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  • Working for more women in entrepreneurship

    Working for more women in entrepreneurship

    The main goal with this project is to show female students the opportunities within entrepreneurship and inspire them to pursue an entrepreneurial career, regardless of discipline or background.

    By Silje Bechmann Granås

    NTNU has a rich environment for innovation but this is a large and unexplored field for many students. Kvinneprosjektet is a part of Spark* NTNU, which gives us an advantage. Not only can we act as a way into this environment for female students, we also have access to an entire organization with a broad network and elaborate knowledge within many aspects of business development.

    What has Kvinneprosjektet done so far?

    To achieve our goal, we have focused on free and accessible events. The 1st of November 2019 the project was released to the public with a kick-off open for anyone interested and engaged in this theme. With great help from DNB and Spark* we hosted an inspiring evening with fierce female entrepreneurs and an introduction to design thinking. With food, drinks and music and nearly 80 attendees this resulted in a successful kick-off making us ready for 2020

    The 1st of November 2019 the project was released to the public with a kick-off open for anyone interested and engaged in this theme.

    Silje Bechmann Granås

    While the kick-off was held for promoting our mission and inspiring young students, we wanted to take the next step. We created the Bedriftssimulator – a program with the intention of introducing the attendees to basic principles of business development. Over three educational nights the girls learned more about generating ideas, teams, validation and long-term survival of startups using their own business ideas. To top it all off we had a finale where they could send in their work and get evaluated. The price was 20 000 NOK to continue working with the idea and/or developing her entrepreneurial skills. After hard work from both Kvinneprosjektet and the attendees, we reached the finale. Marie Louise Sunde held an inspirational talk about entrepreneurship, gender gaps and her own journey. All the contestants got to test their business idea with success, but one idea stood out. Amanda Engeberg Andersen and her platform for buying, selling and renting microhouses and lots for microhouses won the Bedriftssimulator, and 20 000 NOK to continue her entrepreneurial journey.

    The journey ahead

    The last year has been filled with hard work, inspiring role models, students from a broad range of different fields and lots of support. NTNU, Engage, Spark* and DNB has been important partners throughout our journey this far. As Kvinneprosjektets founders are moving on with different projects, we are excited to hand over the project to new and engaged people who can continue inspiring young women towards their entrepreneurial goals!

    History of Kvinneprosjektet

    In 2018 Elise Maria Irgens and Vetle Øien conducted a research study on Spark* NTNUs idea holders. While gender wasn’t the main focus, they realized that there was a lack of female representation in the Spark-system. Today, only 14% of the idea holders are women. This issue is reflected in the Norwegian society as well, as statistics show that 7 out of 10 founders are men. With women representing half of the population this can be considered as a societal issue. As a response to this gender gap, Elise Maria Irgens initiated Kvinneprosjektet.

  • Engage Talks – digital concept from Engage

    Engage Talks – digital concept from Engage

    Engage talks is held in norwegian, but have recap in english.

    Engage Talk 11: ADHD

    The theme for the first talk this year was; “Entrepreneurship and ADHD”. The guests in the talk was co-founder Silje Urke Antonsen from Køyr, psychiatrist Espen Anker with specialization in ADHD and our PHD student Cecilie Haukland from Engage. Maiken Nilsen Stensaker was the moderator. They talked about the link from entrepreneurship to ADHD and how people with ADHD have a positive impact on becoming an entrepreneur.
    The talk was held on the 18th of February.

    Engage Talk 10: Investment

    The theme for the tenth talk was investment; “Entrepreneurs and capital – how to apply for investor funds?”. The entrepreneur Cathrine Ro Heuch (business developer of Nordic Brain Tech) and investor Magne Uppman (co-founder of SNÖ Ventures) were the guests of the talk, together with Professor Roger Sørheim at NTNU. Eirik Medbø was the moderator. They talked about when an entrepreneur should apply for investor funds and the importance of looking for investors with the same needs.
    The talk was held on the 17th of December.

    https://player.vimeo.com/video/508205304?dnt=1″ allow=

    Engage Talk 9: Prototyping

    The theme for the ninth talk was prototyping; “Prototyping – an important learning process”. The entrepreneurs Jeanette Grønnslett (founder of Anue) and Anne Lise Øiesvold (co-founder of Føn Designlab) were the guests of the talk, together with Associate Professor Heikki Sjöman at NTNU. Eirik Medbø was the moderator. They talked about prototyping as a tool and why it is important to start prototyping early in an entrepreneurial process so that the entrepreneur can iterate along the way.
    The talk was held on the 19th of November.

