#INSTATAKEOVER Next week, two students from the Master’s programme in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Lund University will be taking over our Instagram account to show us what they are doing, what projects they are working on and tell us about the Sten K. Johnson Centre for Entrepreneurship (SKJCE). We met up with the students, Antonia Mühlbauer and Gisele Azad, as well as faculty member Lottie Norrsén from the SKJCE.
Can you tell me a bit about the Sten K. Johnson Centre for Entrepreneurship and the Master’s programme?
-We are a hub for entrepreneurship at Lund University. Our aim is to advance both entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship research. We focus on the areas of teaching, research and societal engagement. Our current research projects include: Refugee and Immigrant Entrepreneurship, New Venture Teams, The Entrepreneurial Process, Social Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Learning.
-We teach students how to be better entrepreneurs as well as intrapreneurs. We teach at all levels from basic courses to our Masters programme and PhD level, to commissioned education.
-Our flagship in terms of education is our Masters Programme in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The Master’s Programme has 55 students, divided into two tracks; New Venture Creation and Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation. We have 75-85% international students in the programme and 40% of the students are women.
It must be a popular program; do you have many applicants?
-This year we had approximately 1700 students applied and 55 were accepted. We look at grades and experience from work and entrepreneurship. The applicants also have to submit a statement of purpose and a video.
You have a demo day at Ideon, what is that?
-The Demo Day is the crescendo of the programme, this year it is scheduled for May 25th, so mark your calendars! This is the time where the students present the startup that they have launched during the year.
-Another great upcoming event is Dragons at the University, a competition where students from the Master’s programme, VentureLab’s incubator companies and other students from Lund University get the chance to pitch their business ideas for venture capitalists – the “Dragons”.
How many companies are created each year?
-We create entrepreneurs, not companies. All of our students continue as entrepreneurs in some way, either in the project they create during their studies, or they join another start-up, some become social entrepreneurs, some join larger companies and some continue their studies. We are not an accelerator, we focus on the development of the individual. But if you want to know of some successful students, we can mention ApParkingSpot as well as BookBoost, Renjer, NordGrona, Nattaro Labs, Suntribe, Kever Genever, Pow Unity and Uniti as some great examples.
Antonia and Gisele, can you tell me a bit more about yourselves?
-We are writing our theses on female immigrant entrepreneurship and prototyping in entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. Besides, we are setting up our own business, Femcrunch, a software tool to support gender equality in corporations. We want to show you how we as a team experience the startup journey in Sweden while studying our masters. We have a lot to do in a week, from networking to preparing for client meetings, brainstorming about our marketing and of course, writing our thesis!
-I, Gisele, come from the Netherlands and have worked in a big media agency, for a NGO and I started my first business last year.
-I, Antonia, am German and have worked in corporations doing tax consulting and IT related project management. We want our company to tackle a social problem while being profitable as well.
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