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  • Can we evaluate entrepreneurship education?

    Can we evaluate entrepreneurship education?

    By Torgeir Aadland, Co-director Engage and Associate Professor, NTNU

    The popularity of action-based, authentic and self-directed entrepreneurship education is prominent in many educational systems around the world today. Some entrepreneurship education implements and utilises incubators, makerspaces and the closeness of the entire world through the use of digital means in the educational offerings. As such, students have the possibility to investigate, pursue and experience endless opportunities. And as educators, we have endless outcomes to assess.

    A result of the many outcomes is that evaluation and assessment of entrepreneurship education are discussed frequently among scholars. A short time ago, I participated in a forum where the question was raised again – should we assess our efforts as educators in entrepreneurship? And how should we do it? The first part I find easy to answer, but the second is a challenge. Are we educating entrepreneurs whose main purpose is to start new ventures again and again? Are we educating intrapreneurs? People in support roles for other entrepreneurs? Or just change agents that could take many roles and shine at various points in time?

    Focus on students’ intentions?

    Needless to say, all of the above require different approaches to assessment. If we simplify and say that the outcome should solely be entrepreneurs with new start-ups, we bite way more than we can chew. Way more. I still miss seeing any education with more than 50 percent of their student working in their own start-up upon graduation. If we rather focus on students’ intentions, I fear that the students’ last weeks’ results influence the outcome. Supportive customers, peers or mentors could boost students’ positive attitude. The same could a perfect product performance. Or sales! However, high intent is not the same as a successful entrepreneur. Nor a good one. The academic results could be below average, while the intent is high. And all of these individual outcomes could be influenced by the students’ experiences as entrepreneurs.

    As such, our community still has to research and develop tools and procedures for assessment in entrepreneurship education. I think we can do this, but then we have to move beyond the individual and outdated measures, like exams or students’ intentions.

    Torgeir Aadland

    I believe we need to rethink our view on assessment. Entrepreneurship education is too complex to only rely on one outcome measure, but at the same time, we cannot force ourselves to investigate all of our students’ outcomes and results. However, we could start with a baseline – the foundation all entrepreneurs need, like an understanding of opportunities, markets and resources. General knowledge, perhaps. We could then move on to investigate the students’ skills – how they have worked with their own experiences and entrepreneurial activities. And in the end, we can build on the prior with an assessment of students’ experiences, for instance through their reflective thinking. This way, we can explore whether students have the knowledge, skills and mindset needed to become the change agents we strive to educate.

    Individual student’s experiences

    However, while this appears to be a straightforward job, we still lack an understanding of the needed knowledge, skills and mindset to become a successful entrepreneur. It is also a challenge to design good and efficient assessment tools, especially the more we move towards the individual student’s experiences and reflections. This part requires that the educator involves herself in and understands the student’s entrepreneurial efforts. Needless to say, this will expect much of us as educators, and perhaps more than we can afford. As such, our community still has to research and develop tools and procedures for assessment in entrepreneurship education. I think we can do this, but then we have to move beyond the individual and outdated measures, like exams or students’ intentions. We need a mix, but we need a good mix, and right now, this is an ongoing and unfinished work. I think this topic will be discussed at my next conference, too.

    Read more about Torgeir Aadland research

  • How entrepreneurial methods can support student teams to work with sustainable innovation.

    How entrepreneurial methods can support student teams to work with sustainable innovation.

    By Sigrid Westad Brandshaug and Elli Verhulst

    An example of how student teams can be encouraged and supported to act, interact, challenge, embrace and reflect while working to solve problems related to sustainability issues.

    The number of sustainable challenges is growing, whereby higher education has an important role in preparing students to be able to work with such complex problems (Zhou et al., 2020). Entrepreneurial methods are thereby mentioned to support the development of the needed skillset (Filser et al., 2019). In January 2021 we had the opportunity to present and test entrepreneurial methods to a class of master students in the course “Sustainable innovation in the industrial cluster Arctic Cluster Team”.