    Engage Talk 8: Ecosystem

    The theme for the eighth talk was ecosystem; “Ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship”. This was a special edition live talk located in Stormen in Bodø, in connection with the GNIST Entrepreneurship week organized by Kunnskapsparken. A total of eight people from the region participated in the Engage Talk. They talked about how actors in the region can interact to increase the growth of innovation and entrepreneurship.
    The talk was held on the 22nd of October.

    https://player.vimeo.com/video/510326281?dnt=1″ allow=

    Engage Talk 7: Creativity

    The theme for the seventh talk was creativity; “Entrepreneurial mindset and the role of creativity”.
    The entrepreneurs Kim Daniel Arthur (founder of Ekte) and Håvard Sandaa Karlsen (co-founder of by north) were the guests of the talk, together with Associate Professor Elli Verhulst at NTNU. Maiken Nilsen Stensaker was the moderator. They talked about that everyone have the potential to be creative and that creativity is important when you are an entrepreneur to overcome challenges.
    The talk was held on the 24th of September, you can read the recap here

    Engage Talk 6: Gender

    The theme for the sixth talk was gender; “Entrepreneurship and gender – does it matter?” Professor Gry Alsos, former entrepreneur Anita Skog (founder of Balansen) from Innovation Norway and entrepreneur Lisbeth Bjerva (co-founder of North Wine & Spirits) were the guests of the talk. Maiken Nilsen Stensaker was the moderator. They talked about why it is fewer women than men that start their own businesses in Norway and what the society can do to make a change. The talk was held on the 11th of June, you can read a recap here

    Engage Talk 5: Student entrepreneurship

    The theme for the fifth talk was student entrepreneurship; “Business idea – the study time as a springboard”. Student leader of Spark* NTNU Rasmus Thunem, entrepreneur Siw-Cathrine Braa (co-founder of Combine) and entrepreneur Michal Meyer Nilssen (founder of Norskin) were the guests of the talk. Maiken Nilsen Stensaker was the moderator. They talked about the benefits and opportunities of becoming an entrepreneur as a student.
    The talk was held on the 4th of June, you can read the recap here

    https://player.vimeo.com/video/427741163?dnt=1″ allow=

    Engage Talk 4: Team

    The theme for the fourth talk was team; “virtual team – how can we succeed?” The entrepreneur Stina Skånhoff (one of the founders of Seacirc) together with doctoral students Maiken Spjelkevik and Sigrid Brandshaug from NTNU were the guests of the talk. Mette Mari Johnsen was the moderator. They talked about what characterizes a startup team, and how you can succeed in a virtual team – that is highly relevant these days because of the corona epidemic. The talk was held on the 14th of May, you can read a recap here

    Engage Talk 3: Health

    The theme for the third talk was health; “vital innovation”. Health entrepreneur and nurse Vårin Vaskinn (one of the founders of Vilje Bionics) together with the doctoral students Gunn-Berit Neergård and Alexandra Bieliei at NTNU were the guests of the talk. The moderator was Eirik Medbø. They talked about what innovation in healthcare is and discussed why it is so important.
    The talk was held on the 30th of April.

    Engage Talk 2: Culture

    The theme for the second talk was culture; “shock digitalizing in the cultural industry”. Songwriter Caroline Ailin and standup comedian Kevin Kildal were the guests of the talk and discussed the topic with moderator Ben Toscher. They talked about how the corona epidemic has affected their work life and culture in general – and how culture can exist “online”. The talk was held on the 16th of April.

    Engage Talk 1: Uncertainty

    The first talk was held on the 2nd of April on our Facebook page, and the theme for the talk was uncertainty; “how do entrepreneurs handle a world that is turned upside down?” The entrepreneurs Mariell Israelsen (the founder of No14) and Marie Jacobsen Lauvås (the founder of Capeesh) were the guests of the talk, together with professor Gry Agnete Alsos at Nord University. Dag Håkon Haneberg was the moderator. They discussed how uncertainty can become an opportunity and how you can facilitate to find these opportunities and take advantage of them. You can read a recap here

  • Nine start-ups at NTNU receive STUD-ENT

    Nine start-ups at NTNU receive STUD-ENT

    Erik Klevar

    Every year the Norwegian Government, through the Norwegian Research Council (NRC), hand out grants of 1 million NOK each. The benefitting parties are start-ups run by graduating students who have achieved progress and need more funding to take their projects to the next level. This year there were 42 applicants, and 20 million NOK was granted to 20 teams of hopefuls. Close to half were students at NTNU.

    – More of the entrepreneurial mentality will help Norway through the restructuring we know we are going through. STUD-ENT is strengthening the entrepreneurship culture at the universities and colleges. The climate crisis and the corona crisis actualizes this more than ever. I think it is inspiring and exciting to see the next generation think big, Minister of Industry Iselin Nybø said in a press release.

