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Universities incentivise students for entrepreneurship.
You would think that the offer to hop on a free bus that goes directly to the free Friday bar at the Technical University of Denmark would be a tempting invitation for CBS students to meet other students interested in entrepreneurship. But no. There wasn’t much interest when it was tested, admits Kenneth Salomonsen (Head of Development) at Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship (CSE).
“We’ve also been involved in several hackathons and one-off events, where the content has been fine and exciting, but no lasting relationships have developed among the participants. With the Explore programme, we feel that we may have cracked the nut. We have certainly experienced a huge amount of interest from the students.”
The Explore programme launched as a pilot project in spring 2023 in close collaboration between the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Copenhagen Business School (CBS) and the University of Copenhagen (UCPH). The intensive programme targeted students from different fields of study with an interest in entrepreneurship, but who did not yet have an idea or a startup to work on. 156 students at different levels applied for admission, and with support from the Otto Mønsted Foundation, the programme was able to admit 80 participants from 55 different fields of study.
Two months of tools and relationships
Along the way, the students participated in various activities where they gained knowledge and tools to develop ideas, establish startups, put together teams and, not least, got a foot in the door of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. But what was special about the Explore programme was that it provided the opportunity for students to build social relationships over the longer course of the programme.
“Explore has confirmed my interest in entrepreneurship and my desire to get involved in the startup environment. I think my biggest benefit from Explore has been the networking opportunities and an understanding of the opportunities for entrepreneurship in the university environment,” says Ari Björn Ljunggren, who studies Business Administration and Digital Management at CBS.
The closer relationships can hopefully lead to the students coming together to develop new ideas across study programmes or later help each other find their way through the university jungle of professional skills.
“It is our hope that when you send people into the same room, where they sniff the entrepreneurial environment together with students from other study programmes, new ideas, magic and interdisciplinary startups can eventually emerge,” says Kenneth Salomonsen.
This is also part of Viktória Pál’s benefit from the programme.
“The Explore activities have helped me open my mind to new ideas and have introduced a new way of working in a team. Although I have participated in entrepreneurship programmes before, I feel that Explore gives me a new perspective that I can develop further during the subsequent activities of the programme,” says the Economics student from KU.
As part of the programme, the students have also been on a study trip to e.g. Lego to be shaken up, and they have participated in several events held externally during the project period. In addition, the students have visited the universities’ respective entrepreneurship centres and hubs and got to know the Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship at CBS, Lighthouse at the University of Copenhagen and Skylab at DTU – and they will hopefully return to these incubator environments to further develop their ideas and start new companies that will eventually benefit Denmark.
The facts
Explorer is a collaboration between Skylab at DTU, Lighthouse at UCPH and Copenhagen School of Entrepreneurship at CBS. The latter has a coordinator for the programme and the other universities have a host who participates regularly. Approximately 30% of the participants are from each university, with a few participants from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Cph Business, RUC and AAU. 37% are bachelor students, 54% are taking a master’s degree and 9% are working on a PhD.