    This was an Experts in Teamwork village at NTNU managed in collaboration with Engage. The students worked in interdisciplinary teams to solve real-world problems, while they were also practicing and developing their teamwork skills. Due to corona, the course was digital. Although all communication was on Zoom, we observed students showing great engagement, participation and knowledge sharing. Based on student feedback and own reflections we want to share what we believe contributed to the positive learning atmosphere in the course, as this may be teaching strategies that can be adapted and applied by other educators as well, especially in courses where the aim is to support students to develop entrepreneurial skills and a mindset to become change agents. Since the strategies are related to the Engage framework, they will be presented as examples of the five concepts:

    Challenge – Trough cooperation with external partners providing real-world challenges, the students were expected to propose solutions that add value to different stakeholders. For many students, this was a new way of thinking: “aren´t school assignments for the purpose of grading?”. However, they found this challenge highly motivating. As one student put it: “We can actually contribute with something that has a sustainable impact!”

    Interact – Cooperation and interaction with external partners, but also between the students was at the core of this course. At the beginning of the course, actions were initiated and structured by us as teachers, but after the first week, the students were in charge of their project and process. This resulted for instance in a session where the students made their own structure for presenting their project to another group. They kept sharing feedback, ideas and knowledge for several hours. At a certain point we just had to stop them, after all, it was Friday afternoon…

    Act – All groups were engaged by going through using creative processes on projects in iterative cycles: researching, developing, testing, receiving feedback and learning. Each partner introduced their case, but the students worked on specifying and developing it further as a group. Ownership of the idea was very important. As an example, one team iterated on their project idea for several rounds and ended up with a solution quite different from the case description. However, their external partner found it both useful and innovative.

    Embrace – For some students this was their first experience working on an open-ended task of this kind, which they experienced as highly challenging. However, we tried to support them through the process, especially in the early phase of the project. First, by providing tools to stimulate creativity as well as exercises. Some exercises helped the teams to open up for different perspectives, while other exercises aimed to support the teams to prioritize between these ideas. Secondly, we normalized the chaotic process early in the course through acknowledging emotional responses of uncertainty, frustration and anxiety, and by emphasizing the potential of learning and innovation in this chaotic phase.

    Reflect – Individual and group reflection were integrated as a daily routine at the end of each course day. Situations related to the students’ project development and team collaboration were openly discussed and used as a basis for new actions and ideas of improvement, and just as important, for supporting the transfer from experiences to learning. The students found it difficult in the beginning, but after some rounds, they appreciated the “session of reflection”, and found it both interesting and useful.

    We believe that these structures and facilitation of both the students´ project development process and team process could be valuable in a variety of other courses in higher education that aim to integrate entrepreneurial methods. Student feedback and the course results show us that the students learned a lot and that it also was a fun experience, which seems to trigger their interest in acting entrepreneurially in teams with others in the future.  

    Read more about the EiT village (norwegian)

     

  • Students as educators – Learning through mentoring

    Students as educators – Learning through mentoring

    By Tina Larsen and Dag Håkon Haneberg

    A clear distinction between teacher; the one who teaches or facilitates learning, and the student; the one who is learning is still dominant in both practice and research. In traditional education, such a distinction can be meaningful. The problem arises when new student-active and student-led initiatives are initiated, where the practice of the people who or would have been divided into teachers and students is erased and in some cases disappears. One of several examples of this can be found in Spark NTNU, which is a partner in Engage.

    Spark NTNU is a guidance service where students with some experience from starting their own business guide students who have an idea they want to start a business on the basis of. Spark NTNU is not linked to study programs or credit-awarding courses, but is a service offered to all students at NTNU. An important feature of Spark NTNU is that it is students and not university employees who are responsible for all supervision of new student contractors. That is, students hold the role of educators; that is, those who facilitate the development and learning of others.

    Engage has previously published research on how Spark NTNU offers support to student entrepreneurs and their companies (Haneberg & Aaboen, 2020) and how the student entrepreneurs who receive guidance learn through the process (Haneberg, 2019). Recently, Engage has also published a peer-reviewed study of how supervisors in Spark NTNU learn (Haneberg & Aaboen, 2021). Ten supervisors were interviewed about being a supervisor in Spark NTNU using a technique that brings out the students’ thoughts and feelings through the use of metaphors (Zaltman & Coulter, 1995). The supervisors who were interviewed were also students at NTNU School of Entrepreneurship.

    Findings from the study

    The findings from the latest study show that there is valuable learning among supervisors who are on the “inside” of Spark NTNU while they facilitate the learning of new student entrepreneurs. Learning takes place in interaction with the student contractors and between supervisors. Interaction with student entrepreneurs challenges tutors to develop their entrepreneurial skills and their tutoring skills. Furthermore, the findings show that the supervisors learn beyond what they learn through NTNU School of Entrepreneurship, and that Spark NTNU thus represents a way to spread the knowledge in a specialized and exclusive study program to a wider range of students.

