Twelve weeks as a startup entrepreneur - that's the short description of the pilot course Idea Lab, which BizMaker has developed together with Mid Sweden University.
- "Our ambition is to provide knowledge to take your idea further for use and growth. We also want to open up to see entrepreneurship as a career path, says Maria Wiik, business developer at BizMaker and responsible for Idea Lab.
The Idea Lab course is offered at Mid Sweden University's two campuses in Sundsvall and Östersund, in collaboration with BizMaker and Jämtland's business incubator Peak.
Good experiences from the Student Innovation Mid Sweden (SIMS) course, where students take on a specific challenge from a client, have paved the way for the new course. However, Idea Lab has an even clearer entrepreneurial focus - the 20 students bring their own business idea to develop and test during the 12-week course.
- They get to test different models and tools in practice to take the idea forward. "The course is part of BizMaker's border crossing mission, where we will be a bridge between academia, business and society," says Maria Wiik, highlighting in particular Mid Sweden University's Anna Sörensson, who succeeded in ensuring that the students also receive credits for the pilot.
The Idea Lab course is built around six joint workshops and individual coaching in between. The students have access to BizMaker's full range of business developers and advisors, many of whom have contributed in various ways to the development of the content and will also be involved in the implementation.
The business ideas show great breadth and touch many different industries, says Maria.
- Some bring ideas from the SIMS course, others have a new idea about a problem they want to explore solutions to. There are service companies, tech companies and several others. We think this is good, because the greater the breadth, the more we get to evaluate through the pilot.
The plan and hope is that the course will become a permanent elective course in Mid Sweden University's offer. BizMaker's mission is to contribute to entrepreneurship and innovation in Västernorrland, with the overall goal of increased growth and attraction. The Idea Lab course fulfills an important function by opening the doors between education and entrepreneurship early on, according to Maria.
- The course has great potential to contribute to growth, both through more students staying on and starting businesses, but also through intrapreneurship. We get graduates who are used to finding areas of improvement and tackling problems - this is attractive to all companies in our region," she concludes.
Contact
Maria Wiik, Business Developer BizMaker
maria.wiik@bizmaker.se, 070 222 63 68
