The international expansion wouldn’t be possible without MSU’s commitment to global initiatives and reputation as a worldly university, he said.

“MSU is one of the top global universities in the country,” said the MSU alumnus, who was born in Michigan when his parents came to MSU from Nigeria to earn their master’s and doctoral degrees. “I think that (MSU has) invested in really making sure the education that students get here is global.”

Enliven was the first of 14 companies to graduate from the TIC, which started in October 2008. The company will use foreign channel partners that already have customer bases and train those companies’ employees to sell Enliven’s product.

Jeff Smith, East Lansing project manager, said Enliven’s cross-continent commerce is a “feather in the cap” for East Lansing and MSU.

“I think that’s exactly what we’re looking for and that’s what the new economy is all about,” he said. “Businesses in less than 400 square feet in East Lansing can do business overseas.”

Although Enliven will not send its own employees to the other side of the world yet, East Lansing would receive various economic benefits should the venture prove profitable, said Rita Kiki Edozie, associate professor of international relations.

East Lansing would benefit if Enliven were able to expand based on its foreign returns, and investors would recoup funds they potentially could use to foster more startup companies, she added.

MSU and East Lansing’s global presence has helped yield a cosmopolitan center of creativity as people from around the world have brought their backgrounds, connections and cultures to the region, further enhancing the area’s entrepreneurial capacity, said Peter Briggs, director of the MSU Office for International Students and Scholars.

He cited research that discovered a correlation between the amount of international students to patents at a university, which he said will be an increasingly important facet of a growing, global economy.

“I do think with the global economy being the way it is, some are blind to opportunities, but for the people who can see that way the sky is the limit,” Briggs said. “We have to get students to see past the world that’s around them.”

Briggs said Akinyemiju is the perfect example of a worldly thinker, adding that MSU and East Lansing are “lucky to have him because he’s going to bring in so much more than we’re talking about.”

Presently, Akinyemiju is focusing on East Lansing, west Africa and Australia. The rest of the world can wait — for now.

“The biggest way that MSU and this state and the U.S. can really grow is by tapping into all the growth that’s happening in some of those emerging countries and abroad where there’s lots of opportunities,” he said. “But we have the technology here.”