UNC leaders to release entrepreneurial book

UNC is developing a way to attract some of the world’s smartest, most innovative minds.

Chancellor Holden Thorp and entrepreneur in residence Buck Goldstein tackle this issue in a book that will be released Sept. 29.

“Engines of Innovation” explores the ideas of social and commercial entrepreneurship, which Goldstein said became even more pressing after the recent financial crisis. At the Bulls Head Bookshop on Tuesday, he said solving those economic problems begins with students.

“Instead of starting at the top with administrators, students are the consumers but also the producers,” he said. “It starts with them.”

Goldstein said the aim of the book is to spur conversations about the innovation and execution of entrepreneurial activity.

He said the intersection of those two ideas is key to developing a successful mindset.

“The question is, how are ideas of everyday people turned into a reality?” he said.

He added the University is not meant to be an assembly line for creating more companies — yet if the concept is explored properly, he said this will happen on its own.

Instead, Thorp and Goldstein are striving to show that entrepreneurship requires a broad view of the world, connecting dots and putting patterns together.

The difficulty of entrepreneurship is that it is not for everyone.

“I don’t think that I’m the kind of person that could get everything together that I needed in order to run a business by myself,” senior Lily McHugh said.

Other students have more confidence in their entrepreneurial future. Goldstein said that last year’s first year seminar on entrepreneurship inspired him and Thorp to finish the book, incorporating ideas from the seminar’s 25 students.

He also said an “innovation incubator” will open soon in the Student Union to advance student entrepreneurship.

Freshman Laura McCready, a member of Nourish International, said the group’s hunger lunches in the Pit are an example of social entrepreneurship.

“It’s all about being creative, innovative and raising money,” she said.

Last year’s seminar developed a website, Revupinovation.com, to stress the importance of expanding entrepreneurship at UNC.

Goldstein said he hopes the University can come to be known as an entrepreneurial campus, as well as a research one.

He also said experimentation — successful or not — is the first step.

“Failure is acceptable,” he said. “You can’t be an entrepreneur without some failures”

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.