Fourth Annual Global Entrepreneurship Week Celebrated in 123 Countries

This week (Nov. 14-20, 2011), more than 25,000 organizations in 123 countries will host events celebrating entrepreneurship and connecting entrepreneurs to potential mentors, inventors, collaborators and peers. Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) activities include Startup Weekends, in which groups come together to create a new business in three days, startup competitions and showcases, social entrepreneurship forums and venture capital summits. First organized in 2008 with support from the Kauffman Foundation, GEW activities have spread around the globe and will this year include the participation or support of U.S. President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and many other international heads of state.

• GEW features several worldwide competitions related to entrepreneurship that will make awards or hold final rounds this week. These include:
• Startup Open — Each year GEW recognized 50 startups judged to have the strongest concepts and growth potential. The list of this year's winners is available at: http://startupopen.com/gew50for2011.
• Your Big Year — The Smaller Earth's initiative will name its twelve finalists in Liverpool, UK. Next March, these finalists will participate in a day of filmed challenges during the Global Entrepreneurial Congress. The winner will spend a year travelling the world working on projects and meeting global and community leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs.
• Global Cleantech Open Ideas Competition — This competition recognizes new ideas in clean energy, water management and climate change policy. Finalists will deliver a five-minute pitch to an audience that includes 2,500 investors and entrepreneurs with a chance at winning $100,000 in support and services to help turn their idea into a business.

Some of the week's events in the U.S. include:

• The Company Lab in Chattanooga held the kick-off event for GEW in Tennessee and held a 48Hour Launch competition. In the end, the competition named three winning startup ideas for launch in the categories Social Innovation, Product and Technology.
• Startup Weekends in more than 20 cities, including New York City, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Seattle, Kansas City, Bloomington, Denver and others.
• The University of North Carolina at Wilmington Entrepreneurship Center provided students an opportunity to deliver a 5-minute presentation based on a business idea at its Student Rocket Pitch Event. Audience members voted to recognize the best concept and presentation.
• TEDxPSU was held on Nov. 13, featuring speakers from business, technology, music and policy policy backgrounds, with exhibitors from Microsoft, Apple and EA Games. Penn State also sponsored several entrepreneurship and tech commercialization workshops throughout the week.

A full directory of this year's events is available at: http://unleashingideas.com/events-list.

Major supporters of this year's event include the Kauffman Foundation, the New York Stock Exchange Euronext Foundation, Dell Inc., Endeavor, Entrepreneurs' Organization, JA Worldwide, the MIT Enterprise Forum and others.

Read more at: http://www.unleashingideas.org. Follow the official Twitter feed at: @unleashingideas.