News > February 28, 2008

By Molly Nevola | Staff writer

A grant totaling $596,679, awarded to the university by the National Science Foundation, will fund a three-year project designed to create a network of partnerships among the private sector, nonprofit and local government while promoting innovation and new entrepreneurial endeavors.

The project will be led by the director of the Office of Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts, Elizabeth Gatewood, along with Deborah Best, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

The project will build on existing relationships between the academic community and key players in the Triad area.

The project will attempt to reshape the Triad’s economy through new ventures in several fields.

Just a few of these include life sciences, biotechnology, nanotechnology, product design and even entertainment.

Gatewood said that the project marks the beginning of a new phase in the development of the entrepreneurship program at the university.

“It will enhance the opportunities for students to expand on their classroom learning with hands-on experiences such as internships … workshops, speaker events and virtual network of experts,” she said.

Ultimately, Gatewood said she hopes these collaborations will result in economic activity.

The entrepreneurship program at the university began in 2004 when the Kauffman Foundation selected the university as one of eight schools to receive a $2.17 million five-year grant to incorporate the field in the liberal arts.

Today, about 5 percent of the university’s 4,300 undergraduate students are enrolled in one or more entrepreneurship courses.

Best noted that a liberal arts education and entrepreneurial thinking can be mutually reinforcing ideas.

“The legacy of this project will be realized in programs instituted in liberal arts colleges and universities throughout the country, modeled on the best practices that we identify,” Best said.

The program’s partnerships are a collection of diverse groups that assist startup companies formed by university students.

For example, a research center by the N.C. School of the Arts, Winston-Salem State and Forsyth Technical Community College has been assisting BioBotz, formed by six university students to create educational games, cartoons and storybooks to introduce children to cellular biology using superhero characters.

Gatewood said that the goal of the program is to provide all students—regardless of their major or discipline—the experiences, education and mentoring to develop skills to be successful.

“This will be accomplished by establishing a system that creates meaningful knowledge-sharing and learning relationships between industry and academia,” Gatewood said.