Gen Y Building Businesses While Getting Degrees

November 30, 2011 by Tamara Bell

[HTML1] A survey of more than 1,600 Gen Y earlier this year indicated that young people are motivated to start businesses and overwhelmingly think that entrepreneurship education is important. They also pointed out that resources available from colleges, government, and financial institutions are often inadequate to realize their goals. But Arizona State University hopes to address this concern in its community by building an entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Greater Metropolitan Phoenix area.

Virgilia Singh, the Resident Startup Architect at ASU’s Startup Labs, joins Keeping up with Gen Y to talk about how Gen Y don’t have to drop out of college to pursue their entrepreneurial passions. She also discusses how higher education institutions can assist students across all majors obtain their degrees while building their businesses.

More about Virgilia Singh
Virgilia Singh is the Resident Startup Architect at Arizona State University’s Startup Labs, a university-wide initiative to create, with the help of a grant from the Kauffman Foundation, an entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Greater Metropolitan Phoenix area.

No stranger to entrepreneurship, Virgilia is co-founder of Exhale Health, which offers a holistic approach to better health, and GenJuice, a site that creates content, events and products to help emerging influencers in every industry lead the next generation.

At 19, Virgilia graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. She has a Master’s in Global Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona.

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About Tamara Bell

Tamara Bell is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Y Gen Out Loud, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that provides a platform for Generation Yto discuss national politics and public policy issues.

Tamara began her journalism career as a staff reporter for the Dallas Times Herald. A few years later, she moved to York, Pa., as a political reporter for the York Dispatch, covering local, state, and national government as well as writing investigative stories for the mid-sized daily newspaper.

A Texas girl at heart, Tamara returned to Dallas a year later to work as press relations director for the re-election campaign of U.S. Rep. John Bryant. The next year, she moved to Austin and the Texas Legislature, where she stayed for 15 years. While at the Legislature, Tamara worked for Democratic House members as Chief-of-Staff and Press Secretary, and as a Senior Policy Analyst for the Senate State Affairs Committee chaired by a Republicansenator.

In 1996, Tamara became co-owner of a political newsletter covering state issues and elections. As Editor-in-Chief, Tamara helped shape the weekly publication into a must-read for state officials, legislative aides, and lobbyists. More recently, Tamara wrote a regular column analyzing coverage by the Texas Capitol Press Corps for an online political publication. She also works as a lecturer in the Advertising Department at The University of Texasat Austin.

Tamara has also been a judge for the 2010 Bright Ideas Award given by the Texas Daily Newspaper Association, served as a panelist at the Society of Professional Journalists 2010 Region 8 Conference where the theme was How to Save Journalism, and has been a guest lecture for the Advertising Department’s Internship course, speaking about the jobs outlook for graduating seniors.

Tamara earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Journalism from The University of Texas at Austin, and her B.A. in Journalism from Texas A&M University. She resides in Austin with her son, Jackson.

Tamara Bell is also the Host of Keeping Up with Gen Y on WomensRadio. Keeping Up with Gen Y offers discussions, interviews, and commentary about important issues of the day from the perspective of Generation Y (18-to 30-years-old). Aimed at all generations interested in learning about and inspiring young people, this show features professionals, experts, researchers, and members of Gen Y who share insights and experiences about the topics on the minds of today’s young adults.