    Based on the findings of the study, we can present the following proposals for the development of a mentoring initiative for student entrepreneurship:

    • Let entrepreneurship students and / or student entrepreneurs take the lead and be at the center of the supervision activity. This means that knowledge from entrepreneurship education can be utilized by students across the entire university, at the same time as the students as supervisors also get to develop their skills through other roles and practices.
    • Facilitate interactive communities between tutors. Interaction ensures knowledge sharing within the supervision group and greater reflection on possible practices in the supervision situation. In Spark NTNU, all supervisors meet every other week to discuss among themselves. In addition, Spark facilitates NTNU for tutoring activities in pairs.
    • Remember that important learning happens through teaching, facilitating and guiding! In Engage, we want a greater focus on the potential of students in teaching and supervisory roles and a critical reflection on the fact that students are often placed in a “receiving role” in a learning context.

    Contact Dag Håkon Haneberg (dag.haneberg@ntnu.no) or Lise Aaboen (lise.aaboen@ntnu.no) if you have questions related to the study. Read more about Spark* NTNU here.🔗

    References

  • The value of entrepreneurial nurses

    The value of entrepreneurial nurses

    By Tina Larsen

    Gunn-Berit Neergård is a trained nurse and has a master’s degree in entrepreneurship from NTNU School of Entrepreneurship. In her doctorate at Engage, she has been researching entrepreneurship education for nurses and how nurses can become entrepreneurial. She is now in the process of completing her doctoral dissertation.

    Her findings show that nursing students and nurses find it more challenging to enter the “entrepreneurial world“. One reason is because of the special health care context nurses are a part of. Historically, it has been and still is dominated by women where the focus is on giving free care and welfare services. This is not typical for the entrepreneurial world, which is more male-dominated and where the focus is on creating profit. There are therefore two extremes where there is a clash of values, a conflict. Nurses therefore find it more difficult to become entrepreneurial. Neergård has tried to understand this context through her research and what it means for nurses and their opportunities to become entrepreneurial.

    Barriers that nurses face

    All entrepreneurs face challenges but nurses seem to also face other types of barriers that are related to the context in which they find themselves. This can be stigma, discrimination and the fact that nurses are not considered natural entrepreneurs. A nurse running a business is often met with skepticism because it is not part of the values of being a nurse. Neergård has interviewed entrepreneurial nurses regarding their entrepreneurial journey and barriers they have encountered. Several interviewees have experienced skepticism when they tried to contact actors such as Innovation Norway as a result of the entrepreneurial language and their ability to sell an idea. It is a specific type of knowledge that this group does not learn during their education, says Neergård.

    “Either we have to start with the education and teach the students how to maneuver in the world of entrepreneurship, or we have to adapt the world of entrepreneurship to the diversity of non-business people, such as nurses, doctors and other people who want to create something but who do not have entrepreneurship knowledge.”

    Gunn-Berit Neergård, PhD Candidate
    Credit: Julie Solem/NTNU

    Based on interviews with entrepreneurial nurses, Neergård has found that there are mainly three things that are important in overcoming barriers:

    • A sense of belonging, for example to a team, an entrepreneurial ecosystem, or to a school that supports them etc.
    • Self-affirmation, meaning that you have a positive attitude towards yourself, is confident that you are doing something important and something that is in line with your own values
    • External-affirmation, meaning that the surrounding community recognizes them and considers what they do important. This is particularly important as a result of the opposition and barriers entrepreneurial nurses may face

    Entrepreneurship in nurse education

    As of today, entrepreneurship in nurse education is very limited. There are few arenas where nursing students can learn about and gain experience with innovation and entrepreneurship. It can therefore be difficult for nurses to understand how innovation and entrepreneurship are relevant knowledge to carry with them in everyday life. Neergård sees the value and importance of entrepreneurship in nursing education. She has completed a research project where she participated in an entrepreneurship camp for nursing students. Here she observed the teaching and interviewed 17 students, both before and after the entrepreneurship camp. In addition, she interviewed 10 “stakeholders” (such as teachers, mentors and people who were from other organizations that attended), and reviewed relevant documents.

    Her findings from this research project is that nursing students before attending the entrepreneurship camp were skeptical and not very interested as they did not see the need for them to learn about entrepreneurship and innovation. After only three days of teaching during the camp, there were several students who now saw the value and who envisioned having an entrepreneurial role in a future career. There was therefore a change of attitude among the students.

