Seven years ago, I stood in a small London conference room with former Prime Minister Gordon Brown—at the time he was still Chancellor of the Exchequer and hadn’t moved into 10 Downing Street yet—and with others, we launched Global Entrepreneurship Week. While we were confident and excited about the fledgling “campaign”, I don’t know that anyone could have envisioned exactly where we are today.
This November, 150 countries—representing 95% of the world’s population—officially celebrated GEW through tens of thousands of events, activities and competitions. While the official metrics will be released when the 2015 GEW Impact Report is published next March at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Milan, I encourage you to look beyond the numbers—and beyond the Week itself—at the remarkable network that has coalesced around building one global entrepreneurial ecosystem.
This “Global Entrepreneurship Network” or GEN as it has now come to be known, is comprised of individuals and organizations representing all parts of the ecosystem. Startup community leaders, researchers, policymakers, educators, investors and of course, the entrepreneurs themselves—from young dreamers to experienced founders. Together, they are working in new and smarter ways to bring out the best from their communities in an effort to unleash innovation and drive economic growth—making the world a better place.
This year, GEN had a number of successes to celebrate, some of which you can read about below. I’m excited about them all, but perhaps the most emblematic was the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in March. Hosted in Moscow at a time of major geopolitical friction when national differences were under the world’s microscope, the GEC demonstrated a common humanity emphasizing the similarities among startup communities and the willingness of those leading entrepreneurial ecosystems across the planet to collaborate and flourish.
2015 promises to continue the evolution of this network—driven by the communities and countries that celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week. I hope you will take a look at what the future has in store and join us in Milan, Italy, next March for the Global Entrepreneurship Congress where we will take the world stage once again and open a new chapter in the blooming of the entrepreneurial renaissance.
Looking Back on 2014
As it has done since it launched in 2008, Global Entrepreneurship Week continues to grow—in size as well as scope.
Four new team members joined the global headquarters in Washington, DC, 10 new host organizations signed on to lead GEW efforts in their countries and the footprint of the campaign grew to 150 countries—a new high. Beyond simple metrics, new strategic partnerships were made to expand the programs GEW offers throughout the year, new and expanded grants allowed for expansion of GEW initiatives in Africa and efforts to celebrate female entrepreneurs and business angels were integrated into GEW campaigns around the world.
In March, the sixth Global Entrepreneurship Congress was held in Moscow—and recently the Moscow Times named it as the Best Business Event of 2014. The largest GEC to date with thousands of delegates from 153 countries, the Congress was an opportunity for a medley of players from the global entrepreneurial ecosystem to come together and look to the future. The Congress was also an opportunity however to look back on GEW 2013 and recognize some of the outstanding campaigns that were run. Among the winners in Moscow was GEW UK, run by Youth Business International, which took home the prize for Country of the Year.
During the GEC, a number of new projects were introduced including the Global Entrepreneurship Research Network. The new network brings together research organizations with a keen interest in bolstering the body of research and data available to help build healthy entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Over the summer, GEW partnered with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development to launch the Global Enterprise Registration system. The new website is a global index of web portals allowing online business registration and describing the business registration process. It is intended to promote the use and improvement of business registration services worldwide, by allowing easy access to existing online systems and by facilitating the exchange of experiences and best practices among governments.
Startup Nations, a group of startup-savvy policymakers founded by GEW, nearly doubled its membership this year with governments taking an increasing notice and realizing the positive value that healthy startup ecosystems present. The group met during a parallel event at the GEC in Moscow and again in November during the Startup Nations Summit in Seoul, Korea, during Global Entrepreneurship Week.
The Global Entrepreneurship Index was launched during GEW in partnership with the GEDI Institute. The Index ranks entrepreneurial ecosystems in 130 countries with the U.S. topping the list. However, beyond its rankings the Index provided fodder for policy-related conversations throughout Global Entrepreneurship Week and was featured in a CNBC story on “The best places in the world to launch a startup.”
Throughout GEW, a number of anchor events and competitions took place around the world to focus the celebrations going on in 150 countries. One example was Breezometer from Israel which won the Startup Open competition for its app that measures real-time air quality and provides health recommendations to its users. Another was the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, organized by the White House along with the Kingdom of Morocco.
With numerous twitter chats, Google hangouts, webcasts of live events around the world and more than 17,000 tweets using the official #GEW2014 hashtag, this year’s GEW was the most web-friendly to date.
Looking Ahead to 2015
During the closing ceremony of the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Moscow, the ceremonial GEC flag was passed to the Italian delegation in a symbolic gesture that signified Milan, Italy, as the next host city. Registration for the GEC is open to anyone wishing to join the global conversation on entrepreneurship in March 2015.
In Milan, the newest GEW Impact Report will be released. Providing final metrics on the November 2014 campaign and sharing examples of how GEW is supporting entrepreneurs around the world. It will also be the stage for the release of the results from the Global Entrepreneurship Network Survey, a survey of entrepreneurial ecosystems around the world hoping to produce data to better guide policy decisions. The survey is collecting responses in 19 languages until January 15.
Of course, November 2015 will bring the next installment of Global Entrepreneurship Week and a combination of fresh VIPs, brands and competitions along with the best and brightest events that connect participants each year. One of those will be the next Startup Nations Summit—to be hosted in Mexico City by the Global Entrepreneurship Network and Mexico’s National Entrepreneurship Institute (INADEM).
In the meantime, be on the lookout for a number of announcements from the global team in Washington, DC, about new programs and other efforts to build one global entrepreneurial ecosystem.