Internationalizing Entrepreneurship Education Program (IEEP)

This grant supports the translation of the established Engineering Entrepreneurship minor from the Main Campus to the Penn State Berks campus. In the new program, called the Internationalizing Entrepreneurship Education Program (IEEP), students from Penn State Berks and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Kenya will collaborate to create multidisciplinary, virtual E-Teams. The purpose of the student teams is to address issues of economic development locally and globally.

IEEP will build on The Children and Youth Empowerment Center, a program for former street children in Kenya that trains young people to become entrepreneurs using discarded electronics. Students will be placed in international and multidisciplinary teams, collaborating with JKUAT students to identify and develop safe and commercially viable uses for electronic waste. After setting up in Kenya, the second location for a similar green entrepreneurship initiative will be Reading, Pennsylvania where there is a large Latino population with high rates of unemployment and poverty.