How we are transforming the education of technology entrepreneurs

1. Innovations in
Entrepreneurship Education
Andrew Maxwell
September 2015
bestmax@yorku.ca

2. Agenda
2
 Challenges in educating entrepreneurs
 What should we teach entrepreneurs?
 Innovations in entrepreneurship education

3. Challenges in educating entrepreneurs
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 Traditional education doesn’t include entrepreneurship
 Academic institutions not entrepreneur friendly
 Academics don’t know how to educate entrepreneurs
 Entrepreneurship education is multi-disciplinary
 Entrepreneurs need access to on-demand education
 Value of qualifications (degrees) unclear

4. Traditional entrepreneurship education
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 Historically taught as a phenomenon
 View of successful entrepreneurs over-simplified
 Business plans seen as the critical element
 Limited recognition of differences between managing
large organizations and start ups
 Business development seen as a logical progression

5. What entrepreneurs should know
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 About themselves & how they relate to others
 How to enhance ideation & creativity
 Developing experimentation & validation techniques
 Facilitating customer engagement & partnerships
 Implementing, rapidly growing & pivoting
 Learning from failure & resilience

6. Skills entrepreneurs should develop
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 Communication, pitching & negotiation
 Leadership, team building & recruitment
 Problem solving, design thinking & implementation
 Cash flow management & financial planning
 Value creation & customer relationship management

7. Moving from business to entrepreneurship focus
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Entrepreneurship Courses
- Entrepreneurial Management
- Creativity and Innovation
- Technology Entrepreneurship
- Patent Law for Entrepreneurs
- Global Entrepreneurial
Marketing
- Entrepreneurial Finance
Business Courses
- Managerial Finance/
Accounting
- Managing Groups and Teams
- Financial Accounting
- Operations
- Modeling for Optimization
- Global Value Chain Strategies

8. Innovation in entrepreneurship education
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 Moving to experiential education to help
entrepreneurs make better decisions, and
understand entrepreneurial behaviours
 Innovative practices includes elements of:
play, empathy, creation, experimentation,
and reflection

9. Examples of innovation in entrepreneurship education
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 Experiential environment (i.e. StartUp weekend)
 Gamification of activities (i.e. Lego Serious Play)
 Online - Just in time learning (i.e. Venture Start)
 Learning journals (i.e. Entrepreneurship immersion)
 Experimentation (i.e. Lean StartUp)
 Co-op experience (i.e. BEST Co-op)
 New tools/frameworks (i.e. Business Model Canvas)

10. At Lassonde, we are disrupting
entrepreneurship education
Come see the BEST initiative @ YorkU
(Bergeron Entrepreneur’s in Science & Technology)
bestmax@yorku.ca
http://goo.gl/Uw5Zgp