This summer, the Imperial College Business School welcomed students from 27 different countries to their 2016 Smart Camp Summer School. The three-week course consisted of 60 hours of work and gave aspiring entrepreneurs the opportunity to learn more about what it takes to bring an idea to market, grow a venture, and secure a successful exit. The program offered a mix of face-to-face lectures, classes, and group discussions.
The goal of the Smart Camp was to communicate the hardships of being an entrepreneur and to provide a road-map for success. Topics covered during the three-week course included:
- Idea validation
- Competition with big data
- Entrepreneurial strategy and the business model
- Intellectual property and entrepreneurial strategies
- Managing high growth ventures
The topics were discussed by Entrepreneurial Smart Camp Academic Director Jonas Van Hove and Entrepreneur-in-Residence Maximillian Doelle, along with an impressive list of guest speakers. Each guest speaker, like Steve Hatch (the Director of Facebook UK & Ireland), spoke about his or her personal successes and failures to help inspire the students.
Daniela, a student in the program, spoke to the College in a news release about her experience. “Learning from the best in the field is definitely the most rewarding part of the course,” she said. “We had so many brilliant guest lecturers who were very inspiring.”
Beyond the guest speakers, the course also provided each student with an opportunity to get more hands-on. Stewart Davies from PrintME 3D led an interactive session that allowed students to get up close and personal with a 3D printing machine. And Dr. Cristobal Gracia-Herrera from the Dyson School of Design and Engineering gave students the chance to create a new wallet using human-centered design theory.
The final piece of the three-week Smart Camp included a business pitch showcase where 12 teams of students were able to pitch their business ideas to a panel of guest judges. “The Smart Camp is a great example of how quickly the staples of entrepreneurship can be taught, giving young ingenuity the tools to decipher new market opportunities,” said Tomas Selva, a Founding Partner at SAWA Partners.