GSE 2020 Postponed Until 2021

First and foremost, the West Virginia Department of Education’s focus is on keeping our students healthy and fed during this emergency situation. Because schools are closed to students, the final application deadline to GSE has been extended until May 11. Meanwhile, complete your part of the application, email the teacher you are asking for a recommendation, and ask that it be emailed to you. If it is typed directly into the email, we will accept it without a signature. Then, get busy on that pitch.

2021 Applications Not Available Until Mid-January/Early February

The West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) announced April 22, 2020, that the Governor's Schools scheduled for summer 2020 have all be postponed or cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Each year, the WVDE holds the Governor’s Schools at West Virginia college and university campuses and state facilities. West Virginia University and Marshall University have both announced that they will cancel on-site courses and resort to online instruction only this summer; therefore, the venues will no longer be available. Both universities were scheduled to host several weeks of the Governor’s Schools at their Morgantown and Huntington campuses beginning June 14 and extending through July 13.

Next year (Summer 2021) the WVDE will invite students selected for the 2020 GSE to attend the GSE 2021 session, which will be held on campus or virtually, depending upon the current health crisis in our state and country.

This is your notice that you can go ahead and plan that vacation with your family this year or spend extra time training for another endeavor. Watch this site closely to see which three-week period you need to block off for next year so that you can make memories and create a product or business that will help brighten West Virginia’s economic future.

Change your summer; change your life; change the world

Attend West Virginia's Governor's School of Entrepreneurship (GSE)

Like much of our ever-changing language, the word "entrepreneur" continues to evolve. It came from an Old French word meaning to undertake, but by the 19th Century, an entrepreneur was thought of as a

"go-between" or anyone who undertakes a project--not just business. Evolving into the 20th Century it came to mean a "go-getter," and here we are in the 21st Century, seeking entrepreneurs to lead our state into the future by finding high school students with the vision to see a problem and the imagination and logic to

solve it.

This summer, the Governor's School of Entrepreneurship (GSE) is looking for 50 young students who are excited about the possibilities of making the future better for themselves, our state, and the world we live in.

GSE exemplifies our strategy to create small businesses that will energize the economy of West Virginia, and we are attempting to foster that growth through fashioning an atmosphere of imagination, innovation, and creativity for our young potential entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship among young people is not a new thing. Our country has a history of capitalizing on the fresh, new ideas of people who are willing to take a chance.

• One of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time, Benjamin Franklin, was only 26 when he published “Poor Richard’s Almanac”;
• Madam C.J. Walker, founder of the Walker Hair Care System for hair of black women which made her a multi-millionaire was in her early 20s when she started her business, saying “If you recognize an unserved customer base, do something about it”;
• William Harley was only 21 when he drew the plans for a motorized bicycle, and within five years he and his partner Arthur Davidson were in business with a factory producing what is now the only U.S. built motorcycle today;
• …and Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg and……

To share that dream-realizing experience, WVGSE offers high-school students the chance to dream about a new business or product and then make it happen. Young innovators are thrown into an "accelerator" atmosphere where in three short weeks, they learn about business models, design thinking, and scaling new startup ventures.

There are team competitions, a pitch competition, and the opportunity to actually launch a new business venture. In fact, every young innovator will be an entrepreneur by the end of GSE

Read through the information provided in the links in the last column at the bottom of this page to see if you have the fire to become a West Virginia entrepreneur.