The University of South Florida's efforts to give students the skills they need to start their own businesses continue to gain attention, with both the College of Business and a nonprofit started by a graduate in his dorm room receiving separate national honors this week.
First, the Princeton Review ranked USF's graduate program 13th among the nation's best entrepreneurship education programs.
That's up from 17th last year, and sixth among public universities. It's the eighth consecutive year USF has been ranked. In addition, USF is the only Florida university ranked, and the only school in the South in the top 20.
"Entrepreneurship is not only about starting a business," Michael Fountain, founding director of the USF Center for Entrepreneurship said. "For students who want to work in the corporate world, our program helps foster the kind of thinking that intrapreneurs — people who think like entrepreneurs but work for traditional businesses — need to thrive."
The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine surveyed more than 2,000 colleges and universities, evaluating them "on key criteria in the areas of academics and requirements, students and faculty, and outside-the-classroom experiences."
Also this week, USF graduate Ryan Kania's nonprofit group, Advocates for World Health, was named to Entrepreneur's "Top 30 Startups to Watch" list.
Kania started the organization in 2008 while on a volunteer trip to Guatemala, where he watched a man die from a gunshot wound because the doctors who tried to save him didn't have proper medical equipment.
Advocates for World Health, which the 2010 USF graduate started in his dorm room, takes surplus medical supplies and distributes them to relief organizations in developing countries.
The group now has locations in Tampa, Miami and Tallahassee, and projects shipments of more than one million pounds of medical supplies by 2015.
