Famed entrepreneur and philanthropist Desh Deshpande will officially open the 2017 Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centres Conference on Friday at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

The consortium is a meeting place for university entrepreneurship facilities from around the world. The event in Halifax will discuss the role of these centres in the development of new companies and the education of students.

The event will be opened by Gururaj Deshpande, known to his friends as Desh, a University of New Brunswick grad who has financed entrepreneurship centres around the world. Best known in Atlantic Canada as a Co-Founder of the Pond-Deshpande Centre in Fredericton, Deshpande is a lifetime member of the MIT Corporation and the driving force behind MIT’s Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation. The Deshpande Foundation strengthens ecosystems that create significant social and economic impact through entrepreneurship and innovation.

Deshpande’s opening remarks will be followed by two debates. The first will pitch education against acceleration. It will ask whether the primary mission of the university entrepreneurship centre is to educate students and provide the context for successful venturing or be economic generators producing talent for growing companies.

The second debate pits the centralized approach against the organic approach to entrepreneurship and innovation. Is the university entrepreneurship ecosystem best served by a centralized approach to reduce duplication of effort or by an organic approach that embraces orderly chaos?

Debate participants will include Mike Morris of the University of Florida, Ted Zoller from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Jeff Reid of Georgetown University and Alex DeNoble of San Diego State.

There will be a lunchtime address by veteran entrepreneur and investor Gerry Pond, the chair of Mariner Partners and East Valley Ventures. The conference is hosted by Dal, Saint Mary's University and UNB.

Registration is available here.