Prof. William Bygrave has received the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) Distinguished Entrepreneurship Educator Award.
“Bill Bygrave is the most deserving person I can think of for this award. He is one of the earlier innovators in entrepreneurship education and continues to teach us all about entrepreneurship process, content, and delivery. I am very happy to be associated with him at Babson,” said Babson Provost Patti Greene.
Dr. Bygrave joined The Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Babson College in 1985 and directed it from 1993 to 1999. He was also the director of the annual Babson College-Kauffman Foundation Entrepreneurship Research Conference in 1994-1995 and 2001-2003. He teaches and researches entrepreneurship, specifically financing of startup and growing ventures. Dr. Bygrave spent the 1992-1993 academic year at INSEAD where he introduced an MBA course in Entrepreneurial Finance and led a pan-European team from eight nations that studied entrepreneurs' attitudes toward realizing value and harvesting their companies. One of the outcomes of that research was the initiative that led to the founding of EASDAQ (the European equivalent of NASDAQ). In 1997, he and Michael Hay at the London Business School started the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), which examines the entrepreneurial competitiveness of nations.
Dr. Bygrave has founded a venture-capital-backed high-tech company, managed a division of a NYSE-listed high-tech company, co-founded a pharmaceutical database company, and was a member of the investment committee of a venture capital firm. He was the 1997 winner of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in the supporter category for New England, and one of the three finalists in this category nationwide.
He has written more than 50 papers on topics that include venture capital, entrepreneurship, nuclear physics, hospital pharmaceuticals, and philosophy of science. He is also co-editor of Entrepreneurship (2007); The Venture Capital Handbook (1999); The Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship (third edition, 2003); The Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship Case Studies (second edition, 1997); co-editor of Realizing Enterprise Value (1993); co-editor of Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research; and was an editor of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. He has served on the review boards of three entrepreneurship journals. Translations of his books have been published in Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Bahasa Indonesia. He is presently writing a how-to book on high-tech entrepreneurship.
The mission of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship is to advance knowledge and foster business development through entrepreneurship education and research. USASBE is interdisciplinary, cross-functional and globally connected (as an affiliate of the International Council for Small Business). USASBE is the premier network for entrepreneurship educators at all student levels, for professional practitioners, for entrepreneurship researchers, and for government policy makers. USASBE offers cutting-edge programs for entrepreneurship education and encourages research that has practical application." For more information, visit www.usasbe.org.