    Important

    NRC contributes to helping startups in critical phases of their conception. When students graduate from NTNU or other universities and colleges, the students are effectively full-time employees in their start-ups and more often than not without a steady income. For entrepreneurs in this position, it is therefore essential to have funding to pay expenses and invest where it is necessary to create a sustainable business.

    Together with other grants like NTNU Discovery and grants from Innovation Norway, the grant system in Norway covers many aspects that are important for today’s startups. Technology development, payroll, strategizing, marketing, and testing are all things that our hopefuls must consider. Some grants, like NTNU Discovery, focus primarily on technology development, and in order to cover other sides of what makes a business go around, soft funding from different sources is essential for today’s student driven start-ups.

    – STUD-ENT enables students with the most promising ideas to continue working with their venture full time after graduation. Starting a new company involves a lot of risks and it is difficult to get financial support in this early phase. STUD-ENT gives the students some more time to work with their venture and increases the probability of creating a successful venture. I am thrilled that so many of our being able to get this support. I think the main reason that many of our students get Stud-ent is hard work and the unique sharing culture at NSE. Previous students at NSE that have received STUD-ENT help and push today’s student. This enables knowledge sharing and creates a culture that foster success, NSE lecturer Even Haug Larsen could tell Engage.

    Engage plays a key part in the ecosystem

    Engage partners NTNU School of Entrepreneurship (NSE) and Spark* NTNU are sure to be very proud of their achievements this last year. Eight of the nine start-ups that are connected to NTNU are current and former users of Spark* NTNUs services.

    NSE is usually well represented and this year 7 out of the 20 million ended up with the school. As Larsen stated, the reason for this could be the unique culture at NSE and the hard work the students put into their ventures. 5th-year students Marcus Nickelsen and Vidar Melstveit, together with 4th-year student Henning Seeberg, are the minds behind Njord Robotics. Together they are creating the world’s first autonomous washing robots for use in land-based fish farming.

    Henning, Marcus and Vidar
    Henning, Marcus and Vidar

    – We are of course very happy to receive the grant from the Norwegian Research Council. The funding will ensure our operations and our progress for the next year and help us with the next step to commercialize. We want to use the money on development and prototyping and some of it will also go to salaries and office spaces, COO Marcus Nickelsen said to Engage.

    Start-ups receiving funding from Forskningsrådet

    • Rubato Booking – Digital booking platform connecting artists and music event organizers (NSE)
    • SlideDrain AS – Innovative drains for an easy, quick and safe installation (NSE)
    • Ocean Access – Autonomous communication system for remote offshore monitoring (NSE)
    • Metaito AS – Factsplat: A customizable intranet for effective navigation of digital tools and services
    • WAID: Rapid preparedness and delegate sharing in humanitarian aid organisations (NSE)
    • Snowroller AS – Commercialization of a complete circular business model (CCBM) for the fashion industry (NSE)
    • Njord Robotics: Autonomous Cleaning Drones for Land-based Fish Farming (NSE)
    • Ntention AS – Modular gesture recognition system for customizable Human Computer Interaction (HCI) in AR/VR applications (NSE)
    • Polysense – measuring biomarkers in breath

  • How 3D-printers can help fight the pandemic

    How 3D-printers can help fight the pandemic

    by Tina Larsen

    In the end of March 2020, the Norwegian health care system expressed that they lacked enormous amounts of protective equipment as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Henrik Wille, a former student at The School of Entrepreneurship at NTNU, wanted to see if there was anything that he could do to meet these needs. Since he has earlier experience with 3D-printing, he quickly started to wonder if 3D-printers could be used. He knew that there were a lot of people with access to 3D-printers that wanted to help. “I thought it would be a smart idea to engage these people together, and that I could take the responsibility to organize the initiative and drive it forward”, Wille said.

    Therefore, he gathered the makers (people with access to 3D-printers that wanted to contribute) so that they could be a united front. He created MAKERS MOT COVID-19. The group is an effort to respond to the lack of protective equipment that the health care system is experiencing. After speaking with health care workers and hospital procurement, Henrik Wille discovered that the greatest need was facial visors. Luckily, this was also something that was possible to design and produce by using 3D-printers.

    Henrik Wille, the initiator behind MAKERS MOT COVID-19

    After mapping the need and engaging people with access to 3D printers, Henrik Wille needed to settle two things.

    First, we had to ensure that everyone in the group produced the same design. Second, we had to set up an ordering system that connected us to the health care system.

