(Shown left to right: Dr. Jason Lortie, FGCU; Jim Shields, ECCL; Vince Modarelli, ECCL; Dr. Sandra Kauanui, Director, Institute of Entrepreneurship; Vice-Mayor Bill Ribble; and Dr. Eric Arseneau, FGCU)
Vice-Mayor Bill Ribble met with Community Leaders and FGCU faculty from the Institute for Entrepreneurship on August 30, 2017.
Dr. Sandra Kauanui, Director of the Institute, gave her guests an overview of the Entrepreneurship Program and the need for student mentors, funding, classroom and meeting room space. Over the last three years, the program has grown from 20 students to more than 80 students this semester.
The meeting concluded with a tour of the facility at the Emergent Technologies Institute. Part of that tour was a visit to the lab where students were working on their targeted projects. Most interesting was the nine step process that the Entrepreneur uses to quality their project. These nine qualifiers include: Problem Identification, Solution, Market Size, Competition, Purpose, Money (funding), Team, Market Plan and Business Model.
Anyone interested in helping to mentor students in this program should contact Vice-Mayor Bill Ribble at ribble@estero-fl.gov.