In economic downturn, entrepreneurship program sees increased interest

With soaring interest in two main contests and a new batch of winners for one of them, Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs is having the best week ever.

WEP, a hub of entrepreneurial resources affiliated with Wharton but available to all Penn students, supports a range of programs and projects that encourage students to transform their ideas into businesses.

Two of its major initiatives - Wharton Business Plan Competition and the Venture a Guess program - are getting a lot of attention this year, senior associate director of Communications for WEP Peter Winicov said.

The Wharton Business Plan Competition received 119 entries, the highest number of submissions in the past five years. The proportion of "socially focused" entries - 34 percent - is high compared to previous years as well.

The contest, which is in its seventh year, invites groups to submit project ideas to WEP, which assigns mentors to guide them through developing a business. At the end of the process, the groups pitch their plans to entrepreneurs.

And about 215 students participated in Venture a Guess, for which winners were announced last Friday.

Now in its second year, the seven-week long trivia contest aims to increase awareness of entrepreneurial activities and campus resources. The program is especially designed to engage freshmen and sophomores with entrepreneurship at Penn, WEP managing director Emily Cieri said.

Winicov said increased participation could reflect newfound interest in entrepreneurship fueled by economic uncertainty.

"Students are increasingly open to taking entrepreneurial risks now that the economy doesn't exactly guarantee a dream job anyway," he wrote in an e-mail.

However, he added that most "hard-core entrepreneurs" would pursue their ventures in any type of financial climate.

Cieri said increased participation might be the result of more aggressive marketing tactics, and that starting publicity for the contest during NSO was probably a source of significant improvement in enrollment.

She added that WEP organizers reduced the difficulty of this year's questions significantly to make the experience more fun for participants.

Engineering Senior Nate Weiner signed up to play Venture a Guess after seeing lawn signs advertising the contest.

Although he was doubtful about his odds of winning, Weiner's accumulation of points over the seven-week contest scored him the grand prize: two Southwest Airlines tickets, which he and a friend will use to fly to Louisiana for Mardi Gras over Spring Break.

Weiner said that while he may have entered the contest for the chance to fly for free, the questions were informative and interesting.

"A lot of the questions were about people who graduated from Wharton," he said.

Other contest winners included Engineering junior Abhishek Hendi, who came in second place and won an iPod touch, and Wharton freshman Linfu Zhang, who received the Entrepreneurial Mastery Prize for her participation in the program.

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