Penn GSE brings workshop for education entrepreneurs to San Francisco

Last year, four billion dollars was invested in the education and education technology marketplace. Universities, school districts, and education companies are looking for new approaches to meet their student’s needs.

But for many people, including experienced educators, the biggest hurdle to bringing an idea into the market or their institution is understanding the process.

That’s why Catalyst @ Penn GSE is hosting “Entrepreneurship in Education: A Primer for Educators, Entrepreneurs, Researchers, and Investors” November 28 at Wharton San Francisco. This half-day workshop will introduce the skills and dispositions of successful entrepreneurship, whether applied to building a product, company, initiative, or program.

Experts from Penn GSE and the industry will offer two distinct, hands-on experiences: one for entrepreneurial leaders in higher education, and another for those working in the K-12 space. 

Participants will be introduced to Agile, a project management style based in design thinking ideas that has powered many startups. They will learn about opportunities and pitfalls from experienced entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. And a team of analysts will offer an overview of the education marketplace now, with guidance on where it is headed. 

“Hopefully, everyone will come away with new knowledge, tools, relevant models, and an understanding of what is needed to really make an impact with their idea,” said Bobbi Kurshan, a Penn GSE innovation advisor and senior fellow.

Penn GSE — offering the nation’s first master’s degree in education entrepreneurship and hosting the oldest and best funded education business plan competition — has a proven track record of supporting innovators who want to make meaningful, research-driven changes in education. This workshop is the first of what will be a series of events and programs supporting entrepreneurs hosted on the west coast.

 “We are very excited to bring our entrepreneurial offerings to the west coast as we expand our programming to support entrepreneurship in all aspects of education,” said Catalyst executive director Michael Golden.

This workshop will be offered in two strands:

Entrepreneurial Leadership in Higher Education: Explore how to create an entrepreneurship profile of your institution, establish success metrics, and build a culture of innovation. Learn about successful incubators, competitions, labs, degree programs, and other innovations in higher education.

Education Entrepreneurship in K-12: Investigate ways to build successful education ventures, school partnership models, support edu-preneurs, and work with new ideas and innovations across the K-12 ecosystem. Explore ways to mitigate the forces that work for and against innovation many schools and school districts.

You can learn more and register for the event here.