    Henrik Wille

    In consultation with a medical center in Kolbotn, they tested solutions and iterated on the model until it was complete. Further, they developed an ordering system where people from the health care system could put in their orders and people with access to 3D-printers could accept them. They then started producing facial visors by using 3D-printers and as of today, they have produced a total of 30 313 visors (numbers gathered 21/04-20). The visors are distributed free of charge to the health care institutions for use in the fight against the pandemic.

    delivered facial visors and orders

    Taking action

    Henrik Wille expressed that the things he learned from NTNU School of Entrepreneurship have been invaluable in a process like this. “Everyone can have an idea, but it’s all about turning it into action. That’s a mindset I learned from The School of Entrepreneurship”, Wille said.

    He noticed there were people that wanted to contribute, but that they didn’t know how. He had an idea and took action. After posting his ideas about how 3D-printers could contribute against the pandemic on different groups on Facebook, he got great feedback and it quickly escalated to something that everyone wanted to join. “If you have an idea, find the first place to test out the idea, get feedback and get people to join you”, Wille said.

    Help the makers fight the pandemic

    So far, the voluntary makers have used money from their own pockets to make the visors. Because this is not sustainable in the long run, they have started a fundraising campaign. If you want to contribute to this great cause, please follow this link to make a donation: 3d19.no/spleis 

    How the facial visors are made
  • The Balance in Modern Entrepreneurship Education

    The Balance in Modern Entrepreneurship Education

    In modern entrepreneurship education, more and more examples of active students and authentic learning occur.

    By Torgeir Aadland , Associate Professor

    Students are no longer being a passive audience, reading about entrepreneurship and its phenomena, imagining entrepreneurship as a linear or phase based-process; students are now often acting as entrepreneurs. However, shifting into solely acting as entrepreneurs might influence the educational outcomes in ways educators have not thought about before.

    Entrepreneurship education, as it was thirty or fourth years ago, is often described as having passive students, teaching about entrepreneurship, and being ‘old school’.

    Torgeir Aadland

    Doing entrepreneurship is often advocated one of the most efficient ways of learning entrepreneurship, and in the later decades, higher education seems to follow this view, too. The literature on entrepreneurship education described this approach as ‘learning by doing’ (Pittaway and Cope, 2007), or that students’ new ventures function as ‘learning vessels’ in the educational setting (Lackéus and Williams Middleton, 2015). Entrepreneurship education has therefore moved into being more student-centred and authentic – in modern entrepreneurship education, teachers are facilitators and the world is the classroom. However, this rapid shift has also alerted researchers to warn about cursorily moving from ‘the old school’; students should not experience risks whose consequences they cannot bear, while teachers need to overlook the course and ensure students learn. Hence, there are pros and cons with various approaches and good combinations are necessary to obtain an excellent education.

    Student-centred vs. Teacher-centred

    Entrepreneurship education, as it was thirty or fourth years ago, is often described as having passive students, teaching about entrepreneurship, and being ‘old school’. On the other, ‘modern’ side, we find action-based education, teaching through entrepreneurship and being the ‘ideal approach’. In the modern approach, students are taking responsibility for their learning, choosing topics to study in detail, and select the problems they will solve themselves. While this approach gives the students ownership of their learning situation, it also risks that the students focus on less important topics, invest less effort in the activities, and focus solely on practice without relating it to theory. Although the more teacher-centred educational design also has limitations, educators should strive for a balance between the uses of the two outliers.

    Authentic vs. Imitation

    As entrepreneurship education focus more on learning by doing or educating the students to be entrepreneurial, education in entrepreneurship also move more towards and into the professional, entrepreneurial context; entrepreneurship education becomes more authentic. This way, students are working on complex entrepreneurial activities, feeling the uncertainty of entrepreneurship, and obtaining professional experiences from authentic entrepreneurial activities. However, moving away from the imitating educational approaches mean that the students and teacher lose control over the context and that the academic outcomes might be limited. While the imitating educational approaches might miss necessary complexity and not give the students professional experiences, avoiding this outlier might shift the education into an unclear design; educators should strive for a balance between authentic and imitating entrepreneurship education.

    Aadland, T., & Aaboen, L. (2020). An entrepreneurship education taxonomy based on authenticity. European Journal of Engineering Education, 1-18.

    Lackéus, M., & Williams Middleton, K. (2015). Venture creation programs: bridging entrepreneurship education and technology transfer. Education+ training. 57(1), 48-73.

    Pittaway, L., & Cope, J. (2007). Simulating entrepreneurial learning: Integrating experiential and collaborative approaches to learning. Management learning, 38(2), 211-233.

  • Engage about challenges and opportunities in an uncertain time

    Engage about challenges and opportunities in an uncertain time

    By Tina Larsen

    We asked the management of Engage about their thoughts on the current situation and how it affects their work and the future role of Engage Centre. The current COVID-19 pandemic situation has turned life as we know it upside down. Uncertainty is a key description of our new everyday life where new challenges and opportunities arise. What are the opportunities Engage sees and how can we take advantage of these?

