WVU IDEA Hub and LaunchLab Network recognized on the global stage for second consecutive year

The West Virginia University IDEA Hub and LaunchLab Network have been recognized on the global stage for the second year in a row.

Awarded as one of the top three finalists out of more than 130 nominations in eight categories at the Global Consortium for Entrepreneurship Center’s annual conference in Stockholm, Sweden, the IDEA Hub and LaunchLab Network received recognition for their Outstanding Student Engagement and Leadership. The GCEC acknowledged WVU’s impact of student leaders, the variety and success of student projects and high levels of student engagement.

“We empower our students to take ownership and control over their innovations and encourage them to follow the National Science Foundation’s innovation corporation model of deep customer discovery. It’s so important to ensure they have the knowledge and tools to accelerate their ideas into marketable products and discoveries,” said Carrie White, assistant vice president of entrepreneurship and innovation at WVU.

“The LaunchLab Network also employs almost exclusively student workers. Of our 15 employees, only four are not students,” White added. “We want to continually and consistently engage our students as they specialize in business coaching, creative design, engineering, photography, videography, computer science and various other skills needed for innovation.”

The GCEC conference serves to gather the world’s leading minds in entrepreneurship. The three-day event featured more than 60 entrepreneurship-based presentations and keynote speakers such as founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales, and president and co-founder of Gapminder Foundation Ola Rosling. Among those presenters included two representatives of West Virginia University, Nora Myers, director of the WVU Institute of Technology in Beckley, LaunchLab and White. Myers discussed how to measure success in entrepreneurship education, while White explained what to avoid when starting an entrepreneurship center.

In 2018, the WVU IDEA Hub and LaunchLab Network were named as a finalist in the Outstanding Emerging Entrepreneurship Center category at the GCEC conference for having a clearly defined target audience and purpose as a center that has been open for five years or less. In addition to accumulating back-to-back international accolades, the LaunchLab Network also received the Rising Star Award for the Entrepreneurial University category at the 2019 Deshpande Symposium. 

“We are very proud that the LaunchLab Network has once again garnered recognition on the global stage in entrepreneurship and innovation. We work hard on helping students adopt and apply an entrepreneurial mindset that result in new products and businesses, and the world is noticing our success,” Meyers said. 

The LaunchLab Network is the applied innovation centers at all three regional WVU campuses that provide students with a collaborative environment to promote their development as entrepreneurs and innovative thinkers. 

The LaunchLab Network is also a part of the WVU Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship Applied Hub, which offers a vast network of resources and opportunities to redefine entrepreneurship and innovation as a commitment to solving a problem or challenge. The IDEA Hub allows students, faculty, staff, and members of the community to access the necessary connections to foster transformative initiatives and programs across WVU and the greater West Virginia community as a whole. 

-WVU-

kf/10/08/19

CONTACT: Katie Farmer
Communications Director & Marketing Strategist, Office of the Provost
304.293.0166; Katie.farmer@mail.wvu.edu

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