Fostering Entrepreneurship in Unlikely Places
What type of entrepreneur is Vic Ahmed and what characteristics made him a successful entrepreneur?
How did their Ahmed and Steven Case’s partnership and shared vision of “Rise of the Rest” serve their business goals?
Explain why focusing on smaller cities rather than areas like Silicon Valley a good strategy.
Would a business incubator similar to Vic Ahmed’s vision be a good start-up in your community? Explain why or why not?
Writing Assignment: Fostering Entrepreneurship in Unlikely Places
Ja’Niya Ladson
Department of Business and Entrepreneurship
BA130OL- Introduction to Business
Dr. Wilton Stewart
April 4, 2021
NOTE: This Case Study is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of the textbook (p. 207); however, assignment activity has been modified.
Vic Ahmed is no stranger to business start-ups; he’s been involved in at least 15 or 20. But his latest venture is a start-up … for start-ups. Ahmed founded Innovation Pavilion, a business incubator in Centennial, Colorado (Denver’s Tech Center), in 2011. A typical business incubator provides start-up companies with workspace, mentoring, training, and sometimes a path to funding, but Innovation Pavilion goes further.
Innovation Pavilion (IP) is an 80,000 square foot “entrepreneurial ecosystem,” housing dozens of start-ups and renting out desks, office space, and event space. But it also hosts meetups, educational workshops, and a Toastmasters group designed specifically for entrepreneurs. It contains a makerspace (a workspace providing shared tools and manufacturing equipment for prototyping products) and encourages the growth of niche entrepreneurial communities based on specific industries. For example, IP has a space for IoT (the Internet of Things), one for health care, and another for aerospace. These communities bring together people in an industry to learn from and collaborate with each other.
While IP has a traditional incubator program, with companies housed within the IP campus, it has a semi virtual hypergrowth accelerator program for more mature firms, too, which is open to companies around the country. It also seeks out educational partnerships, working with the Highland’s Ranch STEM program, for instance, and has its own educational spin-off, Xuno Innovative Learning, designed to help companies train their staff and find new employees with the skills they need. IP operates its own streaming TV service, filming educational events and interviews with entrepreneurs.
Innovation Pavilion has national expansion plans—and several signed agreements with specific cities—targeting not the giant metropolitan areas but also second tier and “ring” cities across the country, such as Joliet, Illinois, and Olathe, Kansas, smaller cities that don’t get the attention of the larger cities yet have plenty of educated and creative people.
IP is in discussions with 20 cities around the nation, with the goal of building 200,000-square-foot campuses providing incubator services, office space, makerspace, education and training, outreach to young entrepreneurs, conference centers, retail space, and even housing. Entrepreneurs will be able to live and work in a space with everything they need, providing a complete entrepreneurial ecosystem in smaller cities across the nation.
Steve Case, the cofounder of America Online (AOL), shares Vic Ahmed’s vision for entrepreneurship in mid-America. His “Rise of the Rest” bus tour has traveled 8,000 miles over the last three years, investing in local start-ups in 33 cities across the country. Case hosts a pitch competition with the best start-ups in each city, and one lucky winner receives a $100,000 investment from Case.
Media attention has focused on the entrepreneurial engines of America’s coastal cities, but Ahmed and Case have a more expansive entrepreneurial vision, in which smaller cities throughout the nation rise up alongside larger, start-up hot spots.
Respond to the following questions.
· What type of entrepreneur is Vic Ahmed and what characteristics made him a successful entrepreneur?
· How did their Ahmed and Steven Case’s partnership and shared vision of “Rise of the Rest” serve their business goals?
· Explain why focusing on smaller cities rather than areas like Silicon Valley a good strategy.
· Would a business incubator similar to Vic Ahmed’s vision be a good start-up in your community? Explain why or why not?
Complete a minimum 2 pages, not including APA cover page or reference page for this writing assignment in Microsoft Word.
Reference
EXPECTATIONS:
BA 130 OL – Introduction to Business (3cr. hrs.)
