As usual, Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) was a busy time for ACE. On the Tuesday we co-hosted a breakfast seating 120 to discuss “Future Working: The Age of Entrepreneurship”—a fitting theme in Australia of today. ACE Deputy Director Paul Steffens introduced the topic, and four practitioners – Ran Heimann, Vanessa Garrard, Jeremy Liddle and Rebecca Wilson – shared their insights on immigrant, women, youth, and senior entrepreneurship. This was followed by a panel before participants got very active in workshop discussions. ACE Director Per Davidsson wrapped up the event, but the conversation carried on well after the official closing time as the guests did have plenty of ideas to foster entrepreneurship in Australia. Based on this success, ACE and QUT’s Real World Futures group will co-organize a similar event next year.
On the Thursday we continued with “No patent, no success? How to protect your business idea”—a topic of great interest to the “high end” of innovative entrepreneurship. A mix of practitioner and academic presenters gave a multi-faceted illustration of the world of intellectual property protection to 75 internal and external participants. Panellists Kevin Restrick, Matthew Rimmer, Brent Watts and Sam James shared their expertise and answered questions from the engaged audience. Again, Per Davidsson did the concluding wrap-up and the participants lingered and networked long after the official closing time. ACE Post Doc Annelore Huyghe—who also had a big role in organizing Tuesday’s event—did an excellent job in both organizing and leading this highly appreciated event.
Per Davidsson entered the stage for a third time on the Friday as opening speaker at the AIB-ANZ Symposium on International Business. Albeit not a GEW event as such, Per’s topic “The Entrepreneurial Opportunity Construct in the Context of Internationalization” should make it qualify for inclusion here. In all, it was a very well appreciated set of events which showcased ACE to external audiences and provided many potentially valuable contacts both for ACE and other participants.
