Keynote Speakers

Professor Luke Pittaway

Luke_PittawayLuke Pittaway is a Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Ohio University (Athens, Ohio) where he is leading the growth of the entrepreneurship programs and activities. In this role Prof. Pittaway provides academic and program leadership, as well as, managing the business and administrative responsibilities of the Center. The Center for Entrepreneurship offers an entrepreneurship major within the College of Business, a certificate of entrepreneurship for students across campus and manages a range of extra-curricular activities and events for the university. From June 2008 to March 2013 Prof. Pittaway was the William A. Freeman Distinguished Chair in Free Enterprise and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Learning and Leadership at Georgia Southern University (Statesboro, Georgia), where he grew the entrepreneurship program and founded an Entrepreneurial Zone in downtown Statesboro. He has also been a Part-time Chair in Entrepreneurship at Swansea University and worked in academic roles in entrepreneurship at the University of Sheffield, Lancaster University and the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom.

Prof. Pittaway’s research focuses on entrepreneurship education and learning, he has published systematic literature reviews and empirical papers including on educational practices, assessment practice, action learning and student clubs. He has been a Research and Education Fellow for the National Council of Graduate Entrepreneurship and an Advanced Institute of Management Research Scholar. He is on a number of editorial boards including: International Small Business Journal; International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research, the International Journal of Management Reviews; and, the Service Industries Journal. Prof. Pittaway’s other interests include entrepreneurial behaviour, networking, entrepreneurial failure, business growth and corporate venturing.

IEEC session summary
Engagement Practices in Entrepreneurship Education: Perspectives from the US
Professor Pittaway’s IEEC session will explore the engagement practices used by US Centers, Institutes and Schools of Entrepreneurship when they are involved in “outreach”.  It will introduce common practices, will explain how they are used to enhance engagement and will seek to highlight any learning opportunities that might exist for entrepreneurship programs elsewhere.  Practices, such as: advisory councils; development officers; alumni events and networks; consulting projects; mentoring and venture finance networks, amongst others, will be covered.  The aim of the session is to provide ideas and insights that may be applied after the conference.  

Professor Roy Sandbach

Roy Sandbach

Roy leads innovation strategy development for the North East Local Enterprise Partnership. This responds to recommendations from the 2013 Lord Adonis review of the North East economy which recommended that the region become an exemplar for open innovation and smart specialisation.

Until 2012, Roy held senior global R&D positions with the Procter & Gamble Company, most recently in emerging economies. He has patents on several new-to-the-world products. One of these is a 100MM$ business in the US.

For 2013/14, Roy was the 10th David Goldman visiting Professor of Innovation & Enterprise at Newcastle University. He has further visiting Professor positions with Northumbria University, Cranfield University and with Central St. Martin’s College of Art & Design, London.

Roy is non-executive director of Arnia, a start-up business with leading edge technology designed to protect our endangered bee population and is non-executive director with NCFE, the national vocational awarding body.

He is Fellow and Industry Council member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and is a business ambassador for NetPark, a physics-based science park in Durham.

Roy chairs the North East Prince’s Trust Leadership Group and is trustee to a number of charitable organisations, including the Centre for Life, a world-leading public science centre in Newcastle. Finally, he is a governor of Seaton Burn College, a pioneering secondary school and a patron of High Borrans outward bound centre.

IEEC session summary
Student entrepreneurship…..a contribution to regional economic growth ?
Regional growth strategies are critical to building economic momentum. Higher level skills development, commercial exploitation of world-class research and the support of small & medium-sized businesses are just some of the key pillars of these strategies. But what about student entrepreneurship? Is it relevant, and in what way? How might it contribute to regional economic growth ? Roy Sandbach’s IEEC session will discuss how “open innovation” concepts can guide entrepreneurship and enterprise educators to engage with regional growth strategies, help students to network broadly for support of their entrepreneurial projects……and provide the economic value, wealth creation and social benefit that we all want.

David Price OBE

David PriceDavid Price, OBE, is a learning futurist and a Senior Associate at the Innovation Unit, in London. His recent book, ‘OPEN: How We’ll Work, Live and Learn In The Future’ has been an Amazon best-seller since its publication.

For the past 10 years, David has led numerous international education projects, helping schools gear themselves up to meet the challenges of the 21st century. In 2009 he was awarded the O.B.E. by Her Majesty the Queen.

He writes, talks and advises on some of the biggest challenges facing business, education and society: solving the problems of employee, student and civic disengagement; maximising our potential to be creative, innovative and fulfilled citizens, and understanding the global shift towards open organisations, and systems of learning.

Sir Ken Robinson has written that ‘from every perspective OPEN will open your mind to some of the real implications of digital technologies for how we live and learn in the 21st century’.

IEEC session summary
Open Learning in a Socially Connected World
David Price’s IEEC session will explore how we can prepare students for the future world of work where ‘the job’, as we currently know it, ceases to exist? How does a 15 year-old, working alone in his bedroom, outsmart the major scientific research labs, and what can we learn from it? Based upon his Amazon best-seller ‘OPEN: How We’ll Work, Live and Learn In The Future’, David Price will provoke, entertain and challenge delegates to re-think their organisations for an increasingly Open future.