Page 1 of 6
This document will outline the Professor’s expectations required for successful completion of
this course. While you will receive a slightly different experience in each of your classes at
Voorhees College, based on my style of teaching, there are some general guidelines I would like
to go over with you so that you will have a consistent experience throughout this course.
Forum Topic Activities
• Etiquette (Netiquette) – I am committed to providing open, frank, yet civil dialogue in the
forum topic discussions. To achieve this, students should abide by the following
guidelines:
• Never post, transmit or distribute content that is known to be illegal
• Avoid harassing, threatening or embarrassing fellow learners
• Avoid language that is: harmful, abusive, racially or ethnically offensive, vulgar,
or sexually explicit.
• If you provide information/facts in your post that are from another source, I
encourage you to cite a source. While not necessary, this practice would make it
easier for those reading your post to locate the source for personal reference.
PLEASE NOTE: APA format does not have to be used for citing sources in a
discussion post. Points will not be deducted if the citation is not in APA format.
• The original discussion post for each specific topic should be a minimum of 250 words
unless a more significant number of words is specified in the actual forum discussion
instruction. If it is apparent there is no substantive evidence or content that contributes
to the discussion, regardless of word count, reduced points will be awarded. Original
discussions posted after midnight Thursday evening will receive reduced credit.
• Responses post to discussions after midnight Sunday evening will receive zero credit.
If the number of responses is not specified, a minimum of two, posted are required.
Further, a response post to a fellow student or the instructor should be a minimum of
150 words unless more words are specified in the forum discussion instructions.
• If a student neglects to respond to a professor’s follow-up posted question(s) or query
for additional information to a student’s forum discussion post, there will be a reduction
of points in the participation category.
• For maximum credit on participation level for a forum discussion, the original post and
at least the prescribed number or more response posts must be posted during the week.
Written Assignments and Case Studies
• All written assignments are to be typed, double-spaced, 12 pt. Times New Roman font,
in APA style. APA style means there must be a cover page on the assignment. In
addition, the cover page must have the following features:
o A running head title (in the upper left-hand corner). Please see the example
below:
CASE STUDY 1
o A title for the assignment that is not more than 12 words.
o Student’s name
EXPECTATION (cont.):
BA 130 OL – Introduction to Business (3cr. hrs.)
Page 2 of 2
o Course Title & number (i.e. BA 130 OL – Introduction to Business)
o Institutional affiliation (i.e., Department of Business & Entrepreneurship)
o Assignment Date
o Professor’s name (i.e., Wilton R. Stewart, PhD)
Please note – the running head title should appear on all subsequent pages following the
cover page in a submitted written assignment.
• Academic honesty is highly valued. Always submit work that represents your original
words or ideas. If any words or concepts used in a class posting or assignment submission
do not represent your original words or ideas, you must cite all relevant sources in APA
format and make clear the extent to which such sources were used.
• Most plagiarism issues are unintended. For example, a student forgets to put quotation
marks around a direct quote or paraphrases research without adding a reference citation.
The consequences of plagiarism, however, do not decipher unintended from deliberate
practice. Please have a working knowledge of how to reference others in your written
work, including knowing the differences between quoting, paraphrasing, and
synthesizing.
• The APA Manual1 will be used by the professor to cite all format discrepancies that are
noted in a graded assignment. Twenty percent of your overall grade on a written
assignment will be based on APA format and reference list.
• One must provide a textual citation using the APA author-date system format and also
provide a reference listing at the end of a written assignment if you use the ideas or
directly quote other authors. That also includes the definition of words.
• Using just the web address to cite a source does not provide a reader all the information
needed. Nevertheless, it is also not proper APA format. APA format is how you
communicate in writing to cohorts that are human service professionals.
Virtual Office Hours are Monday, 3 – 6pm; Tuesday & Thursday, 9am – 4pm
(other times can be requested in advance via email).
Phone number(s): (843) 412-4754
College e-mail address: wstewart@Voorhees.edu
With respect,
Wilton R. Stewart, PhD
Adjunct Professor,
Voorhees College
1 The specific reference source that will be used for grading APA format is The APA Manual
(2020). Publication manual of the American psychological association (7th Ed.). Washington,
D.C: American Psychological Association