Series of Dept Research Seminars - “Motivating Youth through Social Entrepreneurship Projects- Innovation and Creativity" (Date: 29 July 2016)

Today’s college graduates are faced with a variety of complex issues such as reducing poverty both locally and globally, sustaining natural and economic resources, and dealing with climate change.  Many suggest that solving these complex problems requires technological and social innovations that are led by new breeds of entrepreneurs.  Not surprisingly, many traditional STEM programs have embraced concepts such as “innovation”, “entrepreneurship”, “social entrepreneurship”, and “humanitarian engineering”.  In this seminar, different social entrepreneurship projects will be introduced.  Creativity is a fundamental part of the youth’s entrepreneurial mindset.  Students in various disciplines from the Penn State Berks served as mentors for primarily middle-school and high-school students through interactive workshops conducted in inner city Reading, PA, Nyeri, Kenya and Cusmapa, Nicaragua.  The workshop participants were able to devise innovative ideas for the creation of a business for a product or service.  Students collectively worked on a series of creative problem solving activities and find innovative solutions for the problems in their communities.  The feedback obtained from the participants evidences that the workshops were effective in teaching them how to develop and expand their entrepreneurial mindset through creativity and creative problem solving activities.  Venture Well and Creativity, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (CEED) Center at Penn State Berks supported these workshops.

All are welcome and no registration is in need.