Gary Palin speaks at Obama-backed entrepreneurship conference

The executive director of the Doherty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership served as a featured speaker this month at an international conference organized as part of President Barack Obama’s “Muslim Entrepreneurship Initiative,” which aims to build ties with Muslim communities around the globe.

Gary Palin

Executive director Gary Palin, who is also a senior lecturer of entrepreneurship in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, spoke Oct. 6 at the Muslim Entrepreneurship Conference in Dublin, Ireland.

The conference was hosted by the Dublin Institute of Technology and sponsored by the United States Embassy in Ireland. During Obama’s now-famous speech in Cairo, Egypt, in 2009, he stated his intention “to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.”

Palin addressed the social entrepreneurship aspect of Obama’s entrepreneurship initiative. He addressed more than 130 conference attendees in presenting “Understanding Social Entrepreneurship.”

The conference aimed to identify ways in which greater entrepreneurial activity can be generated within the Muslim community in Ireland.

Dan Rooney, the United States ambassador to Ireland, used his opening remarks at the conference to congratulate organizers. He said the United States and Irish governments were “solid partners” in Obama’s initiative.

Palin also was the keynote speaker at the Wales Ireland Network for Social Entrepreneurship networking event on Oct. 5. He discussed the impact and strategies of social entrepreneurship ventures.

The Dublin Institute of Technology was established as an autonomous institution under the DIT Act in 1992, but its origins go back to 1887 and the establishment of technical education in Ireland. The Institute is a comprehensive higher education institution, fulfilling a national and international role in providing full-time and part-time programs across the whole spectrum of higher education, supported by research and scholarship in areas reflective of the Institute’s mission.

WINSENT is an ambitious project to promote social entrepreneurship in Ireland and North Wales. WINSENT provides a networking opportunity and free assistance, guidance and a range of supports to any social entrepreneur or social enterprise based in Dublin and surrounds in Ireland or based in North Wales in the counties of Denbighshire and the Isle of Anglesey.