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Françoise Lepage Center for Global Innovation        

entrepreneurial  invention. multigenerational hope

Initiatives & Partnerships 

To foster entrepreneurial invention and multigenerational hope, the Françoise Lepage Center for Global Innovation inspires and facilitates collaborations that leverage business acumen, academic discovery, creativity, and curiosity.  As a hub for global innovation, the Lepage Center enables equitable, ethical, and sustainable business locally and internationally. The Center's global network and local partners facilitate transformative student experiences, enrich international research, invigorate institutions of higher education, and enliven entrepreneurial ecosystems through exchange that brings about meaningful change.

entrepreneurial  invention.

multigenerational hope

Françoise Lepage

Center for

Global Innovation        

Multigenerational Hope Initiative

Dominican University of California is a majority-minority institution. In 2020, nearly 70% of students in 2020 identified with ethnicities other than white. Nearly a quarter of Dominican’s students are the first in their family to attend college. Dominican has recently qualified as both a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI), with more than 25% of undergraduate students identifying as Latinx and more than 25% identifying as Asian American or Pacific Islander. The Director of the Lepage Center, in close collaboration with the Dean of the BSB, members of the Lepage Center Board of Advisors, and the Dominican Faculty, as well as local and international partners, is working to develop The Exchange, a business incubator that enables Dominican students, faculty, staff, and alumni to foster hope and build equity in the affluent communities of Northern California as integral members of these communities for generations to come.

Global Network

The Lepage Center is a member of Harvard Business School Microeconomics of Competitiveness (MOC) Affiliate Network. This allows the Lepage Center and the Barowsky School of Business (BSB) to incorporate the Microeconomics of Competitiveness course, designed by Michael Porter and HBS faculty, into their undergraduate, MBA, and executive education programs. It also opens a network of 100 educational institutions in 67 countries to Dominican faculty, staff, students, and Lepage Center affiliates.

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The Lepage Center is also a member of the Babson College Collaborative for Entrepreneurship Education. Babson College is widely acknowledged as a leader in Entrepreneurship education, frequently being ranked #1 by US News and World Report. Its own network of 34 member institutions in 24 countries, it also enriches the Lepage Center's ability to to bring the world to Dominican and Dominican faculty, staff, students, and Lepage Center affiliates to the world. 

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In addition, the Lepage Center is a member of the Pacific Neighborhood Consortium (PNC). The PNC was founded at UC Berkeley to facilitate exchanges between universities and institutions in the Pacific Rim. It is now run by Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, one of Asia’s leading academic institutions. By joining the PNC, the Lepage Center strengthens Dominican’s ties with Asia and its innovative businesses and thinkers.

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The Lepage Center's global network is further enhanced by its affiliation with the National Information Standards Organization, a non-profit standards organization that develops, maintains and publishes technical standards related to publishing, bibliographic and library applications. The affiliation builds the Center’s network among information specialists, which will help to begin transforming Dominican’s brand so that it can suggest technological smarts in addition to intellectual leadership. It allows faculty and librarians at Dominican to serve on national and international standards committees.

Local & Regional Partners

Since 2022, the Lepage Center has supported Marin Sonoma Impact Ventures (MSIV) as a Platinum Sponsor. MSIV is the first regional capital fund devoted to supporting Marin and Sonoma startups. By supporting MSIV, the Lepage Center contributes to the development of an entrepreneurial ecosystem in the North Bay. Our sponsorship also provides a variety of opportunities to the Lepage Center, the Barowsky School of Business (BSB), and its students by opening the possibility of collaborative research projects between MSIV members and BSB faculty, as well as exciting, lucrative, local job prospects for BSB graduates.

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With the US Commercial Service, San Rafael, the Lepage Center is working to open global markets to local businesses by hosting events and business  roundtables that introduce local business owners to business leaders and thinkers from around the world, including Ambassador Chantale Wong, director of the Asia Development Bank, John Hansen, Johnn Hansen, director of the Private Sector Engagement Team for Power Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and Dr. Dan Kammen, lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Research

​The Lepage Center is a fount of innovative research and a hub for global research on innovation. The Research Support Lab at the Lepage Center supports Dominican Faculty and graduate students, as well as local and international partners conducting research by providing assistance with research design and methods, copyediting and proofreading, and article and monograph placement. In early 20024, the Center began coordinating a first-of-its-kind, tri-continent research collaborative with roughly 60 researchers from Dominican University of California, the University of Juba (South Sudan), and Solbridge International School of Business (South Korea). The Center is quickly becoming the leading resource for data on innovation and a global thought-leader with regard to theories of innovation.  

Student Experience

Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship (GIE) Minor Immersion Experience

The Lepage Center enables Dominican students to learn about global innovation and entrepreneurship first-hand by facilitating 10-day, fact-finding trips to countries around the world. In 2023, 10 students visited South Korea with the Director of the Lepage Center and Dr. Sarah Lee, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior and Management. The trip included visits to innovation centers at leading universities, startups and established KOSPI-listed companies, as well as cultural K-POP performances and historic sites. Many students reported that the experience was “transformational.” A similar trip is planned for the summer of 2024.

Lepage Entrepreneurship Forum

The Lepage Center invites leaders in business to the biannual Lepage Entrepreneurship Forum where students have the opportunity to meet and learn from some of business worlds most innovative thinkers. Speakers have included:

 Leslie Blodgett, Founder, bareMinerals

Innovative Educational Environments

CFIRE_Dominican_Classroom_of_the_Future_04272024_edited.jpg

Together with Hap Klopp (founder of the North Face and Hult Professor), Carlos Baradello (Managing Director of Sausalito Ventures and Hult Professor), local partners at cFire, Dominican faculty in all three colleges, University leadership, the Center will facilitate the prototyping of innovative educational environments at Dominican, as well as research related to innovative pedagogy and business models in higher education. Dominican was founded as a teaching college. The Center will help the University leverage its long history of pedagogical leadership.

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