    Complex situation

    The pandemic has resulted in around 400,000 people in Norway being registered as unemployed, partially unemployed or job seekers at Nav. This is a large percentage of the Norwegian population. In a complex situation like this, we need entrepreneurs who have the ability to identify challenges, the will to act upon these challenges, the knowledge to acquire the resources and skills needed and the confidence to be the driving force for change. Øystein Widding, the center director at Engage, has seen a tendency, especially in developing countries, where many become entrepreneurs due to pure necessity. Will the people losing their jobs in Norway be more open-minded to become entrepreneurs? How can Engage facilitate more people to create their own workplace?

    Engage Centre is discussing taking part in a continuing educational programme for those being affected by the layoffs that want to become entrepreneurs. This is not a group Engage has approached in the past

    Dag Håkon Haneberg, a PhD Candidate from Engage

    Dag Håkon Haneberg is also conducting research on how COVID-19 affects start-ups at the School of Entrepreneurship.

    “Right now, it is too early to conclude anything since we are still collecting data. Because the situation can change quite quickly, we follow up approximately every two weeks. It is important to get an overview of how things are going so that we, as a professional staff at the School of Entrepreneurship, can better adapt teaching and support. It is also important knowledge to have, as other universities with similar educational programmes may face similar challenges”

    New digital platform

    Engage talk is another new concept Engage is trying out. The concept is a digital series in the field of entrepreneurship where we highlight current topics that can be useful for professionals, experts and businesses. The goal is to connect these different actors. The first talk was held on the 2nd of April on our Facebook page, and the theme for the talk was uncertainty; “how do entrepreneurs handle a world that is turned upside down?” The entrepreneurs Mariell Israelsen (the founder of No14) and Marie Jacobsen Lauvås (the founder of Capeesh) were the guests of the talk, together with professor Gry Agnete Alsos at Nord University. Dag Håkon Haneberg was the moderator. They discussed how uncertainty can become an opportunity and how you can facilitate to find these opportunities and take advantage of them.

    Engage TALK

    It is important that you take care of your existing customers, but at the same time you should listen to the market. Which new issues arise for potential customers in such a situation? How can we solve these problems? It’s all about trying and testing out different solutions, and you have to be quick. Don’t use a lot of resources and time to create a solution. Make it fast and get feedback on it.

    Marie Jacobsen Lauvås, the founder of Capeesh

    Professor Alsos thinks entrepreneurs and startups can have an advantage in this situation. First of all, there is a short distance from idea to decision-making. They are also most likely already in a testing phase and they have employees who are used to being involved in such changes. The disadvantage is that they have less available resources. However, she believes that those that have the will and ability to test new creative ideas are also those who will succeed. 

    If you want to watch the Engage Talk, check out the video below. The next talk is on the 16th of April. 

  • Entrepreneurship is the ability to turn ideas into action

    Entrepreneurship is the ability to turn ideas into action

    By Anniken Sanna

    Sigrid Westad Brandshaug is a Ph.D. student at Engage. Her research focuses on how entrepreneurial teams handle challenges and uncertainties, which is also relevant to today’s COVID-19 crisis.

    Being stuck can enhance both innovation and learning

    – I am exploring how entrepreneurial teams move from being “stuck” in a challenging situation to getting “unstuck”, and what they learn in this process. This question is relevant these days when the whole society is “stuck” as a result of the corona crisis. What I find in my research is that this state of “stuckness” actually can enhance both innovation and learning, depending on how the team handle the challenge they are facing. Maybe that applies to the situation our society is currently experiencing as well? There are many interesting examples of this nowadays where we see new products, services and ways to reorganize as a response to the challenging situation. And it will also be very interesting to see what we learn, as individuals and as a society, from being in this crisis.

    “I believe that teams, in general, will benefit from having an entrepreneurial mindset“

    Sigrid Westad Brandshaug

    – Independently of the Corona-crisis, I assume that if we look more closely at the process behind innovations, we will find that they are not a result of an “individual hero” making an effort, but rather ideas implemented as a collective effort. That is also why I am interested in the entrepreneurial team, because entrepreneurship and innovation are mainly a team-based activity. To solve complex problems, you need different perspectives and competences, – and people are usually also more creative and persevering when working in a team with others. Therefore, I think it is important to have the team perspective in Engage. Well-functioning teams will be better entrepreneurs! But I also see it the other way around, – I believe that teams in general (not only entrepreneurial teams) will benefit from having an entrepreneurial mindset; where the team is open to new ideas, dare to explore and make mistakes, are open to feedback from stakeholders, able to reflect and makes changes to improve. Together with colleagues in Experts in Teamwork I am therefore offering seminars and exercises for teachers that help stimulate the entrepreneurial mindset of students in Experts in Teamwork.

