Welcome to the Spring 2019 MOBI newsletter! Each quarter we will communicate important announcements and highlights from the MOBI program. We hope you will enjoy these updates and continue your relationship with MOBI on your path toward entrepreneurship! Feel free to opt out of this newsletter by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom.

Thank you, and Happy Spring from MOBI!

We began the year celebrating several partner graduations. The program Lanzando, meaning “launching” in Spanish, saw its first graduates in February. This inaugural program in San Jose, California provided the MOBI curriculum entirely in Spanish to parents from Washington Elementary School while their children were attending class. Lanzando is provided through a joint partnership of the SCU Ignatian Center's Thriving Neighbors Initiative (TNI) and MOBI. Lanzando was taught by community leader, MOBI advisor, and "Tips from the Trenches" blog contributor Yacanex Posadas.

“For the past five years, I have had the privilege of working with community leaders in the Greater Washington Community and have witnessed their entrepreneurial spirit, dedication, hard work, and their search for opportunities,” said Irene Cermeño, TNI Program Director. “For me, it is truly an honor to be able to collaborate with Drew Starbird, Trish Kalbas-Schmidt, and Yacanex Posadas in creating a space that will allow for community-centered social entrepreneurship, creativity, and community."

We are excited about the future of Lanzando and these wonderful parents! See our Lanzando graduating class and other MOBI partner graduates further below in this newsletter.

The Frugal Innovation Hub (FIH) is a program affiliated with the School of Engineering at Santa Clara University. The FIH mission is to engage SCU engineering students and faculty with partners and programs to solve engineering problems that help people and the planet. FIH facilitates the development of appropriate, affordable, adaptable, and applicable engineering projects and technologies for emerging markets. FIH works with organizations, entrepreneurs, government offices, not-for-profits, and companies around the world.

MOBI entrepreneurs developing humanitarian or sustainability focused business ideas can submit a project proposal to work with FIH to solve their engineering problems. For more information visit GETINVOLVED! To understand more about FIH’s capabilities and scope of work, a list of current and previous projects can also be found at PROJECTS. Not all projects are selected.

We are so proud of the accomplishments of our MOBI students around the world. Each quarter we will share the story of one MOBI entrepreneur.

Meet Service King Electric and founder George Guizar. George’s interest in construction began at a young age, and it was a job at utility provider PG&E that turned his focus to electrical. Now with experience earned over several years at PG&E, mentorship from his boss Martin, electrical instruction from the Center for Employment Training (CET) in San Jose, and entrepreneurial courses from MOBI, George is well on his way to achieving his business goals.

MOBI partners are an important part of our program! By forming partnerships with diverse communities of students around the world, MOBI can inspire entrepreneurship in ways that best meet the specific opportunities of each group, and always for free.

The Bulgarian Entrepreneurship Center (BEC) is our featured partner for Spring 2019. We interviewed Larry Biehl, founder of the InterCulture Foundation and BEC, regarding the partnership with MOBI. 

* Why you chose MOBI? MOBI was recommended by two people I trust - Kirk Hanson (recently retired Director of the SCU Markkula Center for Ethics) and SCU alumnus, Doug Pica (founder of Provident Funding). When I asked each of them who they might recommend to help my foundation (the Bulgaria Entrepreneurship Center, or BEC) create an entrepreneurship curriculum for interested potential entrepreneurs in Bulgaria, both people encouraged me to speak to Drew Starbird and Trish Kalbas-Schmidt of MOBI. I was delighted with their immediate expressed interest in helping BEC’s students halfway around the world, and their willingness to customize the MOBI course to fit Bulgarian law, rules, and culture.

* How is MOBI making a difference for your students? After weeks of hard work with BEC’s education director in Varna (Dilian Popov), we were able to conduct our first “pilot” program in July 2018. The inaugural course - complete with added weekly meetups between students and mentors from the business community - produced a dazzling 50% graduation rate! This winter we’ve launched the customized BEC/MOBI course at 6 Bulgarian universities (and have a version of MOBI translated into Bulgarian) and look forward to expanding the course throughout the country, and even to a few of the nearby Russian Republics. All of these classes are being presented free to the students, in accordance with MOBI’s wishes.

* (And anything else you would like to add?) I was also pleased that first Trish then Drew visited MOBI classes in Bulgaria on separate occasions and had the opportunity to witness first hand the success of the BEC/MOBI partnership. The students were thrilled to meet the course’s team, those who had created an opportunity that they felt was going to transform their lives for the better. I plan more such partnerships with MOBI for newly offered entrepreneurship educational programs in other countries in the future.

Do you know an organization or school that might be interested in partnering with MOBI? 

Here are some of our MOBI partner graduates from this quarter. Congratulations to these students and all of our MOBI graduates around the world!

MOBI highlights one theme every week on our social media platforms. We post blogs, videos, lists, and articles on a variety of topics relevant for aspiring entrepreneurs. Based upon reader activity, here are some top stories from the past quarter.

We wish you a Happy Spring and all the best in business success!

The MOBI Team