On Wednesday, June 11, U.S. Ambassador to Greece, David D. Pearce kicked off the final meeting of the massive open online course (MOOC) “Beyond Silicon Valley: Growing Entrepreneurship in Transitioning Economies,” at the Stoa of Attalos. This was the first-ever MOOC that had extensive Greek-specific content, broad international participation and collaboration, and thousands of Greek students enrolled.
The course professor, Michael Goldberg from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, traveled to Greece to coordinate the final international panel discussion of the course at the Ancient Agora. The 21,000 students enrolled in the course from all corners of the globe were able to “attend” this final discussion live online. With 3,500 students enrolled, Greece ranked first out of the 183 countries participating, surpassing even the U.S.!
The final course’s discussion concluded concepts for the development of entrepreneurship in transitioning economies. The live audience at the Stoa, mostly students who participated in the online course, had the opportunity to become acquainted in person with Professor Goldberg after attending his classes virtually for the previous eight weeks.
The free, online course began 28 April covering ways to develop entrepreneurship in transitioning economies. All those registered from Greece watched lectures with Greek subtitles, and were exposed to videos and educational material produced specifically for the Greek audience. The co-organizers of the course conducted dozens of interviews with entrepreneurs, academics, government representatives and intermediaries from all over Greece in order to create nine thematic videos, which portray the reality of the Greek ecosystem. The videos are available at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFbXvgo0Z7nQQvSPF1FDo9Q
The groundbreaking initiative of tailoring Greek content for an international course was made possible through the cooperation of the U.S. Embassy in Athens, the ALBA Graduate Business School at The American College of Greece and Metavallon,.
As part of the course, four meet-ups were held in Athens, Thessaloniki, Heraklion and Ioannina, where more than 300 course participants were able to meet each other, watch the course’s weekly presentation, and address questions to guest speakers.