    Sigrid Westad Brandshaug
    Sigrid Westad Brandshaug

    Entrepreneurship is the ability to turn ideas into action

    Fufen Jin works as an analyst and researcher for Engage, and is the leader of Engages work package Documentation and Dissemination of Knowledge.

    Fufen believes that entrepreneurship is important because entrepreneurship is the ability to turn ideas into action. She explains that entrepreneurial skills such as creativity, innovation and risk-taking, as well as the ability to plan and to manage projects in order to achieve objectives, help to pave a road to success, not only for entrepreneurs, but also for all others who wish to contribute to moving the world forward, she explains.

    In a way, all Engage stakeholders are with us in creating a comprehensive knowledge base regarding entrepreneurship education

    Fufen Jin

    -Engage has a vision to increase the number of students in Norway and around the world with entrepreneurial skills and mindset to become change agents and innovate for the better. An important task of mine is to gather knowledge and provide evidence that shows whether and how this vision is achieved. This has been done through questionnaire surveys, interviews, observation notes, and some other methods. In a way, all Engage stakeholders, through participating in Engage activities and contributing to the data collection process, are with us in creating a comprehensive knowledge base regarding entrepreneurship education. This knowledge is further disseminated to advance our understanding about entrepreneurship education and research.

    Fufen Jin
    Fufen Jin

    Entrepreneurship and innovation is about creating value for others

    Elli Verhulst is an associate professor at the section of Experts in Teamwork. She is leading work package 1, where they focus on how students from all disciplines can develop interdisciplinary teamwork skills. Next to that, she is mostly involved in Engages focus areas on sustainability and teachers (train-the-trainer).

    Elli explains that for her, entrepreneurship and innovation are about creating value for others. This can be done through understanding the needs, coming up with solutions for those needs, and making these solutions available for those who need them.

    – Such solutions can be products, services, organizational or systemic changes. I see the role of innovation and entrepreneurship in the skills and mindset that these fields offer, and that is crucial to make a change for the better to happen. You need for example insights and experience from different (professional) perspectives, as well as the skill to cooperate with others within and outside your organization. And this is where interdisciplinary teamwork skills come into the picture.  

    Entrepreneurship and innovation have a crucial role in shaping change agents

    Elli Verhulst

    – When we see the challenges the world is dealing with, both today and in the future, it shows how some people see what is needed, take action and mobilize others with the aim to help those in need. These are the changes agents we need, and entrepreneurship and innovation have a crucial role in shaping them.

    Elli Verhulst
    Elli Verhulst


  • Stimulating best practice sharing for Entrepreneurship Education

    Stimulating best practice sharing for Entrepreneurship Education

    Networks for Venture Creation Programmes worldwide and Entrepreneurship Educators in Norway

    By Eirik Medbø, Innovation Manager

    An important part of Engage’s vision is to work towards better practices within Entrepreneurship Education. And in order to do that, we need to combine our own learnings with insights from other experts in Norway and around the world. Read about and join the networks where we share and learn from each other!

    Engage has worked to establish two networks for educators within the fieled of Entrepreneurship; the VCP Forum and the Norwegian Forum for Entrepreneurship Education.

    VCP Forum – for Venture Creation Programmes

    The VCP Forum involves educators and initiatives for Venture Creation Programmes – study programmes where students actively learn through starting their own ventures while studying. One of the Engage partners – the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship, is an example of such a programme. The VCP Forum currently involves around 20 institutions worldwide.

    Do you work with a Venture Creation Programme and want to get involved? Contact Even Larsen for more information.

    Norwegian Forum for Entrepreneurship Education

    The Norwegian Forum for Entrepreneurship Education is a network for educators and researchers within Entrepreneurship Education within higher education in Norway. It includes a wide variety of Universities and University Colleges, and a different ways of teaching entrepreneurship, to students from within business, technology and creative industry disciplines. It currently includes educators from around 12 Norwegian institutions.

    Do you work with Entrepreneurship Education at a Norwegian University or University College? Join our Facebook group to get involved, or contact Eirik Medbø to get an invitation to the network.

  • The (Engage) course “Innovation and Change processes” at Nord University Business School

    The (Engage) course “Innovation and Change processes” at Nord University Business School

    What do you do when you’re starting a new course on Innovation? You’ll need to think like an entrepreneur yourself – sense an opportunity, act on it, and mobilize resources and people to make it happen.

