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 six leading university-based entrepreneurship centers in Munich (TUM, LMU, MUAS), Shanghai (Tongji University), Mexico City (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 (University of Excellence) –
  LMU Entrepreneurship Center
•    – Technical University of Munich (University of Excellence) – UnternehmerTUM
•    – Munich University of Applied Sciences – Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship
•    – Universität der Bundeswehr München – CeTIM

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.

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.