Ahoghill native is the business in Entrepreneurship Education

He has been named the number one Entrepreneurship Educator in the world by the globally-renowned United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

Now living in Ballinderry, Professor Gibson, who was educated at Ballymena Academy, was head of Entrepreneurship Education at Belfast’s Queen’s University for a 10-year period, becoming a leading pioneer of this specialist type of learning.

During that decade of development, Professor Gibson became the first top academic in Europe to embed Entrepreneurship into the curriculum of an entire university.

This tremendous achievement led to him being named as the Most Innovative Educator in the United Kingdom in 2012, and receiving an OBE from the Queen for the impact of his entrepreneurial work on the Northern Ireland economy.

In December 2014, Professor Gibson joined Liverpool John Moores University where he has added to his considerable list of educational achievements.

In the past year, he has won four major awards for building the largest Entrepreneurship Academy in the world. He was named the top educator in the UK, the top in Europe and Liverpool John Moores was named the most Entrepreneurial University in the UK at the Times Higher Education Awards, which are regarded as the ‘Oscars’ of UK Higher Education.

His recent award as World Number One in his field has led to his work being used in China, the Middle East and in 30 other countries around the globe. In the United States, Professor Gibson’s book, ‘The eFactor’, has received the endorsement of the White House in Washington.

Professor Gibson said: “We have the best education system in the world in Northern Ireland, so the way forward to build on this is clear – let’s export our expertise and boost our economy. For a nation of only 1.8 million people, we are now perfectly positioned to have a major influence on the lives of billions of people around the globe.”