Schools and bootcamps (click for more)

EIT Food Global Food Venture Programme (GFVP) in conjunction with IMDEA Food and Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (UAM) are hosting an online Summer Entrepreneurial School in  in June 2020. Fourty PhD students (or graduates) from across Europe will virtually get together for an eight day, life-changing,  immersive entrepreneurial experience. While being exposed to food-tech entrepreneurs and ventures, learning the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, they will work in groups creating and launching a new business within that period. The School will culminate in a live pitching event in front of a virtual panel of investors, corporates and other judges to determine which groups will win the prizes for the best ventures. The prizes will include further mentoring and incubation of teams to continue with their business ideas.

This initiative has been designed to further imbue the top scientific "food minds" in Europe with an entrepreneurial mindset that will catalyse further innovation activity in this massively important sector in Europe. Mashauri will design and facilitate the event. EIT Food GFVP, IMDEA Food and UAM will ensure input from some of the top professors, mentors, corporates and public sector experts in Europe to challenge and guide the students as they develop an enterprise perspective. IE Business School specifically are a key partner in this program lending some of their top professors to co-facilitate this event with the Mashauri team.

The call for potential candidates for the Camp has been completed and those selected may now enrol below.

The CRG BioBusiness School 

circTRain

Online April 2020

circRTrain

The Max Delbruck Center (MDC)

The Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine is devoted to biomedical research with the aim of understanding the molecular basis of health and disease and translating findings as quickly as possible into clinical applications. Better prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases are the ultimate goals. MDC are the project managers of the circRTrain program.

Centre for Genomic Regulation

The mission of the CRG is to discover and advance knowledge for the benefit of society, public health and economic prosperity. The CRG believes that the medicine of the future depends on the ground-breaking science of today. This requires an interdisciplinary scientific team focused on understanding the complexity of life from the genome to the cell to a whole organism and its interaction with the environment, offering an integrated view of genetic diseases.

As part of the development process of the Early Stage Researchers (ESR), CGR are hosting a BioBusiness School. Initially this was planned to be held at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park; however, with the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been moved online. Mashauri have been selected as the partner to design and facilitate the program. 

The selection of the candidates for the BioBusiness School has been completed and enrolment in the program wills commence on 16th April.

There are few programs that have a high chance of massively changing your life - but this is one of them. By developing and enhancing your "e-factors" you will start thinking and acting like an entrepreneur ..- seeing opportunities on every corner, unleashing your creative potential, deciding where you want to be and then taking concrete steps to get there!

Anyone and everyone can benefit from this course - including university students who are about to open the door to their career. With well-developed e-factors, you will have the capability to launch your own entrepreneurial venture, start to manage your own destiny and follow your true passion. But if you prefer a more traditional career, these elements are going to put you head and shoulders above the rest of the market. Employers are desperate for graduates who demonstrate the e-characteristics. 

Universities who imbue their students with these skills are going to unleash a student power unknown to them before. Entrepreneur clubs are going to grow exponentially, your centers for entrepreneurship will need to expand and you will find students actively taking control of their studies and careers and starting to push and challenge their lecturers and tutors. Your reputation among potential employers could see your graduates getting hired in no time!

This course is based on the famous work of Professor David Gibson (awarded an OBE for his work in entrepreneurial education) who has identified the key factors that go to make up en entrepreneurial mindset. Not only did he identify them, he also codified a way of assessing your existing level and then undertaking exercises, processes and habits to improve them.

These lessons have been digitised into an experiential program designed to give and/or enhance your e-factor skills and so help you make a real impact on your own career be it starting a new venture, improving your current venture or being more effective in your existing job.

Furthermore, Mashauri have further enriched the book experience by adding in additional high value-add elements such as  video lectures from famous people, useful tools to support your application of the e-factors, quizzes to test your understanding and surveys to assist you in assessing your own entrepreneurial readiness and e-factor capabilities.

Each of the e-factors will be discussed and a check-list of best-practices and tips to improve will be offered. Furthermore, you will be given tasks to complete (sometimes over a period of days) to help you learn-by-doing. Repetition of these exercises could create habits that could change your life! Real mentors (if you are lucky maybe David Gibson himself) will be available to motivate and guide you too!

The E-factors are:

• Innovation and creativity
• Personal mastery
• Assertion and negotiation
• Personal marketing
• Finance
• Influence
• Leadership and team building
• Planning your outcome

For those who successfully complete the course, the University of Cumbria will issue an e-factor certificate signed by Professor Gibson himself.

The beta version of this course will be launched at the beginning of Q2 2020 and we are seeking institutions (or individuals) who will be early adopters. We will be seeking feedback from each student and in return will be offering a massive discount on the price. If you are interested in being part of this group,  please complete this form to let us know your interest. 

Link to interest form

Readiness for funding

Many founders would like to seek funding for their new businesses, but are not sure when is the best time.

Other founders simply dive right in, assuming they will get funding and then, to their surprise, do not! 

If you are in the first group or do not want to be in the second group - then this programme has been designed for you.

Background

Startup chatter is often about massive funding rounds, unicorns (startups with a valuation of more than $1bn) and mega exits. Founders are encouraged to enter pitching competitions, sign up at funding sites (like angel.co) and knock down the doors of venture capitalists.

The truth is, very few new businesses receive external funding (other than from friends, family and the occasional government grant). Sure, there are places like Silicon Valley and perhaps Shoreditch in London, where funding seems to be easier to obtain - but even there, there is stiff competition.

