New Podcast Episode - Entrepreneurship Is Not a Destination, It Is a Journey with Patrick Hughes

In this episode of The Entrepreneurial Mindset Project, veteran and long-time entrepreneur Patrick L. Hughes Sr. joined us to discuss his life, the various businesses he has started, and his thoughts about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Throughout the conversation, Patrick shares his entrepreneurial roots growing up as the child of a sharecropper, his various companies and side hustles, all the way to his successful government consulting firm, Hughes Group LLC. Hughes is the winner of the National Minority Small Business of the Year Award for 2010.

Entrepreneurship Students Complete Eight-Week Course

If you want a community’s economy to grow, help its members develop an entrepreneurship mindset. That’s the premise of the Ice House Entrepreneurship Program at Seward County Community College. Two pilot groups wrapped up eight weeks of focused learning April 20th. Participants in Spanish- and English-language classrooms unpacked the components for a successful business start-up. Then, the course concluded with individual presentations to their peers. “Initially, I saw my role here as helping and hosting,” said Anna Padgett, a member of the English-speaking cohort and full-time Liberal staffer for Kansas Small Business Development. Padgett quickly moved from the role of observer to eager participant, she said.

Digital Learning Annual Conference

Digital Learning Annual Conference (DLAC) celebrates K-12 digital learning practitioners, researchers, and policymakers; learn from each other; and share best (and worst!) practices in this new and innovative conference. ELI Founder Gary Schoeniger will be presenting alongside ELI Contributor Sarah Williamson. Also included in the panel conversation are Bobbi Kurshan from the University of Pennsylvania, Liza Herzog from Drexel University, and Deborah Conrad from Eckerd College. They will discuss bringing an entrepreneurial mindset to education.

Launching Tarrant County College Students on a Path Toward Entrepreneurship

Lourdes Ramboa is the Faculty and Chair for the Business and Entrepreneurship Programs at Tarrant County College, with 60,000 students at campuses across the Fort Worth area in Texas. With nearly 250 students this year, the college’s Entrepreneurship Program is one of the largest of its kind in the United States—and Ramboa is justifiably proud of its success.

But if she could slip away from the “Business” connection, she would do it in a heartbeat. “Entrepreneurship is not a business-specific degree or program; it serves anybody in any discipline,” Ramboa explained. She has students studying in the culinary program, the HVAC program, the horticulture program, the dietitian program, and the auto mechanic program – because they all want to start their own gig.

Read more on this implementation in our most recent blog, written by ELI contributor Sarah Williamson.

Lessons in Economic Recovery from Small-Town America

Around 100,000 businesses shut their doors in 2020. Two-thirds of small business owners say it was their most difficult year in business.

Now that the worst of the COVID pandemic is behind us, organizations like the bipartisan Economic Innovation Group are watching closely for signs of how the recovery will play out. In their recent analysis of U.S. Census Small Business Pulse Survey data, EIG found that more than a third of businesses anticipate slow going. They don’t expect to return to their normal level of operations for at least six months.

The EIG analysis found that larger states like New York, California, and Texas had the most negative impacts during 2020. They are still feeling the most economic distress, while largely rural states in the South, Midwest, and Western interior were spared the worst of the downturn.