With the recent layoffs affecting some 900 employees of Noranda Aluminum Inc., Southeast Missouri State University’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship has responded by introducing LaunchU as part of its InnovateU entrepreneurship-training program.

LaunchU is a six-week course that provides participants, particularly aspiring entrepreneurs, with the knowledge needed to engage in the business planning process to determine business feasibility. Participants learn how to pitch, forecast financially and develop a business plan that would approved by the Small Business Administration.

The first cohort of students began classes at the university’s Sikeston campus on March 8, and Crystal Jones, interim director of Southeast’s Institute for Regional Innovation and Entrepreneurship, said she is excited to be offering a service the rural community can benefit from.

“Through the LaunchU initiative, which has just started, I would say that I am most excited about being able to offer something to the rural community where businesses can get started and we can help develop their business feasibility plan,” Jones said. “So I feel like we are offering a service that persons in the rural community don't normally receive.”

Jones also believes entrepreneurship creates sustainable development opportunities that could benefit everyone involved.

“We have done a lot of research on entrepreneurship around the nation and what we found is that small businesses are the primary job creators, and this is a nationally known fact,” Jones said. “So especially when you are talking about the rural regions of Missouri in particular, it is not the large manufacturers that are creating those job opportunities anymore, it is our local people that are coming in and creating jobs that are rooted in the community.”

The Kennett and Poplar Bluff communities will benefit from the initiative this semester, but Training Program Coordinator Gabrielle Penca encourages people to be on the lookout for the program in Cape Girardeau in the fall semester.

“This is really our response to the recent job losses that happened in New Madrid and once we give persons of the rural areas the opportunity to benefit from the initiative, then we will get started here in Cape, which will probably be in the fall semester,” Penca said

Penca sees the program as a benefit to all students regardless of their major, and hopes they take the opportunity to gain an understanding of the tools needed to start a business.

At the end of the course the participants will pitch their business idea, and the winner will receive a startup assistance package of $500, as well as pro bono marketing, accounting and legal consulting services provided by BOLD Marketing and Certified Public Accountant Cory C. Fitzgerald.

Applications for LaunchU may be submitted to the Missouri Innovation Corporation, located in the Douglas C. Greene Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at 920 Broadway in Cape Girardeau, weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or online at innovationmic.org/launchu. Interested entrepreneurs can also contact Penca at (573) 651-5095 or gpenca@semo.edu.