    By Marianne Arntzen-Nordqvist

    This is my story of establishing a course with new ways of teaching at Nord University Business School. Engage was established in 2016, about a year before I was supposed to finish my PhD at Nord University Business School. At the same time, the Business School was revitalizing their Master program in Business Science. To make the story short, I was asked to participate as an Engage representative (although I was not formally a part of Engage at that time), where my mission would be to see how Engage could be integrated into the new program. Me and my Engage colleague Gry Alsos discussed different possibilities on how to integrate Engage to the study program, but I must admit, I really didn`t understand what integrating Engage really implied, and I barely understood what Engage was really about, so I had a hard time explaining to people what our vision and mission was. Eventually, it was decided that we could create an “Engage course” that would be compulsory for all the master students, and that I would be responsible for developing and running it. That was the start of an interesting, frustrating and very educational journey. Partly because I was trying to finish my PhD at that time, but also because my interpretation of creating an Engage course was to stir everything about Engage together into one single course. Engage has many goals, including teaching students about innovation and entrepreneurship, developing students entrepreneurial skills and mindsets and educate people so that they become change agents and able to solve complex world-wide problems. What in the world would be the theoretical foundation for such a course? I wasn`t familiar with team/action/experience/problem-based teaching methods either, so It was overwhelming, and I had no idea where to start.

    Innovation and Change processes

    Fortunately, Bjørg Riibe Ramskjell, my creative colleague came to join the development team, and I was rescued. Creating a new course is innovation, and innovation takes teamwork. So together, we created the course “Innovation and Change processes”. Actually, we involved several people, our colleagues, students, partners in Engage and external organizations to get input to the content, the tools and the methods for the course. I would therefore say it was an open innovation process, as we integrated their ideas, knowledge and expertise to create the best course possible.  

    Approximately 50-70 students from all across the world participates in this course. This brings great diversity to the classroom in terms of backgrounds, languages and cultures. The overall objective is to teach students about innovation and entrepreneurship and how to meet challenges in business and society through an entrepreneurial mindset. However, the course is designed to encompass a much broader objective, including practicing student-active learning activities, student-to-student learning, developing collaborative skills and encourage student engagement. The main feature of the course is therefore the mandatory project week we call Blast-Off Week, which involves practice through action/experience/problem/and team-based learning methods, as well as reflection. 

    Blast-Off Week is four days of intensive project work, where students collaborate in international teams to come up with innovative solutions to real problems presented by local organizations. This means finding new business opportunities, new markets, new perspectives to current solutions, or other ideas to help them meet the demands or changes in their environment. It require the students to use what they have learned during class, their knowledge and creativity, and make the necessary assumptions and choices which will result in a potential solution to these challenges. The solutions are then presented in teams on the fifth day where they are evaluated and graded.
     

    Challenging and represent uncertainty on many levels

    The week is challenging and represent uncertainty on many levels for the students. For instance, they have to work in teams with people they don`t know and that are from other countries and cultures, speak English and present in front of their classmates every day and to the organization and sensors, and they have to be creative and create new concepts and solutions, from which there are no “correct answers”. The teams are also jointly evaluated and graded as part of the assessment, which will affect their final individual grade in the end of the course. This is for some of the high-achieving students very stressful. Some also question its relevance for themselves or the study program, and do not see how knowledge and skills about innovation and entrepreneurship correspond with their vision of what a business graduate needs to be attractive on the job market. This is an important element as the students do not choose to take this specific course, but have to participate and pass in order to graduate. 

    Because the week is challenging, mentors are engaged to help facilitate and guide the teams in the process. Blast-off week first ran in the fall of 2018, with eight faculty members from the business school as facilitators. Their task was to be present and available for the students during the week, provide feedback, help the students when they got stuck and make sure the teams made progress towards the finishing result. The following year when Blast-off week ran for the second time, some of the faculty where replaced with students that had taken the course the previous year. Acknowledging the uncertainties experienced by the students related to Blast-Off Week, we consider the involvement of peers that have already been through the process as helpful in the facilitation of the teams. 

    After two years of running this course, we find that the course – and especially Blast-Off week is particularly effective for team and network building, creativity training and for practicing innovation. And although it is resource intensive, we believe that it contributes to accomplishing the vision of Engage, which is to increase the number of students in Norway and around the world with entrepreneurial skills and the mindset to become change agents in all contexts.

  • Students’ entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurship education

    Students’ entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurship education

    By Karin Wigger, Assistant Professor, and Iselin Mauseth, PhD student

    Entrepreneurial mindset is said to be the way entrepreneurs think and act

    To possess the entrepreneurial mindset is portrayed to be key for everyone who acts entrepreneurially. In particular, having the entrepreneurial mindset enhances the ability to sense, act and mobilize, even under uncertain conditions (McGrath & MacMillan, 2000). This means that the entrepreneurial mindset makes an individual passionately seek new opportunities, pursue the best opportunities with enormous discipline, focus on execution and engaging their surroundings to increase the performance and entrepreneurial success. Therefore, the entrepreneurial mindset is regarded as an important assess crucial for economic development and social and environmental value creation.

