Newswise — Babson College senior Julian Simcock has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, the first at the top-ranked school for entrepreneurship.
Simcock will travel to South Africa to study the business support services currently available to entrepreneurs. His project -- "A Study of Entrepreneurial Resources in the Western Cape" -- will target those aged 24-34, who, despite no longer having access to secondary schooling, have enormous capacity to impact economic growth in the informal sector through entrepreneurial activity.
It will not be Simcock's first visit to South Africa. He was there last summer with a group of Babson classmates to teach entrepreneurship to local teenagers. That exposure highlighted a number of economic problems within the country and the difficult position the government is in, he said. While committed to capitalistic ideals, the government is also responsible for egalitarian policies. According to Simcock, "Entrepreneurship provides a wonderful middle ground between these two seemingly opposing philosophies."
"The Fulbright scholarship is committed to promoting diplomatic exchanges and healthy relationships between countries through increased understanding. My project doesn't propose to alleviate poverty in the townships of South Africa. It's an attempt to better understand one aspect of a much larger and more complex economic situation," Simcock said.
Born in Auckland, New Zealand, Simcock, son of Andrew Simcock and Dr. Vicki Cunningham, moved to Colorado, with his family, including a twin brother, about twelve years ago.
"My father started a small consulting firm in Denver, exposing me for the first time to the power and causality of entrepreneurial action. In my mind, entrepreneurship held none of the exploitative connotations now so closely associated with capitalism, espousing instead values of meritocracy, pure democracy, and unbridled optimism. It was a method of creating value from nothing, and I fell in love with it," he said.
Simcock's academic plans for the Fulbright award include studying at University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business to pursue an Honor's Degree in Economic Development. Prior to traveling to South Africa to begin study, he will work for six months with Goldman Sachs.
The Fulbright Scholar Program is a prestigious and highly competitive program designed for U.S. citizens who wish to lecture or conduct research abroad. The program promotes mutual understanding and benefit through contributions to host countries, and upon the return of the grantees to the United States, to their home institutions and/or networks of their professional colleagues.
Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., is recognized internationally as a leader in entrepreneurial management education. Babson grants BS degrees through its innovative undergraduate program, and grants MBA and custom MS and MBA degrees through the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College. Babson Executive Education offers executive development programs to experienced managers worldwide. For information, visit http://www.babson.edu.
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