Train-the-Trainer: Building Bridges to Wealth

Workshop Outline

Professor Keith Weigelt of the Wharton School, which is a faculty member of the University of Pennsylvania, USA, will conduct a two-hour intensive, and interactive, workshop for educators of all levels (primary, secondary and tertiary), entrepreneurs, faculty members and students who want to learn more about the benefits of business education for their younger students, and who want to be trained to impart that knowledge in the classroom setting.

Professor Weigelt’s curriculum emphasizes the critical skills needed for individuals, families and institutions to create and sustain their wealth.

Over the next decade, the world will add a billion new middle-class consumers in emerging markets, and the MENA region will have 60 million of these new shoppers As the United Arab Emirates is at the forefront in creating policies, providing support to entrepreneurs, and building world class academic institutions, Professor Weigelt will present his success and lessons learned in creating the Building Bridges to Wealth program that targets both young populations as well as adults to improve their business literacy and generate investment opportunities.

Workshop Benefits

Participants will learn the benefits of business education accessed by students of varied age groups and skill levels. They will learn the benefits of community-wide learning and be shown how the community can help create its own business opportunities.

Professor Weigelt will present on:

  • The unique features of his six-course high school curriculum. Many skills taught are more general to daily life and these so-called life skills are used widely outside of a business context;
  • How the curriculum employs an interactive teaching style where lectures are kept short and learning is based on doing in the form of student activities;
  • Why the adult curriculum better prepares individuals to seek better investment opportunities. For example, even in communities of low socio-economic status the program creates savings and investing groups through self-regulating groups that help individuals increase their assets and wealth.

Who Should Attend?

This two-hour presentation will provide program details, lesson plans, presentation slides and general information. Professor Weigelt will also present results from our on-going pilot program for adults. All interested parties – from educators, entrepreneurs, faculty members and students are invited to attend.

About the Instructor

Professor Keith Weigelt is professor of strategy at the Wharton School of. He founded the Building Bridges to Wealth program with the aim to create an innovative cross-generational education focused on teaching financial literacy and wealth creation.

Professor Weigelt spent four years developing and successfully testing his curriculum that is based on actual courses he teaches at the Wharton School. His curriculum targets both primary and high school students. Most recently he successfully piloted a program for adults which was praised by participants for boosting their business acumen and critical thinking skills, as well as helping improve their financial planning.

Stories on Professor Weigelt’s six-course high school business curriculum have been featured on CNN.com and the Huffington Post. A story about his adult program was also featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Professor Weigelt will show how the United States’ economy was built, and has been sustained, by the focus and business acumen of generations of entrepreneurs. In the US, between 1996 and 2004, an average of 550,000 small businesses were created every month. Historically many of these small businesses have gone on to become some of the world’s largest companies such as Wal-Mart, Apple, Google and Facebook.

The Wharton School has had the most number of graduates who take over family businesses from all across the world. As a strategy professor, game theorist and Daoist, Professor Weigelt felt it was critical to develop a curriculum focusing on business education and life skills that would empower individuals beyond those he teaches at the Wharton School. His curriculum has been in demand by diverse groups of students from the poorest to the wealthiest high schools in the US.

For more information on Professor Weigelt see the following publications:

For more information about the topic see the following Knowledge@Wharton links:

Program details

Date: Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Time: 10 am – 12:30 pm
Venue: CERT Health Sciences Auditorium, CERT Technology Park, Muroor Road, Abu Dhabi