Lucent Technologies' Grant Benefits Entrepreneurial Research In Smeal College
The Farrell Center for Entrepreneurship in Penn State's Smeal College of Business recently received a $50,000 grant from Lucent Technologies in support of research aimed at gaining a better understanding of corporate entrepreneurship.
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA-The Farrell Center for Entrepreneurship in Penn State's Smeal College of Business recently received a $50,000 grant from Lucent Technologies in support of research aimed at gaining a better understanding of corporate entrepreneurship.
Anthony Warren, director of the Farrell Center for Entrepreneurship and the Farrell Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship, will lead the research, which focuses on applying venture capital discipline to corporate innovation. MBA and undergraduate students from Smeal College will join Dr. Warren in this initiative.
"Our students will gain an understanding of how high risk projects within a corporate structure can learn from the governance procedures of institutional venture capital partnerships. Specifically, we'll be making a comparison of decision making processes at the key stages such as initial due diligence, milestone definition, funding, risk/reward issues, board structure, stopping or revising programs, and additional funding rounds," explains Warren. "Thanks to this grant, our students will gain valuable exposure to the challenges of corporate risk management decisions and add to the body of knowledge of best practices in the field of corporate entrepreneurship."
"Lucent's mission is to provide our customers with the world's best and most innovative communication systems, products, technologies, and customer support. We are about fostering innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit across our corporation. We see this collaborative research with Penn State as a great opportunity to expose students to this business discipline. Lucent remains committed to supporting education, and this grant is part of its investment in our future business leaders," said Terence Seese, Vice President, Optical Networks, Market Interface & Integration Unit.
Lucent Technologies headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs and delivers networks for the world's largest communications service providers. Backed by Bell Labs research and development, Lucent relies on its strengths in mobility, optical, data and voice networking technologies as well as software and services to develop next-generation networks. The company's systems, services and software are designed to help customers quickly deploy and better manage their networks and create new, revenue-generating services that help businesses and consumers.
Research underway in The Farrell Center for Entrepreneurship is targeted at innovation across corporate boundaries. This emphasis on the practice of entrepreneurism to larger corporations and across corporate boundaries differentiates the Farrell Center from the majority of other such centers and prepares our students for careers as change managers in larger organizations where such skill sets are in great demand. Pittsburgh businessman Michael J. Farrell, president and CEO of Farrell & Co., and his wife, Christine, have committed a total of $4 million to endow the Farrell Center and Chair of Entrepreneurship. Michael earned a bachelor's degree in accounting and management information systems from Penn State in 1971. The endowment created by the Farrells' gift will support graduate and faculty research, in addition to the operations of the Center.
