GMAC Funds Entrepreneurship Education Initiatives Leveraging Technology and Community Projects in Africa and Canada, supported by grants from the owner of the GMAT exam, bring energy and innovation to graduate management education RESTON, Virginia, November 13, 2013 — Two programs funded by GMAC’s Management Education for Tomorrow (MET) Fund are infusing entrepreneurial passion into graduate management education programs in schools across the globe from each other. A grant from GMAC’s MET Fund is supporting a large effort to bring entrepreneurship opportunities to Africa. ALTIS Postgraduate School of Business and Society at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy, and Tangaza College in Nairobi, Kenya have partnered to train entrepreneurs with an executive MBA in Social Entrepreneurship. This 15-month program features traditional classroom instruction, to go with online content delivery. Each student is teamed with a mentor from the business community for the duration of the program, and develops a strategy to connect with local business leaders and investors. The program began in June. ALTIS also reached an agreement with the Catholic Institute of Business and Technology in Accra, Ghana, to create a similar program, which launched in October. And ALTIS has won funding from the European Union to start a third program in Sierra Leone in 2014. In Kenya, student projects include running an orphanage and working to make it self-sufficient and not dependent on outside funding. Another project uses the waste product from sugar cane farming to create cooking fuel, aiming to replace the commonly used and more dangerous kerosene. Another innovative recent MET Fund entrepreneurship education initiative is hosted at the Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. The Virtual Incubation Program (VIP) is an online augmentation of the university’s 10-year-old Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) program and aims to develop a global, online network of students, community groups, local entrepreneurs and international university partners, designed to support the development and launch of new businesses. This “virtual incubator” program is developing a virtual platform for entrepreneurs to pitch to investors, receive feedback, access learning modules and meet mentors. The university is also testing virtual mentorship and guest lectures. The first three-phase online video pitch competition concluded in June, with two firms graduating to venture incubation. One was a University of Waterloo doctoral candidate who led a team whose company offers a virtual environment where foreign language learners can improve their skills through text-based conversations. “These entrepreneurship programs show not only how business schools can help entrepreneurs, but also how entrepreneurs can be such a valuable contributor to management education,” said Allen Brandt, director of GMAC's Management Education for Tomorrow (MET) Fund. “Entrepreneurship has become a global force, a way to solve problems and make major change, and these universities are modeling ways to reach out to communities locally as well as around the world.” About GMAC and the GMAC MET Fund The Graduate Management Admission Council (gmac.com) is a nonprofit education organization of leading graduate business schools and owner of the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT exam), used by nearly 6,000 graduate business and management programs worldwide. GMAC is based in Reston, Virginia, and has regional offices in London, New Delhi and Hong Kong. The GMAT exam (mba.com) -- the only standardized test designed expressly for graduate business and management programs worldwide -- is continuously available at more than 590 test centers in 112 countries. The GMAC Management Education for Tomorrow Fund invests in strategic philanthropic initiatives that benefit business and management education globally. For more information, please visit gmac.com/newscenter. About ALTIS ALTIS, the Postgraduate School Business & Society of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, is an international research and education centre for the study and promotion of a responsible and competitive business culture. Founded in 2005 by Prof. Mario Molteni, professor of business administration and corporate strategy at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, ALTIS embodies both an openness toward the international world of business and the willingness to effectively serve the interests of the students and enterprises with which it interacts. For more information, please visit altis.unicatt.it. About the Conrad Centre The Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre was created to support, build on, and expand the entrepreneurial initiatives at the University of Waterloo. The university’s reputation for encouraging and spinning off successful entrepreneurial ventures is unmatched in Canada. Conrad’s Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) program is a 10-month graduate program designed for entrepreneurially-oriented people who need the business skills to move ideas from concept to successful commercialization. For more information, please visit uwaterloo.ca/Conrad.