What Does Entrepreneurship Mean to You?

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy features the University Innovation Fellows Program during National Entrepreneurship Month.

In his Presidential Proclamation of National Entrepreneurship Month 2016, President Barack Obama writes: “Through their intrepid sense of possibility and resilience, and their unwillingness to give in or give up, entrepreneurs from every walk of life make invaluable contributions to the American experience — turning bold ideas into real progress.”

Replace the word “entrepreneurs” with “University Innovation Fellows” in that sentence, and add a dash of higher education, and you’d be describing the student leaders in our program. Since this program’s inception four years ago, our community of student and faculty change agents has been inspired by the Obama administration’s commitment to supporting America’s innovators, entrepreneurs and inventors.

This is why our community celebrates presidentially-declared National Entrepreneurship Month and National Entrepreneurs Day each November. The Fellows use their entrepreneurial mindset to drive lasting change in higher education. Their mission is to help all young people realize that it is critically important to hone their entrepreneurial mindset. Fellows help their peers develop these skills in school no matter what paths they pursue, from starting a new venture to making an impact in their hometown to helping their company develop a new product. Hear what entrepreneurship means to Fellows in a video commemorating National Entrepreneurship Month:

In previous years the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has featured the work of our Fellows during National Entrepreneurship Month (see this article from 2014 and this article from 2013), the White House Science Fair (see this article from 2015), and the White House Demo Day (see this article from 2015).

Today, OSTP has published a list of entrepreneurship-related accomplishments during President Obama’s administration, which features the University Innovation Fellows program. Read the fact sheet here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/11/30/fact-sheet-celebrating-president-obamas-top-10-actions-advance.

As our program expands to new schools around the country and the world, we will continue to invest in the future of higher education by supporting our community of changemakers. As President Obama writes in the closing of his declaration, “an investment in that future can start as something small and turn into something great.”

– The University Innovation Fellows team: Humera, Leticia, Katie and Laurie