Session Description
Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) is a massive campaign to celebrate and empower entrepreneurs in every country and community around the world – especially those who face structural barriers or may have never considered the idea of launching a startup. Each November, 10 million people take part in tens of thousands of activities, competitions and events that inspire them to act and provide them with the knowledge, experience and connections they need to succeed.
Join Global Entrepreneurship Week Hosts, partners, and campaign leaders from around the world for the GEW Summit—an interactive session focused on sharing best practices, lessons learned, and strategies for scaling entrepreneurship campaigns in communities around the world. Hear directly from top-performing hosts and explore key topics like community engagement, resource mobilization, media outreach, and campaign impact, as we chart a course for even greater success in 2025.
- Welcome + Opening Remarks: Jonathan Ortmans + Mark Marich
- GEW National Campaigns: Explore eight core focus areas critical to campaign success. Each topic will be led by experienced GEW Hosts sharing their insights and forward-looking plans:
- Designing programming that appeals to a wide public audience
- Forming leadership and planning committees
- Earning a critical mass of credible partners that help you reach target communities
- Leveraging other GEN communities and partners in your country
- Recruiting celebrities, government officials, and brands that appeal to target audiences
- Collecting metrics for sustainability
- Securing financial and non-financial resources
- Unearthing impactful stories and scaling a media footprint
- Looking Ahead: GEW 2025 Goals & Milestones
Group discussion on shared priorities and key building blocks for future success.
Session Recap
Gain insights from experienced hosts on strategies, challenges, and successes in running impactful Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) campaigns around the world.
Brief Summary
This session brought together Global Entrepreneurship Week hosts from various countries to share their experiences and best practices. The discussion emphasized the core mission of GEW: reaching communities beyond the existing entrepreneurship ecosystem to inspire and engage more citizens in considering the path of entrepreneurship. Key topics included strategies for catalyzing partners rather than organizing events directly, leveraging diverse networks including government and high-profile figures, the importance of collecting metrics and sharing impactful stories, and the value of collaboration and knowledge sharing among GEW hosts globally.
Outline
• Welcome and Introduction to Global Entrepreneurship Week's mission
• Identifying what makes a successful national GEW campaign
• The role of the national host organization: Catalyze, Don't Organize
• Designing programs that appeal to a wide public audience
• Forming leadership and planning committees
• Mobilizing partners: Building local and national networks
• Leveraging existing GEN communities and partners (Startup Huddles, Angel Investors, EWC, etc.)
• Recruiting celebrities, government officials, and brands
• Collecting metrics and tracking impact for sustainability
• Resource mobilization: Financial and non-financial resources
• Unearthing impactful stories and scaling a media footprint
• Case studies and experiences shared by country hosts (Algeria, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Bangladesh, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Curaçao, Bonaire, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Honduras, Puerto Rico, Canada)
• Open discussion and Q&A among hosts
• Discussion on improving global connectivity and sharing among hosts
Notable Quotes
• "Don't organize catalyze." - Highlighting the national host's role in coordinating many partners.
• "It's really about you coming together and working out how do we reach the other 90% of our community that has no idea that entrepreneurship's actually a very powerful force..." - Emphasizing the goal of expanding the reach beyond the existing ecosystem.
• "Engaging good partners is the most important thing you can do." - Stressing the foundational role of strong collaborations.
• "People connect with people. Stories humanize data and mission." - Underscoring the power of narrative in GEW campaigns.
Key Takeaways
• Catalyze, Don't Organize: The primary role of a national GEW host is to coordinate and support numerous partner organizations who run their own events, rather than organizing most events directly. The goal is maximum involvement from the community.
• Reach Beyond the Choir: Successful campaigns actively seek to engage the 90% of the population not currently involved in entrepreneurship. This requires designing programs appealing to a wide public audience and utilizing partners who can reach demographics outside the typical base audience.
• Partnerships are Paramount: Building a large, diverse, and trusted network of partners across public, private, and civil sectors is fundamental to a successful national campaign. This includes leveraging existing GEN network members and other ecosystem players.
• Mobilize Influence: Involving high-profile figures, government officials, and credible brands amplifies credibility, attracts media attention, opens doors to funding, and provides social proof. Framing this involvement as a public-private partnership or community uplift can be effective.
• Measure and Share Impact: Collecting metrics on events, partners, and participants is crucial for communicating the campaign's scale. Beyond numbers, unearthing and sharing impactful stories humanizes the mission, inspires action, and demonstrates value to stakeholders and potential supporters. This data is also vital for improving future campaigns.
Resources Mentioned
• GEW Website: The central platform for managing campaigns, tracking data, publishing partner content and logos, and connecting with the global community.
• GEN Network: A network allowing individuals to find and connect with others working in the entrepreneurship space.
• Social Media Channels: Discussed as tools for communication, promotion, engaging the media, and connecting with partners and the public (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, WhatsApp, Slack, Microsoft Teams).
• GW Bonaire Website: Mentioned as an example of a local campaign website.
• Shared Digital Repository: Suggested idea for storing and sharing photos and assets among hosts (e.g., Google Drive, Dropbox).
Action Items
• Commitment to reviving more frequent virtual meetups for GEW hosts to connect, share experiences, and collaborate. These will utilize platforms like WhatsApp and Microsoft Teams and vary times to accommodate different time zones.
• Exploring the idea of a 24-hour global GEW event featuring knowledge sharing across different regions.
• Improving mechanisms for sharing campaign assets and resources (like photos and collateral) among national hosts to support global storytelling.
