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Entrepreneurship Week features Battle of the Bands, business market, student contest

Janel Shoun-Smith | 

Lipscomb University’s Center for Entrepreneurship will celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week, Nov. 12-16, with three new activities designed to show students how their creative tendencies and ambitions can be channeled into a successful entrepreneurial venture.

On Nov. 9, participating students will begin the Innovation Challenge contest; on Nov. 12 and 15, interested students will be able to display their own products and services at a business market on Bison Square, and on Nov. 13, the center will present the Battle of the Bands.

In the Innovation Challenge, participating students will be given a business-oriented challenge, such as how to make a profitable venture out of a bunch of empty water bottles. The students will have the entire week to work on the challenge as a group and are required to present an innovative solution by the end of Global Entrepreneurship Week, Friday, Nov. 16. The winning team will receive a Kindle Fire for each member.

On Monday, Nov. 12, and Thursday, Nov.15, Lipscomb students are invited to showcase their very own products and business ideas at a business market from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Bison Square and Bennett Campus Center.  

On Tuesday, Nov. 13, the Center for Entrepreneurship presents the Battle of the Bands at 6 p.m. in Bison Square. The event will feature several Lipscomb-based bands along with local food trucks and free coffee and hot chocolate along with free food and T-shirts for the first 100 students to attend.

This year’s Global Entrepreneurship Week activities are designed to raise awareness among students of the overall entrepreneurial spirit and how it can be used to make profitable ventures, said Kristin Matthews, program coordinator for the Center for Entrepreneurship.

“Creating your own mark in music is not so different from creating your own mark in business,” Matthews said. “The Battle of the Bands is designed to encourage students to pursue their own venture in business much as the musicians in the bands are pursuing their own ventures in entertainment.”

The business market and the innovation challenge provide students with an experience in which they feel like their own boss, a familiar feeling for today’s entrepreneurs, she said.

Lipscomb’s Center for Entrepreneurship promotes entrepreneurship by providing academic concentrations in entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship within the management major and a minor in entrepreneurship available for any Lipscomb major – including students outside of the College of Business. The center also conducts student-focused and community-focused activities to raise awareness of entrepreneurial opportunities.

“The Center of Entrepreneurship is a valuable resource in the College of Business to prepare any Lipscomb graduate to turn a dream into a successful economic enterprise, in any economic environment,” said Turney Stevens, dean of the College of Business.

“In today’s stressed economic environment, many people are looking to their own strengths and talents to thrive during fiscally difficult times,” said Joe Ivey, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship. “Starting an enterprise takes passion, but making that enterprise successful takes business savvy and experience.

“Students pursuing many types of careers – from counseling or engineering to art or ministry – at some time in their lives find themselves in need of management, marketing or financial acumen to carry out their entrepreneurial dreams,” he said. “The Center for Entrepreneurship is designed to make better businesspeople of any Lipscomb student who may want to become a business owner someday.”

If you are interested in participating in any of the Global Entrepreneurship Week activities, contact Ben Lambert at bilambert@mail.lipscomb.edu or Kristin Matthews at kristin.matthews@lipscomb.edu.