MOBI Recognized by ICSB for Entrepreneur Educator Excellence
On Friday, July 5, Santa Clara University’s (SCU) My Own Business Institute (MOBI) in the Leavey School of Business (Leavey) was honored at the 2024 International Council for Small Business (ICSB) World Congress in Berlin, Germany as a finalist for the Entrepreneur Educator Excellence Award. MOBI Executive Director and Leavey Professor of Information Systems and Analytics, Drew Starbird, Ph.D. presented MOBI’s submission remotely during the hybrid conference.
“It is an incredible honor to receive this recognition from the ICSB,” said Drew Starbird, Ph.D., MOBI Executive Director and Leavey Professor of Information Systems and Analytics at Santa Clara University. “MOBI was started with the vision that free entrepreneurial education has the power to transform lives and communities. We feel MOBI provides a unique opportunity to bring accessible, understandable, and actionable curriculum to aspiring business owners and entrepreneurship students around the world, and this recognition is a testament to our success.”
ICSB seeks to ensure that Global Award recipients epitomize excellence in entrepreneurship teachings, incorporating innovative and impactful practices that align with the evolving landscape of entrepreneurial education. Specifically, the criteria for the Entrepreneurial Educator Excellence Award evaluated candidates in four categories. (Photos of ICSB World Congress sourced from ICSB’s Facebook page.)
These categories include:
- Teach novelty and creativity. How is this educational program actively teaching new innovative and humanely focused ways of operating?
- Measurable impact that the educator has on students. How has this program altered the students’ experience? What data is shown to indicate this impact?
- Impact on students. How is this program reimagining the educational experience of the next generation of entrepreneurs, leaders, and innovators?
- Program’s replicability in other parts of the world. How might this program’s philosophy or operation be transmitted and/or promoted elsewhere throughout the global entrepreneurship community?
Since its inception in 1992, founded by successful entrepreneur Phil Holland and his wife Peggy, a school teacher and administrator, MOBI has a long history of novelty in educational programming. As one of the first massive open online courses (MOOC), later launching SCU’s first all-Spanish website: www.scu.edu/mobiespanol, introducing MOBI On Demand audio and video learning options earlier this year, MOBI continues to cross into new frontiers in its efforts to bring free accessible education to everyone everywhere.
Through Google Analytics, student feedback surveys, and course data, MOBI is able to measure and track engagement, curriculum preferences, and impact on educational experiences, entrepreneurship intention, and outcomes.
As a free online asynchronous entrepreneurship educational program, MOBI has a unique ability for worldwide adoption. In addition, MOBI partners with educational institutions, community colleges, high schools, vocational training centers, nonprofits, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), economic development organizations, youth development organizations, and many other groups and communities around the globe to provide customized learning experiences that address the unique opportunities and challenges of their participants.
To date, MOBI has over 100 partners who offer its programming and curriculum in various ways to their specific constituents. MOBI currently provides its full curriculum and content in English and Spanish and has collaborated with specific partners to develop courses in other languages. MOBI students and alumni represent all 249 countries and territories as recognized by the International Standardization Organization (ISO).
MOBI commends the other finalists, Professor Craig Armstrong of the University of Alabama and Professor Sylvia Robles of the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, for their inspiring efforts to empower global entrepreneurship. MOBI extends a very special congratulations to the award winner, Professor Marc Gruber at the College of Management and Technology at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.
The International Council for Small Business (ICSB) is devoted to the interests and advancement of small businesses globally. ICSB, founded in 1955, is the oldest and largest nonprofit organization devoted to small business internationally. ICSB, represented in over 85 countries, uses its platform to distribute new knowledge and information on small business management and entrepreneurial development.
About the My Own Business Institute
The My Own Business Institute (MOBI) at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business is the world’s leading provider of free online entrepreneurship education. MOBI students and alumni represent all 249 countries and territories recognized by the International Standardization Organization (ISO). MOBI partners with over 100 organizations and institutions around the world to bring free online entrepreneurship education to those who need and want it most. The MOBI curriculum and website are based on the work of Phil Holland, a successful entrepreneur and author of The Entrepreneur’s Guide. MOBI was generously gifted to Santa Clara University in 2014 by Phil and his wife Peggy, an accomplished school teacher and administrator, along with an endowment, valued at $22 million at the time of transfer, to ensure that the organization and its accompanying websites would flourish into the future and continue to support the vital social and economic contributions of small businesses worldwide.