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George Vlahakis
IU Media Relations
gvlahaki@indiana.edu
812-855-0846

Anne Auer
Kelley School of Business
aauer@indiana.edu
812-855-6998

Amy Mehringer
Whitman School of Management
aemehrin@syr.edu
315-443-3834

Stephanie Lowenthal
NASDAQ
Stephanie.Lowenthal@nasdaq.com
646-441-5220

Last modified: Monday, February 27, 2006

NASDAQ bell ringing ceremony Friday highlights Kelley School's Velocity Conference in New York

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Feb. 27, 2006

EDITORS: The bell-ringing ceremony will be carried live from 3:50 to 4:05 p.m. EST on satellite uplink IA-6 C-band/transponder 17. The downlink frequency is 4040 Vertical; Audio 6.2-6.8 The feed can also be found on Waterfront fiber 1623. It also will be carried live on the Web at https://www.nasdaq.com/reference/marketsite_about.stm (Windows Media Player needed). NASDAQ provides photos to the media at https://www.nasdaq.com/reference/marketsite_events.stm.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Faculty and MBA students of the business schools at Indiana and Syracuse universities will ring the NASDAQ closing bell on Friday (March 3), a highlight of an annual conference on entrepreneurship being held in New York City.

IU's Kelley School of Business each year organizes the Velocity Conference in partnership with another university and meets with chief executives from high-potential businesses and the venture capitalists who fund them. This year, the Kelley School joins Syracuse's Whitman School of Management at its executive education facility in the Big Apple.

NASDAQ is the largest U.S. electronic stock market. With approximately 3,300 companies, it lists more companies and, on average, trades more shares per day than any other U.S. market. It is home to companies that are leaders across all areas of business including technology, retail, communications, financial services, transportation, media and biotechnology.

"This is truly an honor to have the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University close the NASDAQ stock market," said Donald F. Kuratko, executive director of the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship and innovation and the Jack M. Gill Chair of Entrepreneurship at IU. "To have our dean, Dan Smith, and our MBA students stand at the epicenter of U.S. business and officially close the NASDAQ stock market is a remarkable experience."

Kuratko leads one of the most respected entrepreneurship programs. Kelley's entrepreneurship program ranks fourth overall in current rankings by Entrepreneur magazine. Kuratko regularly is named one of the top five entrepreneurship center directors, as voted by his peers, and was ranked No. 2 by Entrepreneur.

Kelley School Dean Dan Smith and Whitman School Dean Melvin Stith will preside and speak briefly at a ceremony that will begin at 3:50 p.m. EST at NASDAQ studios at the corner of 43rd Street and Broadway in Times Square. They will be joined by about 50 students from both schools, Kuratko, and Michael H. Morris, Witting Chair in Entrepreneurship and chairman of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises at Syracuse.

They will ring the bell to close the NASDAQ market at 4 p.m. Onlookers in Times Square will be able to watch the ceremony on NASDAQ's massive MarketSite Tower with closed captioning.

This will be the seventh Velocity Conference organized by the Kelley School. Each year, the conference travels to different universities to provide students in its Entrepreneurship Management Academy with an opportunity to network, exchange ideas with their peers at another top MBA program, and visit hotbeds of entrepreneurial activity around the country. Previous Velocity Conference co-hosts have included Stanford University, the University of Texas, the University of California at Berkeley and Boston University.

"The Velocity Conference represents acceleration of entrepreneurial careers for the best and brightest MBAs," Kuratko said. "This year we are proud to have partnered with Syracuse University in New York City, and we believe this will be the absolute best Velocity experience in the history of the conference. We have lined up premier entrepreneurial speakers, including Ron Dollens of Guidant Corp., who I believe will be transforming the lives of our young MBAs."

"Velocity is about students gaining ownership of their professional lives and defining themselves as innovators and change agents," Morris added. "It is a unique opportunity for Syracuse students to gain from exposure to amazing individuals who have made a difference, while interacting with peers from a great institution."