A university lecturer has won the Global Entrepreneurship Week Buzz Builder Award for the best use of social media channels to promote the Maltese GEW campaign.

GEW is an international initiative designed to inspire and connect aspiring entrepreneurs, helping them embrace originality, imagination and ingenuity through local and global activities.

Millions of enterprising individuals participate in thousands of activities in over 100 countries every year. Since GEW's inception in 2008, the Edward de Bono Institute at the University of Malta has been the official national host for this initiative in Malta, and has coordinated a growing number of events for an increasing number of participants.

The Buzz Builder Award was presented to Leonie Baldacchino, a University of Malta lecturer and researcher, by GEW president Jonathan Ortmans at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Liverpool.

A blog entry posted by Ms Baldacchino on the GEW website (http://unleashingideas.org/blog/big-buzz-small-island-malta-marks-gew-2011) to highlight the Maltese campaign was viewed, tweeted, shared and 'liked' on a variety of social media channels by the public more frequently than any entry by any other country.

The Global Entrepreneurship Congress boasted an array of high profile entrepreneurs, including Sir Richard Branson, founder and chairman of Virgin Group; Lord Michael Heseltine, former UK minister and deputy Prime Minister, founder and chairman of Haymarket Group; Sir Terry Leahy, former CEO of Tesco; and Deborah Leary, president of the British Association of Women Entrepreneurs.

All shared insights and experiences from their entrepreneurial journeys with the 3,000-strong audience at the Liverpool Echo Arena.

Preparations are now underway to plan this year's Global Entrepreneurship Week which will be held in November.

http://www.um.edu.mt/create/conferencesseminars/global_entrepreneurship_week_2012