    Neergård believes there are many opportunities to create new meeting places, networks, arenas and events that are adapted to nurses and / or nursing students. She highlights DRIV NTNU as a good initiative and wants there to be more offers like these adapted to nursing students.

    Neergård’s publications

    During her doctorate, she has tried to blog about this topic on Instagram to break down prejudices and post tips. Follow her on LinkedIn.

  • The 3E Conference 2021

    The 3E Conference 2021

    By Lise Aaboen & Tina Larsen

    The theme of the conference was “Entrepreneurship education in the 2020s”. The starting point for the theme was the fact that in the spring of 2020, entrepreneurship education had to move online. This move changed entrepreneurship education during this year. The idea was therefore to utilize the conference for discussions regarding what changes we would like to keep and develop further for future entrepreneurship education. This created several rhetoric questions to inspire potential submitters; What does the ‘new’ entrepreneurship education look like? What new teaching practices where created?

    What gaps in entrepreneurship literature did we discover and what advances did we make? What core theories became relevant? What research methods enabled us to capture the new reality? What developments will we continue with after the pandemic and what will be the new normal in entrepreneurship education?

    As usual, the submissions consisted of both research papers and professional development workshops.

    “ECSB is thrilled with the great success of the virtual edition of the 3E conference in 2021. The great planning and organizing from Engage ensured that the main features of the 3E concept – active engagement, interaction and strong sense of community – carried over to the virtual sphere.”

    Ulla Hytti, President-Elect of ECSB / Professor, University of Turku, Finland

    The Professional Development Workshops

    The Professional Development Workshops (PDWs) at 3E Conferences are characterized by interaction and hands-on trying out of tools that can be implemented in the teaching practice of the entrepreneurship educators as soon as they come home from the conference and this year was no exception. Yvette Baggen and Lisa Ploum from Wageningen University in the Netherlands won the award for best PDW for “Entrepreneurship education canvas: Designing education activating students’ entrepreneurial mindset”.

    The canvas had been developed as part of their research and the objective of the tool was to facilitate development of entrepreneurship courses and programs by enabling the participants to map out and discuss important entrepreneurship education elements. During the workshop, the participants tried out the canvas in groups and the participants were welcome to bring the canvas home to their own universities.

    Three of their Dutch colleagues presented a complementary tool at the subsequent PDW. If an element in your course that has been mapped in the canvas needs to be improved, the complementary tool allows you to brainstorm to come up with innovative solutions by going through several steps where the group for instance try to think of bad solutions and how these could be transformed into good solutions. Whereas these two PDWs, together with a Danish PDW about an education framework explaining the ‘why’ for entrepreneurship education in other disciplines, focused on tools that facilitated interactions and reflection among educators, several of the other PDWs focused on facilitating interaction between students.

    Maybe not surprisingly after a year online, it was mainly online interaction that was facilitated by the tools that were introduced during the PDWs. For example, there were two PDWs on escape rooms, one where students all around the world could interact regarding improving climate change using avatars on a map, and one tool that mapped the composition of the different members in student teams.

    The research papers – “A question that we care about”

    The Research papers were presented without power points in shorter sessions compared to when the conference is physical and discussants were appointed to ensure that all authors would get valuable comments to their papers. Experiential learning, learning design and assessment are generally popular topics at this conference. At 3E conferences, the papers include a ‘question that we care about’ instead of a traditional ‘purpose’. From the papers that were presented at this year’s, it seems as if we currently care about why we teach entrepreneurship the way we do.

    “3E was my first research conference and where I presented my first research article in the field of Entrepreneurship Education. The 3E conference was a great experience for a nascent PhD-student, thanks to all the nice, dedicated discussants and participants. I’m also grateful to be a part of the Engage Centre, who did an impressive job organize this years digital 3E-conference.”

    Ragnhild N Fauchald, Phd. Student

    One group of papers explored other settings than venture creation where an entrepreneurial mindset may be useful; retirement, corporate settings, healthcare, and disadvantaged communities. Another group of papers took a critical approach to ‘standardized’ ways of teaching entrepreneurship such as junior achievement, the entrepreneurship competence framework (entrecomp), and adoption of western learning designs without contextualization. A third group of paper highlighted particular dimensions to be included in entrepreneurship education; intuition, emotions and existential learning.

