Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) is an international initiative that introduces entrepreneurship to young people in six continents. GEW emerged in 2008 as a result of Enterprise Week UK and Entrepreneurship Week USA 2007. Since its creation, more than 10 million people from roughly 170 countries have participated in entrepreneurship-related events, activities and competitions during GEW. This annual event occurs over the span of one week and includes the participation of millions of entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, researchers, educators, entrepreneurship support organizations and interested individuals. Currently, 165 countries celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week running national campaigns that generate approximately 35,000 events, activities and competitions.

Supporters

Founders

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a non-profit foundation based in Kansas City, Missouri, established in the mid-1960s by the late entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman. The Kauffman Foundation’s mission is to create “a society of economically independent individuals who are engaged citizens, contributing to the improvement of their communities. ” Their two main areas of focus are: advancing entrepreneurship and improving the education of children and youth. Enterprise Week UK is Enterprise UK's campaign to connect youth, women, homeworkers, people from ethnic minorities to entrepreneurial opportunities. It was founded in 2004 by the British Chambers of Commerce, the Confederation of British Industry, the Institute of Directors and the Federation of Small Businesses.

Hosts

Each country that participates in Global Entrepreneurship Week designates a host organization to lead the campaign (in rare instances, two or more organizations share this responsibility). Host organizations are responsible for galvanizing the momentum of their national GEW campaign—building a network of partner organizations to run events and activities during GEW and supporters to help promote the national campaign. Below is a list of participating countries, along with some of their past respective host organization(s).

Global partners

A global partner is any organization that agrees to host one or more activities during Global Entrepreneurship Week. These organizations include:

Activities

Official events

Logo

The GEW logo is multi-colored compass with rounded typeface of ‘Global Entrepreneurship Week’ coming from the top right section. The color spectrum, which includes 26 colors, represents GEW’s international span. The compass shape adheres to the notion of navigation and the direction of entrepreneurship in the future. Many of GEW’s partners fuse their own logo with the compass in order to demonstrate a joint collaboration towards a global initiative.