RIT business professor receives entrepreneurship service award

dt ogilvie, Distinguished Professor of Urban Entrepreneurship at Rochester Institute of Technology’s Saunders College of Business, has received the Young Entrepreneurz Solutions Entrepreneurship Service Award for her role in promoting youth entrepreneurship. 

The award recognizes business, civic, education and community leaders who have championed youth entrepreneurship and community development.

ogilvie, who is the former dean and professor of business strategy at Saunders College, is the founder of RIT’s Center for Urban Entrepreneurship, which sponsors the Future Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs program for high school students and trains local entrepreneurs. She has served on the board of Junior Achievement of Central Upstate New York. In 2013, ogilvie brought Lemonade Day to Rochester, which teaches K-12 students the power of entrepreneurship by training them to start and run a lemonade stand business. She is also Senior Advisor on Economic Development and Urban Entrepreneurship for Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren.

Outside of Rochester, her work includes the founding and development of the Scholarship Training and Enrichment Program for underprepared incoming freshmen at Rutgers University. She has also taught her Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation course at Beijing Jiaotong University.

“Congratulations to Professor ogilvie,” said Jacqueline Mozrall, Saunders College dean. “I am so proud of all the Saunders College faculty, staff and students who continue to demonstrate how creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship can drive our communities to make a difference.”

“Professor ogilvie is one of the biggest advocates of entrepreneurship globally and always encourages her students to see what they are capable of doing,” said Ernest Ruffin Jr., executive director of Young Entrepreneurz Solutions and adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at Rutgers University. “She teaches and consults on entrepreneurship in China, locates investors for programs and entrepreneurs, and has continued these efforts at Saunders College of Business at RIT.”