    However, the nature of the entrepreneurial mindset and how individuals instill this mindset is yet somewhat unclear. While some accuse that the entrepreneurial mindset is something that is just embedded in the DNA of entrepreneurs, others treat it as an asset that also can grow through education and training. Believing in the latter, entrepreneurship education is a way to support the development of the entrepreneurial mindset. Indeed, given that the entrepreneurial mindset is associated with entrepreneurial action resulting in value creation, educational efforts to instill the entrepreneurial mindset are steadily increasing.

    What constitutes the entrepreneurial mindset and how we as entrepreneurship educators teach students in a way that makes them develop the entrepreneurial mindset is still far from understood. This made us at the Engage center wonder, have “entrepreneurial mindset” just become a buzzword or can students develop an entrepreneurial mindset through entrepreneurship education? To address this question, the Engage center conducts research that contribute to the ongoing debate about the development of students’ entrepreneurial mindset in the context of higher education. For example, research at the center aims to increase our knowledge of what the entrepreneurial mindset is, how (i.e., through which pedagogical interventions) the entrepreneurial mindset is developed and how we can measure the development of the entrepreneurial mindset. In the following we present the Entrepreneurial mindset review project, a concrete example of what Engage does to contribute to research on developing students’ entrepreneurial mindset.

    Insight into the mindset review project

    To deepen our understanding of how entrepreneurship education can influence the entrepreneurial mindset, we shifted focus towards what entrepreneurship education actually is shown to impact. We reviewed prior research on the assessment of entrepreneurship education and then we link these impacts to the concept of entrepreneurial mindset. In particular, we focus on the abilities that students develop throughout their entrepreneurship education. On the one hand, the aim of education is to learn students new abilities which shall help them to achieve the defined learning outcome of for example a course or a study program. On the other hand, it is said that having an entrepreneurial mindset inhering the ability to rapidly sense, act and mobilize under uncertain conditions (McGrath and MacMillan 2000). Therefore, compiling research results on students’ abilities development through entrepreneurship education and linked them to the concept of entrepreneurial mindset helps us to gain more understanding of developing entrepreneurial mindset.

    A lot of effort is put on understanding how entrepreneurship education influence the students’ ability to sense, and particularly to abilities to find creative solutions and perceive and evaluate opportunities. Nearly all studies we analyzed detect a positive impact on the students’ ability to senses. When it comes to students’ ability to act, the effort is put down in understanding the impact of entrepreneurship education on the students’ ability to act upon a perceived opportunity and their ability to start a business. Yet, few attempts have been made to link entrepreneurship education to action beyond start-up activities. An entrepreneurial mindset is not bounded by the creation of new businesses, but include ability to act as intrapreneur (i.e., helping an existing company move forward) or create value. This indicates that the research is lagging behind when it comes to measures used to assess the students’ ability to act. We find several studies that evaluate whether entrepreneurship education influence students’ ability to mobilize. Where several studies assessed the impact students’ ability to communicate, build networks and collaborate with team members. In fact, did all these mobilize studies only report positive effects, like for the studies reporting effects on students’ abilities to act.

    Our ongoing research show that entrepreneurship education can influence abilities that are associated with entrepreneurial action, which is seen as the outcome of having the entrepreneurial mindset. Even though the use of measures of students’ abilities to sense, act and mobilize are somewhat inconsistent, we are confident when we say that we now know that entrepreneurship education can infuse parts of students’ entrepreneurial mindset. From our analysis we see that there are few studies that are measuring multiple entrepreneurial mindset abilities. This means that results are highly dependent on the specific indicators used in each study, which restricts our possibility to understand how the three key abilities are linked together. Moreover, we do acknowledge that entrepreneurship education can have an impact beyond developing students’ abilities, such as their intentions, self-efficacy or personal traits, and that these facets also can have an influence on the scope of students’ abilities. So, as the amount of entrepreneurship education around the world continues to grow, we still need more research-based knowledge to establish a coherent and practical understanding of the impact of entrepreneurship education and its role in developing students’ entrepreneurial mindset. Even more importantly, what constitutes the entrepreneurial mindset.

    References

    McGrath, R. G. and I. C. MacMillan (2000). The entrepreneurial mindset: Strategies for continuously creating opportunity in an age of uncertainty, Harvard Business Press.

    McGrath, R. G. and I. C. MacMillan (2000). The entrepreneurial mindset: Strategies for continuously creating opportunity in an age of uncertainty, Harvard Business Press.