Japan Seeks Entrepreneurial Infusion; Turns to U.S. Educators, Including USC's Marshall School of Business

Business Wire, August 7, 2002

Business Editors/Education Writers

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 7, 2002

Tsuyoshi Saotome, an aerospace engineer with Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Japan, plans to build a ground-based theme park that simulates Mars exploration for space-minded vacationers. Armed with a business plan, Tsuyoshi enrolled in a new custom program at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles this July.

He is among 13 Japanese nationals participating in the Japanese Entrepreneurial Development Program. Underwritten by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), the program is part of the government's five-year plan to infuse its struggling economy with a more entrepreneurial spirit.

"In the U.S. there is much more of a framework for starting businesses than in Japan," said Kazuhiro Oya, a landscape architect who hopes to take advantage of the fact that there are few Japanese specialists in the field by launching his own landscaping company.

METI is also underwriting entrepreneurial courses for Japanese nationals at Babson College and Northeastern University, however, the program at USC is the only custom-created program in its initiative. Participants take four weeks of classroom instruction and complete three months of internships with Southern California tech companies.

Rebecca Weintraub, Director of the Center for Corporate and Community Education at the Annenberg School for Communication, pulled together the executive program, which began July 15th. With the support of Richard Drobnick, USC Vice Provost for International Affairs, Weintraub involved four schools on campus to deliver the program.

Professors from the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Marshall School of Business, the Annenberg School for Communication, the School of Engineering and Rossier School of Education contribute to daily English intensives and courses in entrepreneurial venturing, feasibility analysis, marketing, new technology venturing and commercialization, tech transfer, and corporate and life coaching. The internship component provides invaluable real-world exposure to the day-to-day operations of developed start-ups and interaction with practicing entrepreneurs.

Each of the participants had to submit a business plan for a start-up venture to qualify for the program. With a certificate of completion, they are expected to return to Japan to be working entrepreneurs.

Participants cite the opportunity to be taught by USC's renowned MBA entrepreneur professors and the chance to intern with innovative companies in the U.S. as the program's unique appeal. For many participants the program is an opportunity to fulfill long held dreams of starting their own businesses.

For USC, it is unusual for four schools to collaborate across such a spectrum of disciplines and a testament to President Steven Sample's leadership in encouraging cooperation throughout the university community. The program delivers what the university does best: the tools for tomorrow's leaders to shape their own destiny.

ABOUT THE USC MARSHALL SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

USC's Marshall School of Business provides the foundation for a process of lifetime learning and business practice. Both U.S. News & World Report and Business Week rank Marshall's programs among the top 25. For more than 80 years, Marshall has provided world-class research and scholarship, preparing students for the future of business. Marshall with its many research centers and Leventhal School of Accounting focuses on a core set of skills and on strengthening its position as a global center of business education and research at the graduate, undergraduate and executive levels.