VSU opens entrepreneur center | News

VALDOSTA — “VSU is dedicated to creating South Georgia higher and the J. Donald Lee Middle for Entrepreneurship will assist us try this,” stated Dr. Richard A. Carvajal, president of VSU. “This middle will function a catalyst for VSU college students looking for the data and assets essential to show modern concepts into sustainable companies. This middle will permit VSU college students to share their concepts with confirmed enterprise leaders who will, in flip, present steering, path, entry to enterprise software program, and the encouragement to pursue their desires.”

Underneath the path of Dr. Trent Coggins, enterprise legislation lecturer, entrepreneur and proprietor of Recoil Trampoline Park, the J. Donald Lee Middle for Entrepreneurship will function a inventive and collaborative hub for college kids, college and workers throughout all educational disciplines — the humanities, schooling and human companies, nursing and well being sciences, humanities and social sciences, math and science, and enterprise, college officers stated in an announcement.

“It would carry rising pupil entrepreneurs, college, workers and skilled entrepreneurs collectively to ignite a spirit of innovation and foster connections that stretch throughout the college, the area, and even the world,” college officers stated.

“Entrepreneurs exist throughout VSU’s campus,” Coggins stated. “Due to this, a purpose of the middle is to supply assist to all VSU college students seeking to develop their understanding of a profitable enterprise mannequin, the way to create a marketing strategy and what to do subsequent as soon as the inspiration has been created.”

VSU’s J. Donald Lee Middle for Entrepreneurship gives a variety of assets, expertise, gear and mentorship wanted to unlock the potential of the following startup technology.

College students have entry to the Downing Barber Ideation Room, the place ideas and concepts come to life; a inexperienced room; a social media and podcast room; a session room, the place college students can kind deep connections with on- and off-campus enterprise specialists and leaders; and an innovation room outfitted with a three-dimensional printer for prototype manufacturing.

College students may even have entry to SemRush, a preferred SEO software that focuses on key phrase analysis, competitor evaluation and Google Advert marketing campaign optimization.

A VSU alumnus, Don Lee “believed in having respect for different folks,” college officers stated. “He constructed Lee Container on the precept that everybody related together with his firm — clients, staff, suppliers and distributors — ought to deal with one another as they’d need to be handled. He believed within the significance of honesty and pleasure in a job achieved nicely. Amongst his Lee Container household, he promoted what he known as a ‘can-do’ angle.”

Greater than 25 years later, the success of his family-owned enterprise, now a nationwide chief within the packaging business, reveals that the following technology has remained true to those founding ideas, officers added.

Carvajal stated he hopes the J. Donald Lee Middle for Entrepreneurship will “eternally stand as a testomony to the ideas Mr. Lee believed in and be the launching level for numerous companies of tomorrow right here in South Georgia.”

The J. Donald Lee Middle for Entrepreneurship is positioned in Pound Corridor on VSU’s Rea and Lillian Steele North Campus close to the intersection of Patterson Avenue and Pendleton Drive. Lee earned a bachelor of science in enterprise administration from Valdosta State in 1957.