{"id":726,"date":"2017-02-15T16:35:03","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T16:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entrepreneurship.asu.edu\/blog\/?p=726"},"modified":"2017-03-30T02:16:15","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T02:16:15","slug":"inclusion-matters-in-entrepreneurship-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entrepreneurship.asu.edu\/blog\/2017\/02\/15\/inclusion-matters-in-entrepreneurship-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Inclusion Matters in Entrepreneurship + Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"Guest Contribution By: Susan Halverson, Manager of Community Entrepreneurship\r\n\r\nIn a recent article<\/a>, LinkedIn published results of their member survey, finding that diversity on an entrepreneurial team is of little significance to most investors and entrepreneurs.\r\n\r\nWe aspire to more in Entrepreneurship + Innovation at ASU, where diversity is an important consideration. Success is in creating a vibrant and thriving entrepreneurial culture inclusively rather than leaving people out. \u00a0Therefore we, as part of a higher education institution, support entrepreneurs from every academic discipline, as well as from every race, ethnicity, residency, income level, and family history\/structure, in the ASU community. We seek student, faculty, and community entrepreneurs to represent the diversity of our overall community, and it is essential to our mission as a university that we are inclusive. In fact, our charter<\/a> reads \u201cASU is a comprehensive public research university, measured not by whom we exclude, but rather by whom we include and how they succeed; advancing research and discovery of public value; and assuming fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves.\u201d\r\n\r\nWomen’s and minorities\u2019 lower rates of entrepreneurial engagement are detrimental in large part because of the value they offer to the economy. In fact, global GDP could increase $1.5 trillion (2 percent) if women owned businesses at the same rate as men<\/a>. And if people of color owned businesses at the same rate as their white counterparts, we would have 1.1 million new businesses and 9 million jobs<\/a>.\r\n\r\nSo for a healthy economy, we need to proactively seek to include a more diverse representation of entrepreneurs, rather than passively wait and obey the status quo. We are actively working for inclusion in entrepreneurship by training, teaching, collaborating, hosting, and supporting<\/em>.\r\n