About a year ago we could announce that the concept of Spark*, the student-to-student mentoring program, went international to the Chalmers University of Technology. Here’s where they are one year later.
By Tina Larsen
In December of 2019, Spark* Chalmers was initiated by the Chalmers Innovation Office and is currently run by students studying at Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship. They follow the same concept as Spark* NTNU but they had to adapt it to their own innovation ecosystem.
“Spark* Chalmers is a student-run organization providing free mentorship to all Chalmers students that have a business idea. We help with the early stages of a business idea and therefore we fill a gap in existing offers and services.”
Emil Krutmeijer, mentor at Spark* Chalmers
The desire to establish Spark * Chalmers came as a need for a low threshold offer for students with business ideas. They noticed that many students have ideas with great potential but lack support in taking concrete actions. Spark * Chalmers offer free mentorship to take business ideas further where they among other thing help with idea validation, business development, marketing, sales and IP. In addition to this, they develop students’ entrepreneurial mindset and skills, introduce students to the entrepreneurial ecosystem around Gothenburg and are connecting them with different actors.
As of today, they have mentored 30 different projects with Chalmers students from 19 different study programmes. The projects have shown great progress e.g. students have been talking to and tested their ideas with customers, are entering competitions and getting verification funding and finding complementary team members.
“So far, Spark* has exceeded my expectations, despite being newly launched. My project has advanced very quickly, efficiently, and with a goal-orientated approach – much thanks to needed motivation from my mentor”
Spark* Chalmers mentee
As well as mentoring, Spark* Chalmers also host inspirational events and courses, often in collaboration with their partners. They hope to inspire students to pursue their ideas and they will guide them to take it further.
Spark* Chalmers are dependent on sponsors and donors to keep the mentorship program free. Please visit their homepage for more information on how you can contribute.