    The paper that won the best paper award belong to the third group. “Entrepreneurship as existential learning: The missing link in effectual learning” by Helle Neergaard and Sarah Robinson from Aarhus University won the best paper award. The jury consisting of previous and upcoming conference organizers found the paper to be “A new twist to effectuation-based entrepreneurship education approaches exploring the fundamental motives for thriving and linking it to entrepreneurial behavior.” The tradition to let the three best paper nominees present in plenary keynote sessions remained in the online format.

    “I believe that the 3E community is somewhat unique when it comes to engagement and sharing among the participants. We had great fun in the junior session and got inspired by hearing from other juniors´ experiences. My favorite session was the plenary with Helle Neergaard and Sara Robinson, discussing existential learning in EE. I agree that there is an untapped potential in activating students earlier experiences in action-based EE, and it is important to discuss how to do it. I think this was a great example of a 3E paper that makes us think and engage in the question they care about”

    Sigrid Brandshaug, Phd. Student

  • Cataly(c)st as a project example of how we work goal-oriented with the UN Sustainable Goals

    Cataly(c)st as a project example of how we work goal-oriented with the UN Sustainable Goals

    By Ragnhild Nordeng Fauchald, Phd. student, Engage

    Sustainability and Engage;As previous presented, Engage is participating in the Cataly(c)st project. The project “CATALY(C)ST: Youth Change Makers as Catalysts for a transition to a Sustainable Circular Economy” involves partners from five Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland) and it is co-funded by the Nordic Innovation. The project aims to bring best practices from the research world, the maker communities, the youth movements and industry into one strong initiative.

    Circular Economy

    This will allow unusual partners to join in on one uniform agenda to speed up development of Nordic sustainable Circular Economy impact projects. Therefore, the project is also an important contribution to the focus on working for sustainability at Engage. Not only does the project especially focus on the 12. and 13. Sustainability Goals, but through the project, Engage focus on sustainability through the 17. Sustainable Development Goal by working systematically and strategic with project partners and the 4. goal for making our students education more relevant for the challenges they will meet in their working life.

    Development of Tool-kit and Resources by – and for – the Youth Change Makers

    Through systematic multidisciplinary collaboration between students and researchers from the project partners DTU, DTU Skylab, KHT, Aalto, EFLA and Engage, and the involved industry partners, Cataly(c)sts purpose is to develop a tool kit including relevant methods, activities, designs and other research-based material to use in Circular Economy related real-life cases. By engaging both students and young employees from our industry partners in the development, Cataly(c)st aim to do this as practice oriented and relevant as possible for the change makers and their everyday work of Circular Economy.

    Entrepreneurship education

    Engage is well known for working strategic with entrepreneurship based on the Engage Framework. One important contribution from Engage in the project is therefore to help develop a framework for the Cataly(c)st tool-kit and to contribute to the tool-kit with relevant methods and activities that are used in entrepreneurship education that can be transformed to the field of Circular Economy. In this way Engage work with both Climate challenges goal 13 and to develop Sustainable Consumption and Production patterns, as described in the 12.goal.

    Relevant Cases in Student Activities based on our industry partners needs

    To develop a tool-kit itself is not valuable unless the tools is relevant for the young change makers and their possible future work place. That is why the industry partners is such involved in the project as they are. The industry partners will develop student activities and student tasks where the students will be challenged to use tools from the toolkit combined with academic competences from the field of circular economy to solve cases from the industry partners. A win-win situation for the students and the project partners! Doing this also contributes to actively working with the Sustainability development goal 4 – Quality education – and specifically the goal 4.7; “Ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development (…)”.

    Multidisciplinary collaboration across countries now and in the future

    The multidisciplinary development of tools, framework, community and student tasks across the participating universities are also a key element in the project. Engage contributes with our entrepreneurship – and innovation knowledge, while other universities contributes with expert competences in Circular Economy. In that way, we share and create new knowledge across borders and fields, which itself fits into the 17. Sustainability Development Goal; Partnership for the goals. Through the Cataly(c)st-project, we aim to develop a Digital Community of Practice as a tool for doing it possible for youths to cooperate and co-create the future Circular Economy practice. The digital platform will be a delivery from the project that gives the youths a platform to communicate and practice sustainable circular economy in partnerships for the future.

    Become part of the Cataly(c)st-group on Linkedin and you will receive more information about our digital platform soon.

    Read more about United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

  • Sustainability in Engage

    Sustainability in Engage

    Sustainability – in the context of Engage – means ensuring that change agents have the right tools and competency in order to make conscious choices towards sustainable development. 

