure for undergraduate students who want to make entrepreneurship an important part of their intellectual journey.

PEOPLE, PLACES, PRIORITIES

Our third video highlights the people behind the Nelson Center, our state-of-the-art building, and specific priority areas including addressing issues that stem from anti-Black and systemic racism and the problems that arise as a result of climate change. We hear from Danny Warshay ’87, P’20, P’23, Executive Director of the Nelson Center; Jonathan M. Nelson ’77 P’07 P’09, Founder and Executive Chairman of Providence Equity Partners; Lorine Pendleton ’91, Venture Investor and 2021 Entrepreneurship in Residence (EIR); and Jack Roswell ’20, co-founder of Cloud Agronomics. Each provides insight into how our building enables people to work together to identify problems and develop solutions with impact.

Entrepreneurial thinking goes hand-in-hand with Brown’s emphasis on interdisciplinary study, pushing students to consider the different avenues they can take when approaching a topic. Similarly, the Nelson Center teaches a structured entrepreneurship practice that can be learned and applied in a variety of contexts. By embracing this interdisciplinary thinking and applying the structured entrepreneurship process, we serve as a resource for all students on campus who identify a problem and see an opportunity to work toward a sustainable solution. One important resource we offer students is our building on Thayer St. which, with the generous support of donors, opened in May of 2019. Since then, it continues to serve as a center for teaching, collaboration, mentorship, events, and much more. As a result of students looking to entrepreneurship to solve problems and having a dedicated space to come together, we have built an enthusiastic and dedicated entrepreneurship community here at Brown.

As a community, we have come together to highlight two priorities in particular: anti-Black and systemic racism and climate change. Among our Venture Support resources, we offer two focused grants: Venture Grants for Innovative Solutions to Anti-Black and Systemic Racism and Climate Change Grants. Our intention is for these grants to help Brown students use entrepreneurial tools to address these critical issues.