Ben Ford ’23 competes in the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards this week

student in a suit jacket

Ben Ford ’23 (Martin J. Whitman School of Management) will represent Syracuse University in this week’s Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) in Buffalo, NY.  The event is the premier global competition for students who own and operate a business while attending college or university.  He is one of only three finalists selected to compete on November 11 against peers from Upstate universities in hopes to qualify for the GSEA national finals.

Ford will be pitching his mission-driven venture Fundwurx, which uses state of the art machine learning technologies to better connect projects with donors.  He is an active member of the Syracuse University Blackstone LaunchPad and also serves as a Rubin Family Innovation Mentor.

Syracuse University LaunchPad students AJ Damiano ’18, founder of PowerSpike, Kayla Simon ’19, co-founder of In-Spire, Quinn King ’20, co-founder of MedUX and Nikita Chatterjee ’20, co-founder of PAANI, and Shawn Gaetano ’21 were all previous GSEA winners. 

With more than 1,700 competitors from over 30 countries each year, GSEA is an exclusive opportunity for student entrepreneurs to make connections, find resources, and grow their businesses.  It is sponsored by The Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), a global business network of 13,000+ leading entrepreneurs in 160 global chapters.  EO offers resources in the form of global events, leadership-development programs, peer-to-peer learning, an online entrepreneur forum, executive education opportunities, and connections to experts.