    By Kjersti B. Næss

    In order to accommodate the goal of tackling the sustainability challenges that we face, Engage aims to connect sustainable development with entrepreneurial mindset. We do this within the three focus areas: Students, Educators and Research.

    One example is the Expert in Teamwork village managed in collaboration with Engage: “Sustainable innovation in the industrial cluster Arctic Cluster Team”. Over the course of three weeks, a group of students investigated the possibility of operating a sustainable industrial vegetable production at Mo Industrial Park. Sustainability was the context, while the students learned and used entrepreneurial methods to develop the concepts and tackle the challenges.

    The Journey is a example of a sustainable challenge for students.

    Sustainability Challenges 

    Engage seeks to develop higher education 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. Sustainability is therefore viewed as a natural part of Engage’s activity. The intention is to enhance the likelihood that students will identify and capture on the right opportunity at the right time for the right reason, even in uncertain and unknowable conditions.

    Engage has a goal to contribute to ongoing efforts towards increased sustainable development, in which action is required to ensure that the planetary boundaries are not exceeded, and social equality is achieved. We are also working towards the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDG’s). All these four goals are examples of real-world problems that needs action.

    Focus on methods and tools 

    To achieve its ambitions, Engage builds its educational foundation on the following five concepts, all important to include in Engage’s work within sustainability:  

    Act – Engage with doing
    Interact – Engage with others, partners or stakeholders
    Challenge – Engage with the world outside the university
    Embrace – Engage with and handle uncertainty
    Reflect – Engage with internalizing knowledge and skills.

    The third concept, challenge, refers to the importance of letting students engage with real world situations. The practice of having students work on real problems from outside the university – problems that aren’t simplified or tailor-made. Real problems are often complex and uncertain. Students may be more motivated and enthusiastic about trying to solve them, and get a chance to act as professionals and challenge the established (Rule, 2006). These challenges may be introduced in several ways; challenges introduced by external businesses, organizations, practitioners or users, challenges in relevant research projects, self-observed issues that students want to solve, issues related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals etc. They get the experience, not only to understand professional contexts and activities, but also to have the relevant experience to be able to act as change agents and innovate for the better. 

    Engage aims at connecting sustainable development with entrepreneurial mindset. To increase students’ abilities to develop and pursue sustainable opportunities by providing them with both entrepreneurial and sustainability competencies and skills. Engage focuses on designing, developing and testing tools and methods that combine sustainability and entrepreneurship. In addition, to facilitate learning activities that increase students’ mindset to sense and pursue sustainable opportunities. 

    Projects 

    Within all three focus areas, Students, Educators and Research,
    Engage works with sustainability.

    Students arranges the Babson Student Challenge in collaboration with The Babson Collaborative; a business idea competition with ideas that contributes to one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

    Within Educators there has been developed a new cross-faculty course at Nord University called “Sustainability in Practice,” where novel methodology is developed and tested.

    A project within Research is “Entrepreneurship meets Sustainability” which had a PDW at this year’s 3E conference where the aim was to discuss different approaches on how to (re)design tools and methods for entrepreneurship education. 

  • Student startup helping ALS patients

    Student startup helping ALS patients

    Imagine not being able to do everyday tasks due to a weakness or paralysis in your arms and hands. Vilje Bionics, a startup from NTNU school of Entrepreneurship, intends to develop an aid for ALS patients to help them with this.

    By Tina Larsen

    Vilje Bionics is a startup from NTNU school of Entrepreneurship (NSE). They are developing an aid for ALS patients – a motorized exoskeleton to help people move their arms and hands. The exoskeleton will increase the independence of ALS patients as it allows patients to move their elbow, shoulder, wrist and hand. This can give them a higher quality of life and a sense of mastery in their daily activities. Recently, they were granted support of 2 million NOK from the DAM foundation and 1 million NOK from the Norwegian Research Council’s STUD-ENT program.

    The user in focus

    Unlike its competitors, which is mainly technology focused, Vilje Bionics has a strong focus on the user perspective. They have conducted 13 in-depth interviews with ALS patients, with approval from health authorities, to research what patients might consider using such a tool aid for. Further, they want to conduct user tests with ALS patients. This will give them valuable data to develop a good product. The challenge is that the technology must be adaptable to the needs of different people. There are large individual differences between patients.

