I'm Jonathan Ortmans, president and founder of the Global Entrepreneurship Network.
What we're about is creating an opportunity for anybody anywhere to unleash their idea.
We want to make sure that the guy that's got the worst deal on the planet has an opportunity.
At the Global Entrepreneurship Network
we've built one global entrepreneurship ecosystem that allows anyone on the planet to be able to connect,
understand,
support
and celebrate the entrepreneurs that represent so much promise for our future.
We went in with the belief that
we could create a common culture across the globe in the interest of
entrepreneurship and innovation.
We learned a lot of techniques and tools about
ultimately, how do you build a community that's across the world.
How do you cross national boundaries and cultures and religions and languages?
We discovered something that was common in all people.
They have this enthusiasm and curiosity about making the world a better place.
We tried to provide
some structure
but allow a lot of flowers to be blooming the way they wanted to.
We have divided our work into four primary cornerstones.
We want to be able to connect everybody across any aspects of an entrepreneurial ecosystem,
to find peers, find markets and find opportunities.
Secondly we want to understand the field better. We want to elevate the field based on research and data.
And then thirdly, we're working carefully to provide the best support programs we can find.
The last part is we like to celebrate.
It's where we began with Global Entrepreneurship Week,
which is the notion of making the role of the entrepreneur
be perceived around the world as being a force for good,
as being the individuals who are able to create new value in our
societies, and can really set an example for all of our citizens in the way we go about living our lives.
Entrepreneurs are the great equalizers.
They bring the ability of anybody to be able to have the opportunity no matter where they come from in the world.
That promise of entrepreneurship is always what's empowered our community.