The result is that a massive amount of time and effort is put into chasing investment funding - resources that might be better used in winning that most important of finance: customer revenue. That is not to say that you should not seek funding, but it helps to be realistic in your expectations and make sure that you are well-prepared for the journey.

This programme is designed to help you assess:

• whether your business would be likely to receive funding based on your vision of its' nature and future; and
  
• whether your venture is ready for funding at the current stage of it's life. 
  

Building off the result's of these assessments, then this programme will help you figure what you should be doing to get investment-ready; or at least advise you to not waste time on seeking investment and to focus on growing your business organically.

Curriculum

• Your pathway is customised based on your responses and your specific requirements.
• You will be able to interact with your fellow founders to optimise peer-to-peer learning and support
• There will be real mentors supporting you through the process
• If desired, investment-ready ventures may be introduced to appropriate investors.

Outcomes

• You will enter all investor meetings on a slightly more equal footing with the investor, with greater confidence in your venture's value and fundability
  
• Your investment-seeking process will be far more efficient and therefore less resource-intensive
  
• You will reduce the risk of being rejected by an investor due to being under-prepared; especially as there is seldom a second chance at pitching the same investor
  
• You will not waste effort on attempting a funding round when there is no or limited opportunities for success
  

Start date and applications

For further information, please drop me a line at simon.gifford@mashauri.org

Business plans and forecast

You may hate finances and detailed business planning - and even heard that it is not necessary from some startup "gurus" - but sadly when you start talking to anyone who may want to invest in your business (investors, co-funders, employees), they will probably want to know that yo have thought this through thoroughly and at least have some idea of where you would like to get to. But do not worry, the exercise is useful and can be great fund as you hammer out things like price-volume estimates and calculate when you are likely to breakeven.

This programme is currently being upgraded and will be available at the beginning of Q4 2019. If you would like to find out more about it - or perhaps even help us co-develop it - then please drop me a line at simon.gifford@mashauri.org

The EIT Food GFVP Entrepreneurial Summer School

Madrid: June 2019

EIT Food Global Food Venture Programme (GFVP) in conjunction with IMDEA Food and Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (UAM) are hosting a Summer Entrepreneurial School in Madrid in June 2019. Forty PhD students (or graduates) from across Europe will get together for a ten day, life-changing,  immersive entrepreneurial experience. While being exposed to food-tech entrepreneurs and ventures, learning the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, they will work in groups creating and launching a new business within that ten day period. The Camp will culminate in a live pitching event in front of a panel of investors, corporates and other judges to determine which groups will win the prizes for the best ventures. The prizes will include further mentoring and incubation of teams to continue with their business ideas.

This initiative has been designed to further imbue the top scientific "food minds" in Europe with an entrepreneurial mindset that will catalyse further innovation activity in this massively important sector in Europe. Mashauri will design and facilitate the event. EIT Food GFVP, IMDEA Food and UAM will ensure input from some of the top professors, mentors, corporates and public sector experts in Europe to challenge and guide the students as they develop an enterprise perspective.

The call for potential candidates for the Camp has been completed and those selected may now enrol below.

The Naropa Fellowship is a one-year, fully-residential, postgraduate, academic programme focused on creating and nurturing agents of change who will work towards fostering an ecosystem of entrepreneurship and growth, while preserving the cultural heritage of Ladakh and the Himalayan region. The driving purpose behind the Naropa Fellowship is the urgent need to not only retain local talent, but also develop entrepreneurial skills that can help foster a robust socio-economic environment in Ladakh and surrounding regions. Additionally, there is also a need to educate the younger generation regarding the importance of maintaining their distinctive culture and heritage.

The Fellowship is thus designed to address the rising challenges of unemployment, lack of training and professional skills, and gradual cultural erosion in Ladakhi and other Himalayan societies. Aimed at creating community-spirited future leaders, the Naropa Fellows will be equipped with the skills and tools needed to successfully promote business, enterprise and civic leadership in the 21st century. A Naropa Fellow will exhibit a strong sense of purpose and commitment, and work towards the development of Ladakh and other such remote Himalayan regions.

This Mashauri programme houses some of the material. links and discussions from the lecture series from Simon Gifford given in Delhi in March 2019.

The University of the Western Cape have designed an Accelerated Excellence Program for selected high achievement students based on their prior year performance. The entrepreneur theme consists of a 3 day bootcamp that will be run between the two semesters. It is supported by the Mashauri platform that allows for: 

• orientation and pre-work, 
• capturing of the outputs and activities of the sessions 
• project continuity if so desired
  
• a process where the re-usable elements will reduce costs and improve the outputs of future sessions

The outcome of this blended, 3 day bootcamp will be to give students an entrepreneurial mindset that differentiates them from others.

The project-based objectives of the bootcamp are:

• Within a multidisciplinary group, to create and develop a real venture up to a pre-agreed point
• To convincingly pitch your venture to a panel of experts
• To learn the right (lean) approach to designing and starting a business
• To apply this approach to other innovation processes (eg inside a corporate)

The resulting impact will be to contribute to students obtaining UWC’s 21st century graduate attributes of”

• Knowledge application
• Problem-solving capacity
• Pioneering attitude
• Entrepreneurial capacity for finding opportunities
• Creating livelihoods
• Acting for social good

If you would like to design a similar programme for your institution, please contact us at info@mashauri.org for more information.