News/Events

One of WDI’s global projects, the U.S. Department of State’s Leading Entrepreneur Expert Partnership (LEEP), partners with U.S. embassies and in-country collaborators to have professionals share their expertise and facilitate relationships and dialogue in emerging markets to motivate the next generation of entrepreneurs to develop solutions to global challenges.

As part of the program, senior DCS consultant Andrea Meyer recently conducted two workshops on “Collaborative Innovation in Business and Entrepreneurship” in Manila, Philippines. Meyer spoke to a group of about 250 students and faculty at the Mapua Institute of Technology. Earlier in the day, Meyer spoke at the Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business at De La Salle University.

“The enthusiasm and energy were electric,” Meyer said. “And I’m already following up with faculty on an innovation and technology commercialization course.”

The U.S. Embassy in Manila arranged the two workshops, which were hosted by Dr. Ma. Luisa C. Delayco, Dean of Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business and Prof. Marthinson M. Villanueva, Dean of the E. T. Yuchengco School of Business and Management at MIT, respectively. Villanueva said that Meyer’s presentation “brought us to rethink the way we conduct our feasibility subjects as well as our business opportunities, with regard to coming up with innovations and start-up products.”

Meyer, co-author of numerous books including the Global Innovation Science Handbook and Present Yourself, was in Manila to also co-teach the STRIDE case writing workshop with WDI Faculty Affiliate John Branch, a marketing professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

WDI’s STRIDE project aims to foster economic growth and development in the Philippines through support of education, research, and industry partnerships in high-growth economic fields, including science and technology. The five-year project is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in partnership with RTI International.

The three-day case writing workshop increases understanding and use of the case teaching method in the Philippines, where few cases about domestic companies and institutions have been written. Using case studies as teaching materials provides students with opportunities to apply what they are learning in the classroom to the real-life challenges and decisions faced by business owners and leaders of organizations.

Through collaboration with GlobaLens, WDI’s publishing division, each completed case will be professionally edited, published, and made available for free to university faculty members worldwide.

The 19 completed case studies from the first workshop, held last year, are available here: