The university’s Schultz School of Entrepreneurship announced a $3 million donation from Ron ’66 and Alexis Fowler. This donation will fund both the Fowler Business Concept Challenge and St. Thomas’ participation in the Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge. The latest donation brings Fowlers’ total support to the competition since 2009 to his $6.7 million.

Now in its 14th year, the Fowler Business Concept Challenge is open to all undergraduate and graduate students (regardless of major) at the University of St. Thomas and has awarded $787,500 in scholarship awards since its inception in 2009. increase. The competition will offer courses primarily for students focused on solving critical social issues such as poverty, social injustice and environmental sustainability, as well as for students focused on traditional commercial ventures. I’m here. This year’s competition also introduces the annual Kate Herzog Memorial Award for aspiring social entrepreneurs with a passion for alleviating poverty, serving resource-strapped communities and seeking to bridge the opportunity gap. help the house

Dr. Shenita White, Associate Dean of the Schultz School of Entrepreneurship, said: “This gift from Fowlers represents a genuine opportunity for St. His Thomas students to explore how they can use entrepreneurship to bring about meaningful change in their communities and the world.”

In June 2023, St. Thomas will host the global final of the Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge. Since 2011, the challenge has involved more than 2,500 students from 25 countries and has distributed over $600,000 to seed innovative global ventures. Two St. Thomas teams received seed funding for last year’s competition. St. Thomas began working with the University of San Diego in 2019 to support this challenge.

Fowler graduated from the University of St. Thomas in 1966 and is currently Chairman and CEO of Liquid Investments, Inc. and former owner of the San Diego Padres of Major League Baseball. Over the years, San Diego businessmen have worked to empower the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders, test their ideas, and reward them with scholarships and funding to take those ideas to the next level. His namesake competition is an outlet for students to achieve that goal.

“Today’s generation is bursting with ideas that have the potential to make a difference in the world, but many of them are not given the opportunity to be seen or made a difference. It’s a real value, an opportunity to be noticed,” Fowler said. “People have taken their time to advance my ideas and passions, and it is important that we pay that forward and continue to give today’s young entrepreneurs the same opportunities.”