Last week, Penn co-launched a free entrepreneurship academy designed to strengthen local small businesses.
The program, offered in collaboration with the Community College of Philadelphia, caters to existing West Philadelphia entrepreneurs who aim to achieve an annual revenue between $1 million and $10 million within the next three years. The academy will follow a cohort-based learning style and include 10 educational sessions taught by Penn faculty members and industry experts.
Praveen Kosuri, the initiative's faculty director, wrote in a statement that the goal of the partnership is “to equip entrepreneurs with knowledge” and give them “the ability to recognize when to seek additional help.”
He wrote that a “hallmark” of the academy is the Penn faculty who will be teaching the course.
Kosuri — a University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School Practice Professor of Law and Director of the school's Entrepreneurship Legal Clinic — added that this faculty expertise will be “supplemented by real-life entrepreneurs and professional experts who will illuminate the topics and provide a network for our participants to draw from even after the program has ended.”
“Small businesses create local jobs,” he wrote. “What's been unevenly distributed is access to the strategic advice, legal fluency, capital networks, and business mentoring that turn a small business into a bigger one.”
Penn Carey Law, School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Wharton School faculty will lead the program's curriculum — designed by Kosuri — which is broken down into four stages: building foundations, strengthening structure, preparing for growth, and putting plans into action.
Weekly sessions will run for three hours and include applied instruction, peer exchange, expert guest speakers, and set work to progress each student’s private venture. The academy will conclude with a Capstone and graduation ceremony.
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The program team also includes Renita Miller, Richard Perry, and executive director Franne McNeal.
In a written statement, the leaders expressed hope that the academy will help business owners boost their own projects and contribute to the broader community.
Perry, a 1977 Wharton graduate and member of the Penn Board of Trustees, wrote that he is “most excited by the possibility of lasting impact.”
“A single entrepreneur equipped to scale a business can create jobs, strengthen a neighborhood, and inspire others,” he added. “Multiply that across an entire cohort, and the potential contribution to Philadelphia is tremendous.”
McNeal — the former Executive Director of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program at CCP — highlighted the benefit to an individual business.
“Watching a founder realize the constraint is not the economy or the market—that it’s something inside their own company that they have the power to change—that usually lands somewhere in the middle of the program, and the business is never quite the same afterward,” she wrote.
Miller explained the biggest implementation challenges — pointing to the collaboration between the two institutions as an important factor in success.
“Building a new initiative across two institutions requires patience, trust, and continual coordination,” Miller wrote. “While the process has been complex, it has been matched by an extraordinary level of commitment from colleagues across Penn and CCP who have worked together to make this opportunity possible.”
The inaugural cohort will begin on Oct. 22 and conclude three months later, in January 2027. Applications to participate in the academy have a “priority deadline” of Oct. 1.
CCP’s Career and Advanced Technology Center in West Philadelphia will host the program's sessions in an effort to “reduce common barriers to participation,” according to Miller.
“The Penn-CCP Entrepreneurship Academy is about investing in that talent and building trusted networks alongside it,” she added. “Being an anchor institution means showing up for the community we are part of, and this is one more way we live out our values beyond the classroom.”
The academy officially launched at a Sept. 11 ceremonial signing hosted at CCP.
