The US-based philanthropic organization, the Guyana Economic Development Trust is partnering with the School of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation (SEBI) of the University of Guyana (UG) to provide funding for an annual Guyana Innovation Prize to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.

The organisation’s founder Oslene Carrington told Stabroek News yesterday “Several tens of thousands of US dollars are on the table for them to grow their businesses”.

An Entrepreneurship and Innovation Conference was opened yesterday, providing members in the local business arena an opportunity to network with their international counterparts.

Dean of the UG School of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation (SEBI), Professor Leyland Lucas said, according to the Department of Public Information, that the conference stemmed from conversations among stakeholders, on the  tools needed to boost and transform free enterprise in Guyana.

The School of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation (SEBI), University of Guyana, is set to host its first Entrepreneurship and Innovation Conference titled Economic Transformation through Entrepreneurship & Innovation.”

A significant step in the direction of forging the long sought closer ties between the University of Guyana and the country’s business community will be taken this weekend when the university’s recently established School of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation (SEBI) commences its first ever Entrepreneurship   and Innovation Conference under the theme “Economic Transformation through Entrepreneurship   & Innovation.”

- Dean of UG Business School

Even as the local co-operative movement seeks to recover from its decades of doldrums, not least its countless failed and abortive excursions into start-stop business ventures that have left groups across the country in a condition of acute disappointment, a University of Guyana business Professor insists that there is a way back for the sector.

By Dr Leyland M. Lucas

After we had spoken with Visiting Professor at the University of Guyana’s School of Enterprise, Business and Innovation (SEBI), Professor Leyland Lucas, and his support staff early last week, we headed across to the new facility created to house the School.

Visiting Professor at the School of Enterprise and Business Innovation (SEBI) at the University of Guyana Dr. Leyland Lucas is advocating more robust support from the commercial banking sector for startup business ventures “in their greatest time of need” as one of the building blocks for the creation of an “entrepreneurial ecosystem” in Guyana.

Five months after the University of Guyana’s School of Entrepreneurship and Business, (SEBI) was launched, Dean of the new institution, Guyanese-born Professor Leyland Lucas has told the Stabroek Business that some of the challenges that repose in ensuring that the institution delivers on its mandate repose in the fact that “it is different. It is not an orthodox Business School”.

Dr Leyland Lucas,  Visiting Professor at the School of Entrepreneur-ship and Business Innovation (SEBI) at the University of Guyana has said that the pursuit of an effective local content policy for the oil and gas industry must seek, among other things, to create a local content policy that seeks to bring an equity of benefits.