{"id":270482,"date":"2017-09-22T12:28:16","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T16:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=270482"},"modified":"2017-09-22T15:09:10","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T19:09:10","slug":"romanian-professors-honing-entrepreneurial-skills-ain-center-270482","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/romanian-professors-honing-entrepreneurial-skills-ain-center-270482\/","title":{"rendered":"Romanian professors hone entrepreneurial skills at Ain Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the second year in a row, six professors from Romania are spending the fall semester on the River Campus at the University\u2019s Ain Center for Entrepreneurship<\/a>. By the end of the three-year Romanian Faculty Scholars Program, 18 professors from the eastern European nation will have had the chance to observe all aspects of the center\u2019s initiatives, take classes, meet business leaders, and return home to incorporate what they\u2019ve learned into their own programs.<\/p>\n

The Romanian Professor Entrepreneurship Education and Networking Program<\/a> is funded by the Romanian-American Foundation and conducted in partnership with the Fulbright Commission. The Ain Center was chosen in 2016 as the host site by the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), which managed the application and selection process on behalf of the Romanian-American Foundation.\u00a0 Fifteen schools applied, and Rochester was the only one chosen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very excited to welcome the second cohort of Romanian faculty to Rochester,\u201d says Duncan Moore \u201974 (PhD), vice provost for entrepreneurship, director of the center, and the Rudolf and Hilda Kingslake Professor in Optical Engineering Science.<\/p>\n

Moore notes that the faculty, who come with expertise in technical or business disciplines, are particularly interested in the University\u2019s NSF I-Corps programming. “I-Corps teams receive training on the customer discovery process and business model canvas iteration, ultimately determining the market potential of a technology,\u201d he says. “The faculty can apply this co-curricular approach when they return to their universities in Romania.\u201d<\/p>\n

Natalie Antal \u201911S (MS), the Ain Center\u2019s associate director, says the center was selected because it houses an established, University-wide, interdisciplinary entrepreneurship initiative, and the socioeconomic climate and size of the Rochester region are comparable to areas where the visiting Romanians teach. The visiting faculty also have expertise in STEM fields, and the University is recognized as a leader in its technical entrepreneurship offerings.<\/p>\n

The exchange program advances a key goal outlined in the Ain Center’s strategic plan for the years 2015 to 2020: improving the\u00a0international reputation of the University\u2019s entrepreneurial initiative.<\/p>\n