NEW BEGINNING
We are excited to announce that our summer school is in the process of repositioning and rebranding. This change will require us to cancel CuriousU summer school 2023, but we are incredibly proud of our progress and look forward to offering a refreshed and improved program in the near future. We thank all our students and staff for their support and look forward to continuing to serve our community.
In a global economy, people are increasingly being expected to take responsibility for and ownership of their own lives.
The challenges that modern society is facing needs individuals who are able to recognise and seize opportunities. People who innovate, initiate and co-create impactful solutions. People who are not afraid to take action! Developing an entrepreneurial attitude and relevant skills is vital to preparing for living in tomorrow’s world. Not only for aspiring entrepreneurs but for every single one of us!
The University of Twente has over 35 years of experience in entrepreneurship and has been elected the most entrepreneurial university in the Netherlands for five times in a row. The EntrepreneurialU course is presented to you by Novel-T, the business unit of the University of Twente, that helped create businesses such as Booking.com, Lipocoat and Code Sandbox.
This summer course provides you with all the relevant skills that are vital to becoming an entrepreneur in the world of tomorrow. Moreover, it focuses on applying this knowledge in practice and simultaneously lets you gain hands-on experience from real start-ups and scale-ups through inspiring talks and Q&A sessions. Whether you want to discover the viability of your business idea, want to experience what it is like to be an entrepreneur, or want to learn the skill set to think and act like an entrepreneur, this summer course is for you! With the help of workshops and our experienced coaches and experts, you can either build a coalition around your idea or join a team that is working on something you are passionate about. If you are in search of that extra spark for your business idea, you can seek inspiration by joining one of the other summer school tracks for the first two days. At the end of the week, each team will pitch a working business concept to a panel of experts. Engage with fun-to-be-with people from a variety of backgrounds and with a wide range of interests.
The foundation of the course lies in a proper business idea that is adequate for applying the course materials. We had a few options: 1) an own idea, 2) a predetermined idea 3) finding ideas on the spot. We’ve chosen to make a combination of our own ideas and pre-set ideas. Own ideas have been integrated as it attracts entrepreneurial minds that specifically have the goal to bring their ideas further using the course. This is something we can facilitate, as it is also what we do at the START program. A disadvantage is that we cannot control whether or not these ideas are adequate to apply the theory, but that’s a risk that we take and should manage during the course. The pre-set ideas are integrated to attract people that are interested in entrepreneurship, but do not have their own idea. These ideas are fictive but formulated in such a way that they are adequate to apply course theory on. We won’t let group think of ideas on the spot, as that takes too long and probably yields unfavourable ideas.
There will always be teams that have a hard time due to discovering their idea isn’t as good as they thought it was or disagreement within the team. To mediate this to some extent, we’ll integrate sessions in the course that have nothing to do with your own idea. These sessions will remix the teams of participants for the time of the session.
In a nutshell, the following skills and knowledge will be highlighted during this course:
- Formulate a business model that integrates marketing, finance, organisational strategy and customer orientation
- Understand funding options for a new venture
- Risk and rewards of managing entrepreneurial organisations
- Use of social media to communicate with customers and other stakeholders
- Experience with managing intercultural differences in a project team
- Learning how to both give and use critical feedback from stakeholders, team members and advisor
- Understand the growth of a company beyond the start-up level
Course topics
- Do you have an A-Team?; How to gather your Start-up A-team.
- Ideation methods; How to come up with a business idea
- Value proposition statements as a foundation; Do you understand your potential customers?
- Market research and analysis; The route to your first customer.
- Patents and Intellectual property; Is it really necessary for a startup?
- Business modelling; How to convert value into money.
- Marketing; What is your company's story?
- Start-up & Scale-up visit and Q&A
- Start-up finance; How to get the cash flowing.
- Pitching and storytelling; So you think you can pitch?
Course aims
After these days in the EntreneurialU track, you will be able to:
- Identify and evaluate business opportunities
- Co-create an innovative, impactful and scalable business concepts
- Add value to a high-performing team
- Learn from failure and celebrate success
- Gain experience from successful start-ups, scale-ups and spin-offs
- Confidently pitch a business idea
Stay tuned for more upcoming information regarding the 2023 course!
