Only 28% of high school students know that small businesses created the most new jobs over the last ten years. When students were asked what they had learned about how business works, 85 percent of the respondents said they had learned little or nothing in the schools. This can be compared to those who said they learned little or nothing about other subjects: 24 percent for United States history; 16 percent for science; 16 percent for English or American literature; and 7 percent for mathematics. MICE Inc., Meszaros International Center for Entrepreneurship, was developed and remains in partnership with the State University of New York at Buffalo, School of Management to ensure instruction of ethical entrepreneurship and financial literacy to high school students. Youth have the greatest potential and opportunity to develop positive attitudes and business behaviors. Entrepreneurial skills can be easily translated to daily life. The training helps young people develop effective work behaviors, personal management and critical thinking skills; all of these contribute to assisting an individual to become a high quality employee.

The purpose of the program is to form a working coalition between enterprising regional students, teachers, and expert University of Buffalo professors to recruit, promote, educate and nurture the entrepreneurial spirit of the region’s most capable and interested students. After all, our greatest natural resource is competent, educated youth.

MICE was founded and originally funded by Les Meszaros, a former entrepreneur who successfully started and sold companies, most notably the sale of Voice Technologies Group to Intel Corporation. Initially, Les wanted to give something back to his birthplace, Hungary, where opportunities were so much more limited than in the United States so the initial focus of MICE has been in Central Europe. For three years, MICE has been running very successfully in Hungary.

The MICE program is a 15 week classroom course meeting on every Saturday for three hours at the State University of New York at Buffalo. The program is unique in the form of instruction and the content of the course. Students are taught through a variety of lecture, readings, group projects, public speaking, guest speakers, professional teachers and videos. MICE course book and video series featuring prominent businesspeople has already been developed by Joe Salamone, MICE partner and a current University of Buffalo Professor. Before students graduate, a two-week long, intensive Business Plan workshop is provided and serves as a capstone to the 15 weeks of mandatory classroom instruction completed by the students. The entire program concludes with a formal business plan competition that is judged by business professionals followed by formal graduation ceremonies.

Based on the enthusiasm, the early signs of success, and the cooperation between local and American educators and their respective institutions, the management team along with the board of directors and with the cooperation of the University of Buffalo, would like to see this innovative signature program expanded in to the Western New York Area. Our immediate plans call for implementation for the 2007-2008 school year to a selected group of schools in the immediate Buffalo area.

Students will be selected into the program on the basis of completion of MICE entrance exam and an essay. The class sizes will very between 30-40 students per semester and multiple sessions can run simultaneously. MICE’s Buffalo operation will have representation from the inner city, suburban, and rural districts. Once this goal is achieved, MICE seeks to evolve as the icon of American and Central European entrepreneurial training – training that emphasizes high ethical standards, identifies and contributes to the entrepreneurial success of talented individuals, and helps develop personal and leadership skills.

The mission of MICE is to provide high-quality entrepreneurial guidance and information to students and business practitioners. More specifically, MICE:
• Provides high-level ethical, entrepreneurial, and leadership (education) training
• Assists individuals to realize their potential and goals
• Develops visionary, inspirational, and ethical business leaders
• Reestablishes tolerance and encourages individuality, self-determination, risk-taking, and innovation
• Provides opportunities for economic and personal growth, a better quality of life, and the right to choose
• Assists, trains, and supports prospective and practicing entrepreneurs
• Extends its offerings to provide an impetus for economic re-vitalization
• Designs and awards international study scholarships

MICE is aware that the most important key to its success is what the students will think of the program and whether the schools in the Buffalo region will support the program and recognize its value. We are extremely pleased to announce that we have visited a diverse variety of public, private, and parochial schools and in addition we have visited several boys and girls clubs to discuss the MICE program’s overall benefits with responsible decision making staff. Their response was extremely encouraging, noting that the program is extremely unique and is not replicated by any program they are aware of including Junior Achievement and DECA. These schools recognize the benefits of such a program for their students and are eager to begin offering this opportunity as soon as it can be implemented. Every school that MICE has visited has validated the fact that the course would provide exceptional benefit to their students and the community, by enhancing students work ethics and leaderships skills, and the content covered in the training program is currently not part of their curriculum, even if the school offers a business curriculum. We intend on visiting other schools in the Western New York area to ensure that the MICE program is offered to many schools with students of varying race, social, and economic backgrounds.

MICE intends on measuring the success of its program in Western New York through evaluation of the business plan competition which should be a true measure of how much the students have learned, having the students fill out anonymous course evaluations at least twice throughout the course, and interviewing the students once they complete the program. MICE will also send a questionnaire to the schools that have students in the program to ensure that school satisfaction is maintained. .