Have you ever thought of starting your own business? Being a job creator instead of a job seeker? Would you like to gather the right people for improving life in your community? For developing and selling a new product or service?
This course is addressed to people from anywhere in the world, particularly to students and young graduates who want to learn about new business development and to see if this is something for them. We welcome people from “developing countries”, as well as from industrialized economies.
The course gathers 8 leading experts from Polimi and UNCTAD to let the participants:
- Learn why and how new business enterprises are the motor of innovation and development
- Understand how to behave as an entrepreneur
- Understand why and how living in a country with limited resources, or being a young person or a woman is not at odds with new business development
- Learn how new enterprises can grow by entering international markets and joining global value chains
- Learn about new business models that deal with emerging societal challenges
- Understand the way forward, getting acknowledgeable about next steps to make entrepreneurship a profession, including the enrollment in more advanced entrepreneurship and social business curricula (e.g. PoliMi ones) or in business incubators
Each week of this course:
- opens by asking thought provoking questions on entrepreneurship and business development in developing countries
- addresses the issue offering keywords, plain definitions, a few conceptual arguments supported by figures and graphs, successful examples of entrepreneurial activities in harsh contexts
- concludes by summarizing main lessons learnt and bridging the student toward quizzes, the discussion forum, and materials and videos that help attendants getting familiar with the building blocks of business development and great entrepreneurial experiences.
The course is the main dissemination deliverable of the Polisocial Award project “Young and Sustainable Entrepreneurship in Egypt”.
The program hosts short video interviews with testimonies, i.e. young entrepreneurs in developing countries, and the experts of entrepreneurship, social innovation, business growth also in developing countries (Emanuela Colombo, Rector’s Delegate to Cooperation and Development, Politecnico di Milano; Massimo Colombo, Full professor of Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Entrepreneurial finance, Politecnico di Milano; Ayman Ismail, Assistant professor of Entrepreneurship and Venture Lab Director, American University in Cairo, AUC Venture Lab; Jennifer Klein, Entrepreneurship section, UNCTAD; Tatiana Krylova, Head of the Enterprise Branch, Division on Investments and Enterprise, UNCTAD; Stefano Mizio, Head of Startup Mentoring, PoliHub Startup District & Incubator; Andrea Sianesi - Dean of MIP, Politecnico di Milano Graduate School of Business).
Total workload of the course: 20/25
This MOOC is provided by Politecnico di Milano.
The course is a joint initiative with UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development which has installed entrepreneurship centers, and is delivering Empretec, a behavioral entrepreneurship training programme, in 36 developing countries.
In collaboration with Associazione Gianluca Spina.
