Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship wins Excellence in Entrepreneurship award

When Michael Goldberg moved to Hanoi as a Fulbright Scholar, he expected to teach students about the intricacies of entrepreneurship, practices modeled after his hometown of Cleveland. What he didn’t expect was the way the course would evolve over the years, first into a massive online open course (MOOC), then a free downloadable book, and eventually an in-person seminar at Case Western Reserve University. 

In recognition of over a decade of this work, the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC) recently awarded the Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship the Excellence in Entrepreneurship Teaching and Pedagogical Innovation Award.

Beyond Silicon Valley

In 2012, Vietnamese government officials asked Goldberg to create a course outlining how the country could become more like Silicon Valley. As he developed this seminar, Goldberg realized that there were far more similarities between Cleveland's support of entrepreneurship and the possibilities available in Vietnam. 

“Cleveland didn’t have access to the kind of private capital that exists in Silicon Valley, so we had to look at other sources of support, namely government and donors working alongside the private sector,” he said in a 2015 TEDx talk. “We’ve put in place an array of initiatives and programs to support entrepreneurs in Cleveland, and things have gotten better.”

Instead of modeling his seminar after Silicon Valley, he decided to use his hometown as the case study, inviting business and economic leaders from Cleveland to speak virtually. The week-long seminar went so well that when Goldberg returned to Case Western Reserve, he was asked by leaders at the Weatherhead School of Management to create a MOOC based on it.

“I was really intrigued by the idea of taking my teaching on entrepreneurship to a global audience,” he said. “I had no idea how to make a video, but I had a friend who had worked for 60 Minutes come out of retirement to help me with it.”

Over a decade later, Goldberg’s MOOC has reached 175,000 students in 190 countries and has been translated into 16 languages. His subsequent book, Beyond Silicon Valley: How One Online Open Course Helped Support Global Entrepreneurs, highlights how students of the course have applied his lessons to their communities around the world. 

Learning global lessons

Goldberg used the basis of the MOOC curriculum to develop a seminar for Case Western Reserve. As part of the Seminar Approach to General Education and Scholarship program, "Beyond Silicon Valley" builds on the MOOC, addressing how startups can draw on resources from governments, universities, foundations and nonprofit organizations. Each semester, the seminar focuses on a different international city and partners with a local university or professor. Students in the seminar have studied the entrepreneurial ecosystems in the Canary Islands, South Africa, Venezuela, Syria, Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia and Brno.

Undergraduate students in the seminar also have the opportunity to take a seven-day international trip as part of their course curriculum, with the opportunity to experience the culture and economic structure of other countries. Most recently, a cohort of students traveled to the Czech Republic, where they met with local business leaders and entrepreneurs to learn about their business practices. 

“Michael's dedication to entrepreneurship and curiosity toward global business is an undeniable asset in enhancing students' learning experiences both at home and abroad,” said Juli Regas, an MBA candidate in the 2025 spring cohort. “Our trip to the Czech Republic not only offered us invaluable cultural and business insights about Brno and Prague, but also equipped us to bring what we learned about sustaining entrepreneurial ecosystems back home to Cleveland. Michael's connections across the globe—often nurtured through his work at the Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship—greatly impacted the quality of our trip.”

Further beyond

The Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC) aims to advance, strengthen and celebrate the role universities fulfill in educating future entrepreneurs. At the annual GCEC conference held in early October in Calgary, the Veale Institute was recognized for the Excellence in Entrepreneurship Teaching and Pedagogical Innovation Award. The honor, which was also presented to the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, is the culmination of years of work from Goldberg, faculty at the Veale Institute and Weatherhead School of Management, and partner institutions around the world. 

As he plans for the future of the program, which will take students to Estonia and Finland in March, Goldberg hopes to continue to provide opportunities for students to implement lessons of entrepreneurship globally. 

“The program continues to be a great way for our students to get international context and engage with business on a global scale,” he said. “My hope is that we can continue to encourage our students to take those opportunities, because there’s no substitute for travel and hands-on learning.”