Olympus Honors Entrepreneurship
BY ELIZABETH SULLIVAN
Lecturing about strategic management
and international entrepreneurship to a classroom of college students and budding entrepreneurs is one thing, but bringing international aspects into the classroom is quite another. Just ask professors Tina Seelig, PhD, of Stanford University, and Martina Musteen, PhD, of San Diego State University, both of whom have been nationally recognized in the 2008 Olympus Innovation Award Program.
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Tina Seelig, PhD, (left) of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and Martina Musteen, PhD, of San Diego State University are winners in the 2008 Olympus Innovation Awards Program. |
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Seelig and Musteen have made their marks as women in U.S. academia by successfully inspiring students to think outside of the box. They provide students with valuable insight on global entrepreneurship and find solutions for setting up innovation-focused programs, even when lacking substantial resources. Many of their students have become successful entrepreneurs by incorporating real-world experience through development and implementation of programs focused on entrepreneurship and innovation.
Tina Seelig is the executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (http://stvp.stanford.edu/). She promotes entrepreneurship and innovation at a global level, both virtually and face-to-face, by providing Web resources, roundtables, and conferences to inspire educators around the world to work these novel programs into their curriculum.
“It’s not just about teaching students these skills, but also about making them capable of solving international problems regarding energy, the environment, and health and sustainability, which also happen to be major Stanford initiatives,” Seeling explains.
WHAT IS ENTREPRENEURSHIP?
Entrepreneurship has many definitions.
Seelig defines it as recognizing opportunities to leverage resources and create value. She wants her students to be entrepreneurs in all facets of business: corporate, education, government, and nonprofit. She believes that entrepreneurship is a state of mind, and she wants to empower her students to make a positive impact on the world and a vast difference in the organizations in which they work.
Martina Musteen, an assistant professor of management at San Diego State University, brings relevant experiences into the classroom through an International Entrepreneurship course she developed for the university.
Musteen provides outside-the-classroom learning experiences to improve her students’ understanding of the entrepreneurial universe and gives them the opportunity to work with international entrepreneurial companies to expand the companies’ global market opportunities in the United States. She also focuses on current student interest in social entrepreneurship and “glocal” work — thinking globally, but acting locally.
Musteen views entrepreneurship as a social necessity. On the first day of class each semester, she opens her lecture by telling students that she cannot make them entrepreneurs, but she can give them the skill set they will need to succeed. Her goal for all of her students is that they acquire the best tools to approach problems and situations.
ABOUT THE AWARDS
Olympus, which may be best known for its digital cameras, is a precision technology leader creating innovative opto-digital solutions in healthcare, life science, and consumer electronics products. Beyond its technological innovations, it is also a company dedicated to supporting education and corporate social responsibility, among other areas.
As an outgrowth of this commitment, Olympus has partnered for the fourth year in a row with the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (www. NCIIA.org) to present the Olympus Innovation Awards program, which recognizes faculty members who foster an environment of innovative thinking among students through inventive teaching methods and hands-on opportunities.
The Olympus Innovation Awards program is comprised of three categories. Seelig won the overall Olympus Innovation Award, along with her Stanford colleague Tom Byers, PhD. Musteen received the Olympus Emerging Educational Leader Award, which recognizes faculty members who have inspired innovative thinking in students in a discrete area and who have contributions to the field in the future. The third award category, the Olympus Lifetime of Educational Innovation Award, recognizes faculty members who have demonstrated a sustained contribution throughout their careers to stimulating and inspiring innovative thinking in students in their own universities and throughout academia.
F. Mark Gumz, president and chief executive officer of Olympus Corporation of the Americas, has spent his career as an entrepreneur and innovator, both at Olympus and as an independent global consultant. Under Gumz’ leadership in the Americas, Olympus strives to nurture and maintain an innovative workplace that engenders an entrepreneurial, customer-centric culture within the corporation.
Olympus has an ongoing commitment to technological innovation and education, and Gumz said he sees programs of this kind as a win-win for the classroom and the boardroom.
“At Olympus, we understand the value and power of innovation, since it is at the core of every new technology we pioneer,” Gumz said. “We are proud of the continuing success of this program, as it recognizes innovation in U.S. academia, which in turn will foster the next generation of business leaders.”
ELIZABETH SULLIVAN is executive director of corporate communications for Olympus Corporation of the Americas. She can be contacted at 484-896-5005 (e-mail: Elizabeth.Sullivan@olympus.com).
(This article is reprinted from Vol. 9, No. 2 of Enterprising Women magazine. Copyright 2008, Enterprising Women Inc. Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited, except by express permission of the publisher. Would you like to comment on this article? Send a note to our editors.)
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