Despite the Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute’s push for student involvement, no University students entered Stanford University’s 2009 Global Innovation Tournament. Jarett Rodriguez, SEI associate director, said a few student groups registered in advance for the contest — which challenged students to make a video about “making saving fun” — but didn’t follow through. He said about 700 videos were submitted around the world. “The theme this year was to ‘make saving fun,’ so it wouldn’t have made a lot of sense to spend a ton of money on promotion,” Rodriguez said in an e-mail to The Daily Reveille. “Next year, we will try some new ways of getting the word out and stirring up some excitement.” The competition is part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, in which more than 75 countries participate through activities and challenges like the Global Innovation Tournament. The competition runs from Nov. 16 to 22.In the past, the competition has challenged students to create the greatest possible value from common objects like rubber bands and sticky notes. This year the challenge involves students submitting YouTube videos that attempted to solve a global issue, like the economy. Winners will be announced Dec. 3. SEI, a branch of the Business College, tried to organize the tournament locally. University students’ videos were originally going to be judged Nov. 17 by SEI.  “We had hoped that there would be more interest in winning lunch with a celebrity entrepreneur, digital video cameras and more,” Rodriguez said about the local prizes. “We intentionally didn’t publish the prize list because we wanted teams to compete simply for the title of being the best.” The Global Innovation Tournament is in its fourth year of existence. This is the first time University students were challenged to participate. “We want to challenge this campus to think more entrepreneurial,” Rodriguez said. “For us to survive this recession in a strong way and to build a great future for our community, we must look at our challenges through lenses of innovation.”
 
 
 
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