“Entrepreneur’s Paradise” “Living in Beijing, commuting to work, understanding both the opportunities and challenges in this exciting environment, that’s what From left, Dean Holden Thorp and alumnus Phil Phillips ’62 meet we’re after,” with entrepreneurship studies intern Stephen Rodgers in Beijing. said Buck Goldstein, University Entrepreneur-in-Residence develop “team building exercises” to prevent and a senior lecturer in the department of personnel turnover in the Dell group. economics. “If you really want to understand He also assisted with English language entrepreneurship, working with a company in training and helped market a new book by Beijing is about the best thing you can do.” IT United’s CEO Cyrill Eltschinger. Rodgers and fellow Tar Heels began the Weekends included excursions to other eight-week Beijing experience with a weekChinese cities and to the Great Wall, the long, intensive Chinese language immersion Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and the course conducted by the CET Chinese Studies Ming Tombs. Program Center at Capital Normal University Though the conditions were challenging, (CNU). Rodgers said Beijing was an exhilarating They also attended seminars on Chinese climate for a future entrepreneur. business and culture, and they stayed with “Being in China, I feel like I have been Chinese roommates at modern CNU dorms. able to mature as a person, a student and At IT United, Rodgers was assigned to even an entrepreneur,” said the economics and music major. • — CEI was founded with a major grant from the Marion Kauffman Foundation.
Consider the following: • The economies of China, India and other Asian countries are growing by 7-9 percent a year, while the U.S. economy increases only 2-4 percent. • The combined GNP (gross national product) of China and India already equals that of the U.S. • China is expected to surpass the United States as the largest economic force in the world, within 25 years. • One province in China now has more factories than the entire United States. • The number of Asia’s people who have been lifted above the poverty line exceeds the entire population of Africa. • China recently surpassed the U.S. as the largest producer of carbon emissions — the leading cause of climate change in the industrial world. Asia covers some 17 million square miles and is home to 3.3 8 • Fall 2007 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
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tephen Rodgers, a UNC senior and budding entrepreneur from Durham, started coughing as soon as he walked out of the Beijing airport. It was his first study abroad experience. The air pollution was a shock. So was his 75-90 minute commute each way to and from his internship at IT United, a China-based outsourcing company providing Internettechnology services for Dell and other clients. Despite the 12-hour days, the packed buses and subways, the unfamiliar language, the government restrictions and the ubiquitous smog, Rodgers deems Beijing “an entrepreneur’s paradise.” He was one of 20 Carolina undergraduates with a minor in entrepreneurship studies in the College of Arts and Sciences who had internships this past summer in the Chinese capital — at the heart of the world’s fastest growing economy. The internships are required by the entrepreneurship curriculum in the department of economics, part of the Carolina Entrepreneurial Initiative (CEI). The interdisciplinary program is designed to help liberal arts and sciences undergraduates apply sound entrepreneurial principles to any creative venture, whether it’s in the private, public or non-profit arena.
UNC undergraduate Angelo Coclanis and new friends in Bangkok.
billion people, about 60 percent of the world’s population. As more of its people gain education and economic prosperity, they will become the largest bloc of consumers and producers — potential partners and competitors — for the Western world. “The U.S. is going to have to look to China, India and all of Asia as critical partners in its economic future,” Hewison said. “This means more people need to equip themselves with increased knowledge, experience and language to deal certainly with the growing importance of the region, and the challenges and opportunities it presents.” Daniel Gold, assistant director of Study Abroad for Asia, agrees. “In an increasingly global society, knowledge and understanding of Asia is key no matter what field you want to go into.”