Charlotte County Florida Weekly

FGCU, Israeli school team up on entrepreneurial studies




Dr. Sandra Kauanui standing in Israel. COURTESY PHOTO

Dr. Sandra Kauanui standing in Israel. COURTESY PHOTO

As Dr. Sandra Kauanui stood on Israeli ground and gave a two-minute speech in front of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a 100-person Florida delegation, dignitaries from Israel and officials from Tel Aviv University, she couldn’t help but think that she had come full circle.

The trip to Israel heralded the May 28 announcement that FGCU had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Tel Aviv University, Israel’s largest public research university, to cooperate on growing both schools’ entrepreneurial studies — part of an historic eight MOU signings involving five other Florida universities and one Florida college — Florida Atlantic University, the Florida Institute of Technology, Florida International University, Miami-Dade College, St. Leo University and the University of Central Florida.

Ms. Kauanui, a professor of entrepreneurship and management at FGCU since 2007, had applied her unbridled passion to become the driving force behind the formation and management of the Institute of Entrepreneurship and the establishment of one of the nation’s few interdisciplinary entrepreneurship degree programs.

Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Gulf Coast University professor Sandra Kauanui in Israeli, where a pact was signed by FGCU and other schools with Tel Aviv University. COURTESY OF GOV. RON DESANTIS’ OFFICE

Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Gulf Coast University professor Sandra Kauanui in Israeli, where a pact was signed by FGCU and other schools with Tel Aviv University. COURTESY OF GOV. RON DESANTIS’ OFFICE

And there she stood — on the soil of a country that earned the nickname “Start-Up Nation” as the result of a 2009 book by the same name that immortalized the Israelis’ dramatic rise to entrepreneurial kingpin, with more high-tech start-up companies and a larger venture capital industry per capita today than any country in the world, according to The Economist magazine.

“Our entrepreneurship program at FGCU is a start-up program,” she says. “It’s something I started and helped build. It felt like it’s come full circle. In Israel, I was in a place where they survived and they built and they grew and they created a name for themselves.

“I truly believe that’s something we’re doing here at FGCU with our entrepreneurship program. We’re making a difference in our students’ lives and creating a name for ourselves. We have grown rapidly. We’re not a big university with a large amount of funding, and yet we’ve been able to do this.”

How did Israel become the “Startup Nation of the World”? And why are start-up accelerators still swarming to Silicon Wadi (Hebrew for Silicon Valley) on the coastal plain of Israel, with Tel Aviv as the epicenter?

This is a 71-year-old country with just 8.7 million people, virtually no resources amid a topography that is more than 50% desert, a geographical position surrounded by enemies, a history of external and internal conflict and an inflation rate that hit 400% after the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1983 Israel Bank Stock Crisis.

“They’re a small country, and the potential for being attacked is great, so they came up with a way to protect themselves and shoot down the missiles,” she says. “They came up with a way to sap the algae out of the water in lakes. They created the first 3D heart that the scientist can print. Their artificial intelligence is amazing.

“Through the universities and research and all the things they’ve done, they recognized that if they were going to become economically sustainable, they needed to support entrepreneurship and innovation. Entrepreneurship is seeing the need and solving a problem. And that differentiates you from other people.

“They knew that in order to survive, they had to be a start-up and grow. They created a start-up nation, and they’ve done it with very little funds. That is the basis for a lean start-up. That’s what entrepreneurs do when they start businesses and grow them. They do it with shear tenacity, determination and passion.”

The MOU will match a rising entrepreneurship program at a fast-growing Florida university with a developing program in a country that is leading the way in innovation and TAU’s newly formed, nationally funded Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

“Israel is known for entrepreneurship and innovation,” Ms. Kauanui says. “We’re unique because we have an interdisciplinary degree at FGCU, and there aren’t many in the country that have it. Tel Aviv University probably has a more traditional program. It’s more of a business program than an interdisciplinary entrepreneurship program that allows students to incorporate courses from other disciplines in the arts, science, health or engineering. They’re just starting to develop their Center for Entrepreneurship, which we could help with.

“Our students are very entrepreneurial. They’re out there trying to create new business and ideas. I think they have lot of entrepreneurial knowledge, and if we can tie it together, it will be a win-win for both sides. Our students would learn from them and learn from some of their innovative ideas, and they might learn some things from our entrepreneurship programs and our students.”

The MOU covers five years and calls for the two universities to cooperate in the exchange of scholarship plans of mutual interest; pursue faculty and student exchange programs; seek exchanges of cultural and artistic activities; and collaborate on cooperative research and hold joint academic seminars.

Points for potential traction include:

¦ Veterans. FGCU has helped vets use their skills to become entrepreneurs, and Israel’s success has been largely due to the work of Israeli Defense Force veterans.

¦ Accessible pools of venture capital.

¦ Access to each other’s markets and intellectual capital.

¦ International connections. TAU offers connections to East and South Asia, Europe and the Americas.

There will be joint projects and collaboration among students and faculty of FGCU and TAU; establishment of a venture capital pool, “shark-tank” competition and study abroad opportunities.

“We have some venture capitalists in our community, and they’re always looking for future investments,” Ms. Kauanui says.

FGCU wants to establish a relationship between its Institute of Entrepreneurship and TAU’s CEI. FGCU transitions to a School of Entrepreneurship on July 1 and aims to expand its footprint internationally as a key component in realizing the board of trustees’ strategic plan goal of eventually creating a College of Entrepreneurship to grow and support a more vibrant and diversified workforce and stimulate economic development for the region and the state. The college will be established “when we get strong enough,” Ms. Kauanui says.

“We started with virtually no funding as a minor in 2014. We were the largest minor after a few years. Then they approved the major two years ago, and at the end of spring, we had 450 students in our major.

“The institute has been extremely active for the last four years, the minor was started four years ago and the major two years, so we’re a start-up. We’ve grown so large at this point that we really needed to become a school.” ¦

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