Who we are - Global Entrepreneurship Summer School (GESS)

About Us

The Global Entrepreneurship Summer School (GESS) is a unique education program for young change agents. It is organized by the Social Entrepreneurship Akademie (SEA) in cooperation with seven leading university-based entrepreneurship centers in Munich (TUM, LMU, MUAS, UniBw), Shanghai (Tongji University), Querétaro, Mexico (Tecnológico de Monterrey) and Cape Town (LifeCo UnLtd South Africa).

GESS was initially launched in 2008 as a joint program of Munich’s entrepreneurship centers at the following universities:

– Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München – LMU Entrepreneurship Center
– Technical University of Munich – UnternehmerTUM
– Munich University of Applied Sciences – Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship
– Universität der Bundeswehr München – founders@UniBW

Entrepreneurship is in the DNA of GESS: our founders discovered a need that could be solved through their expertise. The idea was tested and resulted afterwards in an organization that would sustain it: the SEA, which is responsible for the execution of GESS and its scaling strategy.

In 2016, the program was brought to the next level thanks to a partnership with Tecnológico de Monterrey (Mexico), Tongji University (China) and the support of SAP Foundation. As we truly believe in the collaborative power of entrepreneurial thinking for a better and sustainable future we recently welcomed our new partner, LifeCo UnLtd South Africa, making GESS an even more global program.

Together we are combining education, entrepreneurship and a global network to foster sustainable development.

"Billion euro projects to take climate action!"

Our Values

Responsibility: we challenge our participants to open their minds to a range of different perspectives, adopt a critical attitude and create sustainable ideas.

Societal relevance: our GESS topics are based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals and broken down to the regional challenges to encourage a positive change in society.

Entrepreneurial spirit: we expect our participants to be passionate, demonstrate resilience, proactivity and think out of the box.

Interdisciplinarity: we form teams of students from different fields of study and university degree.

Diversity: we believe in the power of difference and provide access to students from all over the world.

Quality: our course is accompanied by experienced entrepreneurs and educators to provide a high standard to our participants.