Smeal Professor Judges, Writes Case For European Competition

UNIVERSTITY PARK, PA (May 29, 2007) – A Smeal College of Business professor serving as a Fulbright Scholar in Europe recently created a business case and judged a unique cross-border innovation competition between Western and Central European students.

Anthony Warren, Farrell Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship at Smeal, is currently spending a semester in Vienna, Austria, as the Kathryn and Craig Hall/Fulbright Chair in Entrepreneurship. Warren is lecturing and conducting research at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration in Austria and at the University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovak Republic.

One of the goals of his position is to bring more entrepreneurial thinking to Central Europe and to help break down the cultural barriers between western Europeans and their new neighbors from former Soviet countries.

As part of this mission, Warren wrote the case and served as a judge for the CENTROPE Case Race, which featured students from both the technical and business universities in Bratislava and Vienna competing for fully paid trips to a European city of their choice. Sponsored by Cap Gemini and EC Vienna, an organization pulling together local entrepreneurship support initiatives, the contest challenged the ability of undergraduate students to build cohesive teams, work under stress, and develop disruptive business models and present them to local business and academic experts.

Warren created a case around emerging technologies that might impact the home washing sector, one that is perhaps ready for a major shift. The five finalist teams each consisted of four students from different universities in Austria and the Slovak Republic. They met for the first time on the day of the contest and were given just four hours to build their team dynamics, analyze the nearly 100 pages of case materials, and create a crisp presentation arguing for their own innovative, power-shifting business models.

"All the teams communicated well and held up to intense questioning—particularly impressive as they were required to use English rather than their native tongues," said Warren.

He and five other judges selected as the winner a team that proposed a detergent free washing cycle that was both environmentally friendly and disruptive to the existing detergent supply chain.

Warren's Fulbright professorship also recently took him to Greece, where he addressed students at a conference on "Innovative Views on Youth Entrepreneurship." His presentation dispelled myths about entrepreneurs, explained their thought processes, and showed students how to follow entrepreneurship as a career path.

At Smeal, Warren is director of the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Garber Venture Capital Fund. He is also a venture partner with Adams Capital Management, a nationwide venture capital firm with more than $700 million under management, and author of many scientific papers, patents and articles on innovation and risk finance.

Warren is one of approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals currently serving abroad in some 150 countries for the 2006-2007 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program. Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the program's purpose is to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries.