July 14, 2008
Bowling
Green, Ky. - The Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Western Kentucky University’s Gordon Ford College of Business has been awarded a contract for about $400,000 by the Lincoln Trail Workforce Investment Board to develop and launch an Entrepreneurial Academy of Excellence serving Breckinridge, Grayson, Hardin, LaRue, Marion, Meade, Nelson and Washington counties.
The goal is to develop a year-round program that will focus on catalyzing and supporting innovation, entrepreneurship and economic growth for the region.
Under the direction of Dr. Wil Clouse, executive director, a team of experts at WKU’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the Lincoln Trail Innovation Center (LTIC), the South Central Kentucky Innovation and Commercialization Center and the Elizabethtown Small Business Development Center (SBDC), the Lincoln Trail Workforce Investment Board, the Elizabethtown Community and Technical College and other organizations in the Lincoln Trail area will be leveraging a broad base of expertise and resources in developing and delivering the programs and services.
The focus will be on developing an entrepreneurial community, helping entrepreneurs to develop skills and tools to take their ideas for products and services from an idea stage to a product and business launch. The academy also will link entrepreneurs with the existing services of the SBDC and the LTIC to help participants gain access to resources and expertise to conduct feasibility of the ideas, developing the business plans, developing strategies to raise funding, both debt and equity or grants to support a successful launch of their business.
“This is an important initiative to help support innovative efforts for economic development for the Lincoln Trail region by creating an entrepreneurial community and nurturing entrepreneurs to translate their dreams into realities, at the same time creating jobs and a tax base for the region, said Dr. Sadiq Shah, associate vice president for Research and Economic Development at WKU.
The team members including Dr. Clouse, who has extensive experience in building entrepreneurial communities, Lisa Williams, director of LTIC, and Patricia Krausman, director of the SBDC in Elizabethtown, all bring a broad expertise base to successfully launch this initiative, Dr. Shah said.
The Lincoln Trail Area Development District (LTADD) is the administrative entity for the Lincoln Trail Workforce Investment Board, and their focus is to provide workforce investment activities, through workforce investment systems, that increase the employment, retention, and earnings of participants, and increased occupational skill attainment by participants, and as a result improve the quality of the workforce, and enhance the competitiveness of the region and the nation.
More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.
For information, contact Sadiq Shah at (270) 745-6733.
-WKU-
"A leading American university with international reach"
Office of Media Relations
Western Kentucky University
1906 College Heights Blvd., Bowling Green, Ky. 42101-3576
Phone: (270)745-4295 - Fax: (270)7455387 - E-Mail: western@wku.edu