Can we raise entrepreneurial awareness in students who go on foreign internships? The Uni-Key project has developed an online course which brings together interns who are based globally although most will be in Europe. The course encourages participants to explore entrepreneurial issues in their host organisation and to exchange experiences with their peers. An additional aim of the course is to encourage the interns to become knowledge transfer agents between their university and host organisation as well as ambassadors of both.

1. Facilitating entrepreneurial skills
across borders
by Anne Fox

2. Session route map
•Who? What? Why
Project •How?
background
•Key situations
•Mobile
•Social
Building the •Informal
course
•Game elements
•Diversity
•Gender
Challenges •Third country perspective
Opportunities

3. Section 1
Who, what, why?

4. Uni-Key Project

5. Uni-Key Project
• Funding: LLP Erasmus Programme
• Duration: October 2011 until October 2013
• Co-ordinating organisation: University of Applied Sciences
Fulda
• Project consortium: 9 universities, research
institutes, chambers, enterprises, NGOs from
Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, South
Africa, Spain

6. What’s the challenge?
• Encouraging SME internships
• Encouraging entrepreneurial mindset
• Uncovering learning through additional
tasks and reflection over and above the
intern work

7. Section 2
Building the course

8. Uni-Key Context

9. External Quality Board
• Recent graduates
• University teachers
• Business owners
• International student
Office administrators

10. Target participant
• EU-based Students seeking foreign SME
internship
• Entrepreneurial
• Intercultural
• Willing to move out of their comfort zone
Meet Giovanni

11. Key Learning Situations
What key learning situations do you think
arise when a student goes on a foreign
internship in another country?
• Use the chat

12. Key Learning Situations
• Situation: Planning an internship abroad -> turned into a career
development exercise
• Situation: Self-organisation during internship, including financial
issues -> turned into a problem solving and financial management
exercise
• Situation: Confidentiality and ethical challenges -> turned into a
good governance exercise
• Situation: Interim evaluation -> turned into an opportunity seizing
and intercultural networking exercise (“home ambassador
exercise”)
• Situation: Under-challenged and over-stressed -> turned into a
self-organisation and goal setting exercise
• Situation: Reluctance and related conflicts -> turned into a
strategic self-development and creative thinking exercise
• Situation: Reporting on internship activities -> turned into a
valorisation and effective communication exercise (“host
ambassador exercise”)

13. Uni-Key Pilot course modules

14. Uni-Key Pilot course modules

15. Sample task 1
• Select one element which you want to
develop or change. Check how the other
elements of the analysis can
contribute, support the
change/development process of the one
element you chose. of the boxes of the "mindmap", the one
In one
where I listed what I can gain from my experience, I
I realized that the thing I had stated that one of the advantages of doing an
most problems identifying internship abroad is the possibility of creating a
was "Who supports me?". So network of contacts which can be useful for my
I decided to think better future career. Reflecting on this point, I realized that I
about it and to try this should improve this aspect and work much more on
approach. it.

16. Sample task 2

17. Section 3
Challenges

18. Challenges
In developing the online training the UniKey project faces
some challenges such as:
■Developing a course which is relevant across borders and
across continents
■Developing a course which both business and universities
value
■Creating meaningful tasks which can be completed on top of
a fulltime job
■Connecting cohorts of interns to work together even though
they may be at different stages of their internship
■Creating tasks which can be completed with less than
optimal connectivity
■Increasing the value of the internship to the SME by sharing
relevant new developments from the student‟s home
institution

19. Diversity

20. Is this an issue?

21. Third country perspective

22. Informal Learning

23. Will you join us?
Second pilot run

24. Uni-Key Pilot course 2
Start: March 2013
End: July 2013
Organisation: 7 modules á 10 days (ca. 3-4 workload
hours) + welcome/feedback module
Language: English
Format: Moderated On-line Course

25. Thank you!
Let„s keep in touch:
Anne Fox
annef@annefox.eu
Twitter: foxdenuk
www.uni-key.eu
http://annefox.eu
or join the Europemobility
Network:
www.europemobility.eu

26. Sources
• Game lodge image
http://www.flickr.com/photos/instijl/2299283277/sizes/l/
• Godding & Godding http://www.goddingandgodding.com
• Informal learning http://youtu.be/gtdHZQ2VXhE
Courtesy of Charles Jennings & Fusion-Universal
http://www.fusion-universal.com
Slides are archived here:
http://www.slideshare.net/foxdenuk/facilitating-
entrepreneurial-skills-across-borders