    “We work with interesting issues related to the interaction or control of the aid, where we need to find a solution to how we can give the patient exactly what he or she needs, and no more. There is a great need for the product, but we have also seen a great challenge related to “technology acceptance”. Although the patient may benefit from using an aid, he or she may choose not to do so due to little ease of use, stigma or appearance.”

    Saeid Hosseini, CEO at Vilje Bionics

    In addition, they want to connect with the professional environment in health and medicine so that they can create the best possible product. When the product or aid for ALS patients is completed, they will use the knowledge they have gained to help other patient groups, such as stroke patients, people with spinal cord injuries or other neuromuscular diseases.

    The entrepreneurial ecosystem at NTNU

    The startup, which was started by students from the NTNU school of Entrepreneurship (NSE), has been part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem at NTNU. Hosseini says it has been very important to have a large network of skilled entrepreneurs around. They also got valuable help from NSE to get started. Among other things, they received help with intellectual property (IP) strategy, orderly cooperation with the IP-owners associated with the project, legal and strategic help, and with market entry and financing strategy. Access to labs, equipment and other facilities has also been important.

    In addition, it has been valuable for the startup to get connected to the professional environment in technology at NTNU to be updated on directions and initiatives in the field of research. Innovation in health can be difficult, as it often is rigid, but they have received good help and support from the professional health environments, both from NTNU and St. Olavs hospital.

    Vilje Bionics

    Founded in march 2021 by NTNU students Saeid Hosseini (NSE), Asmund Kollbye (Mechanical Engineering) and Eirik Bodsberg (Mechanical Engineering) and inventors of the exoskeleton “MotOrtose”, Professor Terje Kristoffer Lien and Associate Professor Tore Meisingset and engineer and ALS-patient Mangor Lien. 

    Read more about the startup at their homepage.

  • NTNU Student Investor Day

    NTNU Student Investor Day

    By Erik Klevar

    Engage and NTNU School of Entrepreneurship announces this year’s event the 24th of August.

    UPDATE: Because of a corona outbreak in Trondheim the date has been changed to the 24th of August, and 7/10 startups have been selected. There is room for three more startups for the event, which will feature known investors from the Trondheim region and Norway.

    We are proud to announce that we have partnered with the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship (NSE) and Sparebank1 SMN to host this years NTNU Student Investor Day! The Investor Day has been an event primarily for NSE-students and visiting investors from the Trondheim region, and this year we will also invite all student startups at NTNU to pitch for a select group of investors, and give them opportunity to win 150.000 kr! Apply within 17.06 23:59.

    One lucky winner will also be invited to join Stage Two, the first pan-European competition for the best startups spinning out of leading European universities.

    NTNU Student Investor Day

    When and where?
    24.08.21
    11:00-14:00
    The Mine, Sem Sælands vei 1, 7034 Trondheim

    Who?
    Student run startups from NTNU
    Leading investors in the Trondheim region

    What?
    Startup pitches
    Speed dating with investors

    The 24th of August we will invite 10 pre-selected startup teams from NTNU who will be invited to pitch in front of an audience consisting of leading investors and others in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Trondheim region. The event itself will be located at NTNUs new Innovation Hub, The Mine.

    Participating startups will be able to network with investors in a speed dating format where founders and investors are to discuss the startups in detail before we award the best startups in three different categories. The most sustainable start-up will get an award, the best business plan will get an award and the best business concept will recieve the last award.

    Awards

    Best business concept
    Best business plan
    Sustainability award

    Prizes:
    150.000 kr
    Participation at Stage Two in Berlin, october 29th with expenses paid

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    How do I apply?

    To apply send the required material to stian.bongard@ntnu.no within 17th of June, 23:59. The majority of your team is required to be a registered student (bachelor, master, PhD) at NTNU.

    The deliverable should be maximum 10 pages, not including necessary attachments, and needs to be in Norwegian or English. Your business plan could (and should) include the following elements at the minimum:

    Executive summary
    A summary of your plan

    Business idea
    What is your concept, product or service?
    What makes it unique, is it scalable, is it doable, is it new?

    Team
    Who is behind the idea and what sort of experience do you have?

    Market analysis and plan
    Who is your customer, user and what need do you fulfill? How big is the market, who are the players in it and how do you reach it?

    Business model and value chain analysis
    What does your business model look like and how do you organise your value chain?

    Action plan
    How are you going to move forward? You can use a Gantt chart to elaborate and comment

    Profitability assessment
    How profitable is your business in the next five years, and how much return on investment will an investor get? How much capital and liquidity do you need do reach your targets?

