In February 2015, Casimir will offer a two-day course on entrepreneurship, with an interesting program on how to become an entrepreneur and how to write your business plan, for which we will invite specialists (Leiden/Delft alumni with spin off companies and other successful entrepreneurs). More information will soon be published on our website.
To prepare for this in-depth workshop, it is recommended to have already some knowledge on entrepreneurship-related issues. For this we recommend the Leiden MSc course on entrepreneurship, the Delft Graduate School course 'Basics of Business Model Generation' or the following course on Sustainable Entrepreneurship (it is not advisable to follow all three, they cover more or less the same topics).
Course Description:
Nowadays, we face many challenges in the world. Our ever growing population needs nutrition, wants to have access to clean drinking water, needs lots of energy, has to be protected from the results of climate change etc. Sustainable Entrepreneurship is one of the answers to these challenges. It fosters the process of generating suitable solutions to this kind of social and environmental problems in an entrepreneurial way. Whereas business entrepreneurs typically measure performance in profit and return, sustainable entrepreneurs also take into account a positive return to society. Instead of just adding financial value, a mission is adopted to create social (and/or ecological) value. Since different worlds such as the business world and the non-profit world are combined, creative business models are required.
During the course, participants gain basic practical knowledge about sustainable entrepreneurship and business models. The participants will learn from many inspiring examples and apply the theory to real life cases. Participants are invited to come up with their own business idea based on their own PhD research or make use of one of the cases derived from the Valorisation Program on Delta Technology (water related cases). Next to working on a business model for the cases, the ‘lean start-up’ theory will be applied as well as the 5 effectuation principles that teach you how to think and act like an entrepreneur. The entrepreneurial mind set will be awakened! The two days will be ended by giving a selling pitches on the business models that were developed during the course.
All the information shared is applicable to sustainable business ideas as well as other entrepreneurial ideas in general.
Learning Objectives:
After this course, participants will be able:
- To understand the basic principles of sustainable entrepreneurship
- To distinguish between different types of Business Models
- To design a business model
- To understand and apply the ‘lean start-up’ principles
- To understand and apply the effectuation theory
- To give a convincing pitch
Teaching Method:
During the course, participants work on a business model based on their own business ideas (preferably based on their own PhD research projects) or on cases derived from the Valorisation Program on Delta Technology (water related projects).
Course Enrollment
For Leiden PhD students and postdocs: please fill in the form in the below. For Delft PhD students and postdocs: please fill in the form in the below AND register for this course on Blackboard:
About the Lecturers:
Esther Blom is a lecturer at Delft Centre for Entrepreneurship. Both Boukje Vastbinder and Esther Blom work as trainers for Valorisation Centre. By giving inspiring courses and training programs on entrepreneurship, students and researchers of the TU Delft are stimulated to develop an entrepreneurial attitude.
Course credits: 2 GSC