UCL hosts first Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centres (GCEC) Conference to be held in Europe

The biggest annual gathering of entrepreneur centres in the world, this year's GCEC conference will bring together a community of entrepreneurs, innovators, investors and philanthropists for workshops, speeches and seminars. It is the first time the conference has been held outside the USA. 

With a theme of 'Entrepreneurship Everywhere', the Conference aims to support the role university entrepreneurship centres and business schools worldwide have in supporting entrepreneurship, and enabling educators from around the globe to share the ways they are offering support in different settings and to show to others how they have succeeded.

To this end, the Conference will feature workshops, seminars and speeches from key figures in the entrepreneurship scene including Lord Young, the Prime Minister's Enterprise Advisor; Allan Gibb, Professor Emeritus of Small Business Management at Durham University; and Michael Holthouse, entrepreneur, philanthropist, investor and founder of Lemonade Day in the USA. 

The GCEC - formerly the National Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers - was founded in 1996 to provide a way of coordinated collaboration and communication between university-based entrepreneurship centres on issues which they commonly confront. Its membership now comprises over 200 university entrepreneurship centres worldwide, including UCL.

"Selection of the host campus is a highly competitive process," said GCEC Site Selection Chair Dr Rebecca White, speaking at the time that UCL was awarded the honour of hosting the Conference.

"While many excellent schools from around the world applied to host the 2014 conference, we chose UCL and London to be the first host university outside of the US because it will provide GCEC with the opportunity to expand its reach globally."

Links

GCEC Conference 2014
Lemonade Day