    Risk assessment
    What risks does your business have, and how do you deal with those?

    Guidelines for your deliverable

    About Stage Two

    Stage Two 2021 will be hosted at Technische Universität Berlin the 29th of October. Stage Two gathers early stage startups pre-selected by university-affiliated entrepreneurship centers during university rounds. The best two startups of each university will pitch live at Stage Two in front of European top investors & industry leaders.

    Facts:

    • 25+ top universities, 25+ VCs and industry leaders
    •  Best 50+ early stage startups from 15+ European countries
    • 29.10, Berlin 
    • Website: stagetwo.io

    Social Media: LinkedIn, Instagram

  • Giving social entrepreneurs an toolbox for internationalisation

    Giving social entrepreneurs an toolbox for internationalisation

    By Marcus Stensland

    The ISSA-project is an ERASMUS+ funded, international cooperative initiative to ease the transition for social entrepreneurs going international. Institutions from Norway, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and Spain have worked together to create a learning platform that teaches important and core values for these social entrepreneurs wanting to move outside their own country. The platform offers a wide variety of courses to look into and complete, and with an exciting mix of educational methods. For instance, the participants take part in a virtual world, where they need to communicate with bots (virtual characters). These bots are designed to make the participants go through problem solving in coherence with the theme of the course.

    Erasmus+

    • Erasmus+ is the EU’s programme to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe.
    • The 2021-2027 project has an estimated budget of €26.2 billion. This is nearly double the funding compared to its predecessor programme (2014-2020).
    • The 2021-2027 programme places a strong focus on social inclusion, the green and digital transitions, and promoting young people’s participation in democratic life.
    • It supports priorities and activities set out in the European Education Area, Digital Education Action Plan and the European Skills Agenda.

    Combining strengths across borders

    The ISSA-project is the result of previous collaborative efforts and the institutions having worked closely together for an extended period of time. The great thing about the collaboration of this project in particular, is that every institution is an expert in its own field. Simulation, testing, curriculum and dissemination are some of the main points of expertise. For example, the Norwegian representative NTNU is responsible for the learning content, while institutions in the other countries have developed the framework around it. This makes for a well-polished and soon to be released platform.

    Torgeir Aadland is Co-Director at Engage and Associate Professor at NTNU. The focus of Torgeir’s PhD is on assessment of entrepreneurship education. In addition to this, he is also head of the ISSA-project. He is looking forward to the full-fledged version of the platform to be released.

    “We’re planning on doing our final phase of testing this May and June. Social entrepreneurs will be testing out the platform for the first time. This is really exciting since we’re going to get external feedback on our project, and from a representative selection of people that are similar to our “real” users upon release.”

    Torgeir Aadland, Head of project, ISSA-Project

    ISSA-Project

    • The ISSA-project is a virtual learning platform aimed at social entrepreneurs.
    • The platform revolves around four modules that participants can complete:
      • Spotting opportunities
      • Ability to identify social problems
      • Research mobilization
      • Cultural awareness
    • Participants can choose which and how many modules they wish to complete, based on their already existing knowledge and needs.
    • The platform aims to better equip social entrepreneurs when transitioning to an international scene.
    • The project is FREE to use, and open for everyone who is interested. Being a student or affiliated with an institution is not required.
    • The ISSA-project is launching this fall.
    www.issaproject.eu

    Balancing virtual and physical education

    The ISSA-project is a great add-on and initiative for broadening the international competence of social entrepreneurs. The project is not only meant for students, but everyone who feels the need and has the interest for expanding their cross-cultural knowledge. In short, the project is ideal for anyone wanting to make a difference, whether it’s an aspiring student, or a well-established member of the workforce. This initiative is a great forward-thinking project, but Aadland emphasizes the pragmatic thinking behind it. 

    “I think it’s important to acknowledge the balance between the virtual and the physical. I don’t think the virtual platforms that are emerging will completely replace physical interactions and traditional learning platforms. However, to be able to obtain experiences in the virtual world, before doing it in the real world, will give the learners valuable insights and prepare them for their entrepreneurial activities. We will definitely see more virtual learning experiences in the future.”

    Torgeir Aadland, Head of project, ISSA-Project

    Are you interested in learning more about The ISSA-project and when you can participate? Visit www.issaproject.eu for more information, or follow the project on Instagram and Facebook.