Maximizing Latent Potential Through Organic Gardening
Dec. 4, 2009
By Rebecca Townsend
Even as job cuts plague traditional industry, small, innovative companies are adding jobs in Columbia, said Steve Wyatt, statewide business development program director for the College of Engineering and University Extension.
"Information was one of the key areas for job growth in Columbia."
Encouraging the entrepreneurial urge among enterprising students can bear fruit by tapping the natural, yet unprocessed talent churning in dorm rooms across campus, Wyatt said. Offering a minor in entrepreneurship that straddles multiple disciplines is one way the university can cultivate economic growth, he said.
"We have a unique opportunity to prepare students to think not only about getting a job, but creating a job."
Highlighting a Kauffman Foundation study that found 68% of current college students expect to become entrepreneurs at some point in their lives, Brant Bukowsky, owner of the Mortgage Research Center, supported the effort to bolster the local community by cultivating business sense and opportunity among the younger generation.
"New media is shaped by innovations and driven by entrepreneurs…. Anything we can do to foster entrepreneurship will have a huge benefit."
For more information on REDI, click here or contact Michele Holmes at 573-442-8303.